April 27: Gardens and Tooth Temple

Morning, visit Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, the largest and finest garden in Sri Lanka, covering almost 150 acres and stuffed with a bewildering variety of local and foreign tree and plant species. The area around the entrance is largely given over to small- scale flora, including an orchid house, a spice garden and a tiny rather unimpressive Japanese Garden. Afternoon, visit Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, Kandy, which is an object of veneration to Buddhists and the most important sacred relic in the country. Also do a city tour.

While I have tried to reduce the volume of this post by putting many images in special posts it is still pretty big.  Sorry (well not really, it is a lovely town).

After the drama of the previous day this one dawned most peacefully.  I think I had the best nights sleep of the trip so far.  Rob had a good enough kip that he went for a run, spotting our driver washing the van en route.  We went for breakfast in a rather plush area:

Some other photographs of the dining arrangements at the Citadel are on the food page.

Our replacement guide, Nandana – referred to, at his invitation, as Nanda – fronted at 9am to take us around the Kandy Botanic Gardens.  Before we got there we passed some wedding houses where the rich of Kandy were marrying off their kids.  This was pretty spectactular!  Most of the images are in a special page, but here is a taster

 I have little idea why all this stuff was going on at 9:30am on a Saturday - but it did mean mean we could pass on the evening cultural extravaganza, having seen the real deal.

The gardens are rather large – about 150 Ha – and seemed to be set up for a number of purposes .  Most of the specimens are well labelled (a major lesson for ANBG) and the colour of the label indicated key attributes (green being for medically important plants. Unfortunately when Nanda explained this I was distracted by the behaviour of a bunch of Middle Eastern Yoicks who were behaving like stereotyped yoicks who have escaped from the doctrinaire minders i.e. disgracefully (see below).

I questioned the labelling of a Queensland Kauri Pine, thinking it was a misprint of NZ Kauri.  Uncle Google assures me the Sri Lankans had got it right.  Various birds were heard and a few seen.  We also found a large colony of Flying Foxes which were the likely source of the flock seen flying up the river past the hotel.

I will confess to being very slack and not recording the full details of everything we saw.  I do know that the first two images are of the Cannonball tree - so named because the fruit from these flowers resemble those weapons.

This is the whole tree:

and here is a sign commemorating the planting of one.

Some other flowers were recorded:

as was a turtle (in life, its neck had pretty orange spots - these may be visible in an enlarged image)

The others went to a jewellery workshop while I stayed outside to photograph the chaos on the street.

 We then returned to the Hotel for a bit of R&R before heading out again for a City Tour to check the Tooth Shrine and various commercial establishments.  And the Kandy Cricket Ground.

The tooth shrine was quite excellent with many interesting statues and carvings.  Most of the images are in a special page.  It is also an active place of worship: at one point we got slightly muddled with the queue to go and view the casket in which the tooth is stored.  At the entrance Nanda pointed out how and where terrorists had reacted to that by using a lorry bomb in 1998.  While there were a few other tourists around the majority of the folk in the Temple seemed to be ordinary Sri Lankans doing their religious observances, or children being educated

which I see as making the place far more interesting than just an historic ruin.

Here are a few images to give an idea of the place.

 This third image shows the votive offerings left by people seeking the assistance of the Buddha (eg in recovering from illness) .

 There were animals around the place.  Some cute

while others such as the inhabitants of this wasps nest are neither cute nor welcome.

After spending the time there we headed off for the city tour.  I got things off on a reasonable footing by acquiring an extra pendrive since I had filled the 2Gb one I was using to back up my photographs.  I lost a few points with Nanda by paying too much for it (1500R rather than 1000R) but it was generally agreed that the shopkeeper could see that he was going to sell me one anyway so I was in a poor haggling position!

The next stop was a Batik factory and retail emporium.  A very nice young lady explained how batik is made and then conducted us to the showroom where we could buy some of the produce.  Frances obliged in a moderately large way (getting a special discount - ie the one given to everyone who doesn't actually beat up the employees of the place).

 Next door to this was a wood products factory in which we were shown the various types of wood used (most of which we had seen growing in the morning) were able to seen the craftsmen creating stuff and were then given a demonstration of the properties of rainbow wood.  Some wood was given a good rasping and the shavings treated with various liquids which changed colour dramatically.  Proving that everything is on the internet You-tube has a video of a similar demonstration plus text of the various things added.

 After acquiring some additional drinking water we visited another important site for Sri Lankans: the Kandy Cricket Ground at which test matches are played.  It is the home of the Old Trinitonians  (I think - it might have been the Old Trininians although the Upper Sixth were unfortunately not seen).  The ground was rather small - I think the capacity was 5,000 and for a Test the tickets cost $50 a head.  This was a strange visit as the entrance we used was a building site and I am sure we would not have wandered in without a local guide and Nanda would probably have been told to go away if he didn't have foreigners with him!  The action on the ground was training for the local hockey teams.

 Street cricket was also happening. Robs photo (1st)  and mine (2nd) capture the poetry in motion of the game.

According to the posters around town Rugby was also popular!

In the evening I decided that a bottle of refreshing beverage from the minibar would be in order.  Using the hotel wall mounted opener I managed to wrench the top off the bottle.  A call to the receptionist resulted in a man coming to inspect situation and another beng despatched with a replacement bottle.  The man with the replacement looked very dubiously at the opener and used it very carefully to avoida repeat.  All done very pleasantly and efficiently.

That evening as we were finishing our meal Nanda turned up at the table saying he had found a Collared Scops Owl in a tree outside the Hotel.  It would have been discourteous of me to not go to look, plus they are cute little birds!  He does everything he can to show us stuff.

Bird of the day:  Indian Shag

Other vertebrate of the day:  Flying Fox

Pattern of the day:  Tooth Temple generally

Bad taste of the day:  The behaviour of some middle-Eastern-ancestry yoicks at the entrance to the Botanic Gardens.


There were a couple of strong contenders who walked the red carpet in category 4.  These were:

• a pair of tennis shoes with 6" high soles seen at the Gardens and 
• the question - fortunately not heard by Nanda - "How long does a tooth last?"

Read on

April 30 Cultural sites

Day excursion to Anuradhapura, the first capital of Sri Lanka founded in the 4th century BC. See the sacred Bo Tree, the oldest historically documented tree in the world, Abayagiri monastery, which housed 5,000 monks and Jetavana Stupa, the tallest stupa in the world. Afternoon, visit Dambulla Cave Temple with murals, statues etc.

The day began with a joint run from the Hotel across the wall of the dam creating the big lake - really a tank.  This was very pleasant with the sun rising in the general direction of Sigirya and lighting up the bigger mountains across the lake.

 Being overtaken by a tuk-tuk is not a common event while running in Canberra!

As we headed off to breakfast the laundry cart passed by attracting some excitement from other guests.

At least one of them was obviously alert to me photographing them, as well as the laundry cart.  After breakfasting (where much entertainment was provided by a staff member dissuading a squirrel from raiding the sugar supply - this must be a common event as we also saw this at Yala) we embarked on the trek to Anuradhapura, which seems to be considered the major archaeological site in the cultural triangle.  Early in the drive we went past a mosque - they have been few and far between on this trip.

The drive was moderately chaotic as the road North (A9) from Dambulla was subject to road works for about the first 30km which meant it was very slow going.  Of course there were 'men with flags' trying to stop the traffic in various places  but they only had moderate success: motorbikes in particular just seemed to swerve round them.  The ways in which things get transported possibly doesn't help:

The second image is someone's roof moving from a coconut grove to their dwelling!  Given the amount of traffic and the narrowness of the roads it was astonishing that there were so few prangs: we had only seen one crash so far in the trip.  This could be attributed to the slow speeds used even when the road is clear.  (Before anyone gets excited about introducing even slower speed limits to Australia I'd point out that travelling at Sri Lankan speeds it would take about 4 days to get from Canberra to Adelaide!)

Part of the issue with the road works was the number of bridges over small canals and drains.  Rob estimated that we must have gone over 50 or more of them and in each case they were fixing up half the road so it became effectively one lane wide.  As we were basically going through a flood plain of paddyfields for most of this time, with the road on an embankment, it wasn't possible to simply stick in a diversion.  Frances noted that one Ministry was that of Water and Drainage, indicating that the issue was more getting rid of the water than finding it!

As the day's schedule was pretty full we didn't stop much.  Once for a Brahminy Kite posing in a tree close to road and again for a sneak preview of the main stupas (stupae?) from across a lake near Anuradhapura.

It must be confessed that by this stage of the trip we were suffering a little from Temple Fatigue (and also Long Name Fatigue).   Thus I will not, at this stage at least attempt to name all the edifices we visited, and I suspect in this area we only did a small proportion of those available.  At each place we had to take our shoes and socks off and our hats.  Not only did this show respect to the Buddha but enabled - in most cases - an entrepreneur to earn 25R each for minding them.  The site post has more images.

The first place we visited  involved a climb up a small number (relative to Sigirya) of steps to a viewing area next to a small stupa.  On the way down Nanda pointed out a slot cave well supplied with roosting bats.

The next major site we visited was noted as being that of the oldest tree in the world at 2,300 years.  It is a Bo tree (Ficus religiosa) and is a cutting from the tree in India under which the Buddha sat to achieve enlightenment.  From a list of oldest trees it appears that this needs a bit of qualification, in that it is the oldest tree for which the age is based on documentation rather than ring-counting.  This site was attended by quite high security as it had been targeted for terrorist activity in the past.

The associated temple had just finished a morning ceremony which meant that it was fairly packed with pilgrims muttering their prayers, giving the place a very different feel to  other temples we visited.  The religious folk didn't appear to object to tourists wandering through, and we did of course try to do this a respectful way.  Possibly Buddha smiled on me for my good karma,  as on emerging my camera dropped from my bumbag and bounced down the road.  While a few scratches were added it was undamaged in terms of function.

The next major site was the tallest stupa in Sri Lanka.

 We were a little delayed in getting there as we thought we heard Nanda's phone go off, but he got excited as it was not his ring-tone but the bird on which it was based, an Indian Cuckoo.  We had to pursue the bird for some distance but eventually got very good looks at it.

On entering the compound around the stupa - without our shoes or socks - we discovered it was rather hot underfoot, especially on the red tiles.  Frances decided to remain with her feet on some shaded tiles, rather than getting third degree burns.  The rest of us made it round, noting the odd bucket of whitewash sailing overhead on a sort of flying fox wire as the guys up top repainted the stupa.  The wire is visible in the centre-top of this image from Rob, which also shows the bamboo ladder the guys climbed up (I would take second prize).

Nanda pointed out that if one put one's toes against the base of the stupa the pinnacle was not visible, but moving out 0.3m allowed it to reappear.  This effect is consistent around the entire edifice demonstrating the considerable mathematical - and construction - skills of the builders.

After a few more ruins we headed off towards Minneriya National Park.  En route we saw our second prang of the trip where a coach had speared into a ditch and the LH front had crumpled into a tree.  If the front passenger had not been wearing a seat belt I suspect they were not at all well.  We stopped a little later for some curries, arriving at the park about 3pm.

We then transferred to a jeep acquiring as usual a driver (from the jeep company) and a tracker from the NP team.  (The use of trackers is a way the NP 'compensate' the local community for curtailing their exploitation of the area.)  In this case the two new folk did not work well together: when the tracker tapped the rail (with a stone, rather than the traditional 5R coin) the driver often didn't stop immediately or went forwards when the tracker wanted him to reverse.  We decided this was a bit like Laurel and Hardy (without the humour).

There were very few birds around also so the driver started adding stops for species such as peacock - of which we had had a surfeit.  Earning a few more bangs with a rock on the frame of the jeep.  Things improved somewhat when we got to a large lake.  In the dry season this is the only water around and attracts large numbers of elephants  but they were all thought to be far away as there was plenty of water in the Park.  We went and parked on the lake shore and the tracker then spotted a Golden Jackal which was shortly joined by two others.

Good call!  The driver earned himself a trip down the red carpet later in the evening by standing on the bonnet, making a noise.

Movie references continued when another 'jeep' appeared.  This was a 2WD ute and the driver tried to take it through a swamp and got bogged.

His tracker and our driver then pushed him backwards eventually getting him to dry ground.  To general astonishment he then came forward getting bogged again in the same spot!  Surely he was a Sinhalese version of Mr Bean.  More pushing and he disappeared back to the track.  Our driver was affronted by this challenge to his incompetence and drove forward into a very wet area: fortunately he realised that all other people had gone and there was no-one to push if he sank (other than us, which would have caused a major ruckus) and he engaged reverse in time.

Back on the track and good things continued:

• Nanda spotted 4 elephants hiding behind a large clump of bushes;

 

• the tracker and/or Nanda spotted a Blue-faced Malkoha - soon there were two of them - and we got pretty good looks at them.  Yowza: that completed the set of three possible Malkohas!
• a large flock of Sri Lankan Green Pigeons were seen dining in a fig tree, along with two Malabar Pied Hornbills.

By the time we got back to the Park HQ it was nearly dusk so the Spotted Deer were about

but we headed for the Hotel.  En route we stopped for playback for Nightjars and, after that was unsuccessful, were astonished (again) to find 2 Jerdon's Nightjars sitting on the road!

Back at the Hotel a different band was playing and allowed me to take a photograph.

 Largeish bats were flying through the dining room.  The Fumigator was back in the room and still chain smoking.

 It is astonishing that someone, visiting the place for a health cure would do this to:

• himself; and
• other guests.

As we left the dining room my best insect photo of the trip was taken.

I cannot think why there were so few insects around, other than the shortage of flowers for them to feed on.  I didn't object to the shortage of bities!

When we got back to the room we found that the room boy had been at it again.

What a wonderful idea.  I did my own pattern the next morning involving a few items of currency, hoping that the same guy did morning and evening shifts!

Bird of the day:  Blue faced Malkoha
Other Vertebrate of the day:  Gloden Jackal
Pattern of the day: Moonstar at Anuradhapura
Bad Taste of the Day:  Driver stomping around on bonnet.

There were unsuccessful nominations in each Category:

• Bird: Indian Cuckoo (call like ringtone); White-bellied Sea-Eagles (speccie fishing activities by very atractive bird); Jerdon's Nightjar (ruled out as one of the group didn't see it); and Malabar Pied Hornbill.
• Vertebrate:  Bats; Elephants; Bullock pulling cart, Sugar-raiding squirrel
• Pattern: Dwarfs on guard-stones, Buddhist flags; Stupas
• Bad taste: A client discussing the edibility of Buttonquail in the presence of that genus.

Read on

Buildings (mainly old) page

These are the gardens, and part of the modern annex, at the Grand Hotel Nuwara Eliya.

 The main building at the Grand Hotel.

 Another old hotel, the name of which has been consigned to the dustbin of time

We now move to Kandy with a couple of houses snapped from our hotel.  I don't think either of these places is owned by the staff in the Hotel.

Hindu temple

This post contains the images taken of a large Hindu temple in a town somewhere between Arakuna and Dambulla.  This was the only Hindu site we entered so I cannot comment on whether it was typical or otherwise.

This spire is incredibly detailed.

 The next three images are of carvings along the fascia of the building.

This is the entrance.

 Originally the building was much smaller and situated alongside a tree.  When the new building was erected the tree was retained inside the hall. While it is now "not well" it is an interesting feature.

 One of the many Ganesa in the temple.

 This is the cart used to take Murga in a procession through the town.  I presume it is pulled by a bovine.

 A detail of the carved wood on the cart.

The principal altar with some of the Gods.  Note the peacock in the background.

 A God.  The temple guide who showed us around always referred to them as 'Gods' rather than 'statues of Gods'.

 It somehow seemed incongruous to have dressed Ganesa in a frilly pink robe!