Sri Lanka - days 4-6

We had the pleasure of taking a public bus for part of our journey to the next destination. It was scary to say the least - the driver drove like a madman beeping his horn and expecting everyone else to get out of the way ( on both sides of the road). He barely slowed down to let people on and off!

For lunch we went for a delightful, traditional Sri Lankan meal where they put the actual vegetable used by every bowl so that we knew what it was. The whole meal was delicious

We then moved on to Polonnaruwa the second ancient capital of Sri Lanka after Anuradhapura was conquered in the 10th century. Again we were cycling but, thankfully, not on main roads as the buildings were quite close together. There were 3 temples of the tooth, as each succesive king wanted to 'outdo' the previous king. The tooth was from Buddha and is no longer there - it is in Candy

A Map of the ancient city

The first temple of the tooth

The second temple of the tooth

The third temple of the tooth

A lotus pond

A stupa

Buddha in stupa chapel

Stupa

Beautiful tree roots growing in the wall

The next part were some amazing 14 meter high statues of buddha carved out of the one granite rock - it was stunning

The next day (5) we headed for the Dambulla Cave Temples which are located high on a stone cliff face and are 2,100 years old. There were 350 steps to climb to get to them - a small warm up for future days to come!!! There are 150 buddhas in the 5 caves - it was incredible

In the afternoon we went to Minneriya for an elephant safari (look in animals and birds part 2 section). It was lovely to see the elephants in the wild and that it where I saw the hornbill and crested hawk eagle too

That night we stayed in a hotel with delightful looking mosquito nets (the first time we have had them)

The next day (6) at 6am we headed off to Kandy and on the way stopped at the main fruit and vegetable wholesalers for Sri Lanka - it is here where the prices are fixed for the country

we also saw a Hindu temple

Before Kandy we were heading to Sigiriya, a ruined fortress and one of Sri lanka's premier sites. The 350 steps we had done the day before were nothing compared to this - 1200 steps - and OMG the vertigo really kicked in, especially on the metal steps at the top

The group with our leader Indy

Strange sign!

On arrival in Kandy we went to a ceremony at the Temple of the Tooth (this is where it is kept now). The outside of the building was built by the British, which surrounds the temple where the tooth is kept in a golden casket. We were there in time to see the casket which is only viewable for an hour 3 times a day - morning, midday and early evening

The casket

Where you few the casket - there are huge queues so you only get a second