Sri Lanka – A trip not Trippin’ on the Usual

This was my fifth visit to Sri Lanka. On all my earlier visits, I had been wowed by the sea, the mountains, the food and the people- not necessarily in that order. So when I was to travel to the island for a couple of weeks, I wasn’t exactly jumping in excitement. But the next few days left me awestruck – this was a Lanka that I hadn’t seen before. Let me try and chronicle my trip without boring text… the pictures of the places are stunning in themselves – I have only included the pictures that hit the right kind of “what an experience” button for me!

I exited from Colombo and hit the road towards Trincomalee.

On reaching Trincomalee, I went straight to the Koneshwaram temple – a majestic ancient temple dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva on a rock-face jutting out to the sea on three sides, it is said to have been the place where King Ravana (of Ramayana fame) worshipped Lord Shiva.

 

The Polonnaruwa ruins were spectacular, bringing memories of an ancient civilisation and the people who lived here – massive statues of the Buddha hewn out of a rock face, the remains of an ancient city with all its pomp and grandeur, a ruler who chose to write his story on a massive stone book to record for posterity. I felt quite like a modern day “Indiana Jones” – take a look for yourself…

After a surfeit of the ruins, I moved on to my next stop – Dambulla… A beautiful cave complex atop a hill… filled with paintings and sculptures of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas… some ancient and some not so ancient – but all of them striking… here are some vignettes…

Next stop was Sigiriya – a sudden rocky outcrop with steep sides on the top of which was King Ravana’s legendary palace… Again “Indiana Jones” land, complete with a very steep rockface climbable only because of some steep steel steps fitted on the sides recently, a majestic lion’s paw entrance and ancient paintings on the rockface.

And this is city was made more memorable by a tremendously talented artist – a man named Jagath who is simplicity personified… and whose small art outlet I frequented and marvelled at his work… a friend I made in a strange land.. a friend who seems totally wedded to his art…

With the glow of a fabulous day, I started off to Anuradhapura which was the ancient capital of the country. When all at once I came across the sheer majesty of a seemingly forgotten, desolate temple to the Aukana Buddha… Majesty in isolation – a rock cut statue that seemed to stretch endlessly into the sky…

From there en-route to Anuradhapura, I came across this magnificent lake, the Kalawewa tank, where there were a bunch of young men throwing nets and fishing… What a moment…

And then I reached Anuradhapura. Here the ruins are more majestic – size and scale is the name of the game here… I somehow preferred the subdued elegance of Polonnaruwa to this… but its not without its moments…

And then on to Mannar, the northernmost tip of the country. From where the biggest experience for me was going on a local fisherman’s boat to the famed Ram-Setu or Adam’s Bridge (a set of sandbars that extend all the way to India) which as the Ramayana would have it, was built by Lord Rama to come to Lanka from India…

Throughout my Lankan sojourn, I ate at the smallest of places run by the warmest of people serving the simplest of local food that tasted simply divine… And they didn’t even break a smile at the sight of me meticulously photographing my plate… 😉

A welcome board in a small guest house that encapsulates my experience in this fabulous country – many lovely people from various countries, all of them as gracious and beautiful as the sights of Sri Lanka, its food, its legends and its people.