WEATHER: Hot and sweaty and 35C
HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: The beautiful rock caves
BUMMER OF THE DAY: It’s so bleeding HOT
WORD OF THE DAY: 5
stars
THANKS TO ALL MY
WATER CHARITY DONATIONS SO FAR:
Jo Jo C and Miyuki Satu
Jo Jo C and Miyuki Satu
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 75km
BUDDHA QUOTE FOR THE DAY:
Believe nothing, no
matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless
it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
Another early morning and another public bus today. My arm is still really sore and I find it
difficult to even put my shirt on and do my hair. Jeepers, I have done a good job of the fall
if nothing else. The alarm went off at
5.45am for a 6.15 breakfast and we were on our transfer bus at 7am for the 15
minute journey to Polonnaruwa Bust Station for us to catch the public bus to
Dambulla. Unlike yesterday once we our
bags were loaded into the back of the bus and we were all on board we pretty
much departed straight away. You could
see 12 anxious faces look towards the back of the bus to make sure that Indika
was onboard it was all that quick. I
wonder if they were waiting for us? So
we are back on the road again but today is not as long as yesterday’s
journey. I picked a similar seat to
yesterday, but the window wouldn’t open so I scooted across the aisle into a 3
seater and got the window on that side which I have to be careful as Sri
Lankans drive on the right I was now looking at oncoming traffic. Which normally isn’t a problem in the west,
but over here you really can’t have anything sticking to far out the window as
some of the passing traffic gets quite close at times as traffic serves to miss
animals, people, bikes and tuk tuks. But
I do have an open window, so with my tunes plugged in I watched the world and
friendly people always ready with a smile and a wave pass me by. Today’s driving was a little more ‘crazy’ but
I somehow still managed to get to sleep with the sway of the bus and got woken
up by Serena at our stop at 9am. Indika
usually comes through and taps us all on the shoulder when our stop is coming
up but for some reason he skipped me and lucky Serena saw me still snoozing as
the group got off. We talked about what
I would have done if I was left on the bus and hopefully Indika would realize
(or someone) that I wasn’t there and if I woke first, I had his number and I
would have phoned him, but imagine that waking up and the whole group and my
bag …gone….. ha ha ha….
We were dropped out the front of our hotel for the night
and with it being only 9am our rooms weren’t ready, which we had
anticipated. So with people using the
bathrooms and getting what we would need for the caves we left the hotel in tuk
tuks for the Dambulla Cave Temple which was only a 10 minute ride away. The Dambulla Cave Temple also known as the Golden Temple of Dambulla is a World Heritage Site since
1991. It is the largest
and best-preserved cave temple complex in Sri Lanka. It was pretty impressive as we pulled up at
the museum as it had a 30m gold Buddha attached to the outside of the building. After taking off our shoes we started the
tour of the museum for 45 minutes where the first room had over 35 Buddha statues
that have been gifted to Sri Lanka from all over the world, mostly from Asian
countries and it was interesting to see the difference in appearance of Buddha depending
on what country it had come from. The
whole museum was not air-conditioned so after heading downstairs to see some of
the ancient scripts written on Buddhism, a miniature version of the Kandy
Pageant that is held each year in August when the Relic of the Tooth comes out
as part of the procession in asking for rain for the crops for the new
year. Apparently it is a massive
festival where more than a million people come from all over the world to see
it in Kandy and as Indika mentioned not a year has gone by that it hasn’t
rained after the procession. After
looking at a few more Buddha things we headed back out into the heat and then
we started the climb up to the cave temple.
The caves, built at the base of a 150m high rock are accessed only by
stairs to a section around half way up and then you can take a sloping road,
which is easier, or you can continue up the stone stairs to the top. Me and stairs are not the greatest friends,
but I persevered with a few ‘photo’ stops to catch my breath we all made it to
the top. I am lucky that the people in
the group were all very encouraging and were happy to wait for me so we all got
to the top at the same time. It was a
great view from the top of Dambulla Rock,
offering a panoramic view of the surrounding flat lands, which includes the
rock fortress Sigiriya,
19km away.
After removing our shoes and giving them to a ‘shoe
minder’ who this time charged for the safe keeping we headed inside the temple
complex. Indika seated us under the
shade of a tree near the entrance where we all took a seat and where he told us
about the temple. We then got up to go
into the first cave and just as we were about to enter, a guardian shooed us
out and pointed to a sign. The temple
closes for 15 minutes from 10.30am for morning prayers. So we headed back to our shady spot and
Indika told us a story for 15 minutes to fill in the time. While I waited I got a blessing string tied
on my right arm (Buddha ritual) and it now matches the blessing tie I got in
Anuarpurha. I like them on my wrist and
it does make me thankful for all I have.
I am truly blessed that is for sure.
All 5 caves close during the prayer time. So at 10.45am the doors reopened and then we
made our way in and out of the 5 caves.
They certainly were very impressive and this was really the first time
on the whole trip, besides yesterday and the group of Japanese, that we have
seen hordes of tourists, mainly French from what we could work out. There total of 153 Buddha statues, 3 statues
of Sri Lankan kings and 4 statues of gods and goddesses. The latter include two
statues of Hindu gods, the god Vishnu and the god Ganesh. The
murals cover an area of 2,100 square meters. Depictions on the walls of the
caves include the temptation by the demon Mara,
and Buddha's first sermon. Prehistoric Sri Lankans would have lived in
these cave complexes before the arrival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka as there are
burial sites with human skeletons about 2700 years old in this area, at
Ibbankatuwa near the Dambulla cave complexes.
This temple complex dates back to the 1st century BC. It
has five caves under a vast overhanging rock, carved with a drip line to keep
the interiors dry. In 1938 the architecture was embellished with arched
colonnades and gabled entrances. Inside the caves, the ceilings are painted
with intricate patterns of religious images following the contours of the rock.
There are images of the Lord Buddha and bodhisattvas, as well as various gods
and goddesses. The Dambulla Cave Monastery
is still functional and remains the best-preserved ancient edifice in Sri
Lanka. This complex dates from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, when it was
already established as one of the largest and most important monasteries. King Valagambahu is traditionally thought to have
converted the caves into a temple in the 1st century BC. Exiled from Anuradhapura,
he sought refuge here from South Indian usurpers for 15 years. After reclaiming
his capital, the King built a temple in thankful worship. Many other kings
added to it later and by the 11th century, the caves had become a major
religious center and still are. King Nissanka Malla gilded the caves and added about 70
Buddha statues in 1190. During the 18th century, the caves were restored and
painted by the Kandyan Kings.
The five caves have now been converted into shrine rooms.
The largest cave measures about 52m from east to west, and 23m from the
entrance to the back, this spectacular cave is 7m tall at its highest point.
Hindu deities are also represented here, as are the kings Valagamba and Nissankamalla,
and Ananda - the Buddha's most devoted disciple. Within these shrine rooms is representative
of many epochs of Sinhala sculpture and Sinhala art. The Buddha
statues are in varying sizes and attitudes - the largest is 15 meters long. One
cave has over 1,500 paintings of Buddha covering the ceiling.
The first cave is called Cave of the Divine King. An account of the founding of the
monastery is recorded in a 1st-century Brahmi inscription over the entrance to
the first cave. This cave is dominated by the 14-meter statue of the Buddha,
hewn out of the rock. It has been repainted countless times in the course of
its history, and probably received its last coat of paint in the 20th century.
At his feet is Buddha's favorite pupil, Ananda; at his head, Vishnu, said to
have used his divine powers to create the caves.
In the second and largest cave, in addition to 16
standing and 40 seated statues of Buddha, are the gods Saman and Vishnu, which pilgrims often
decorate with garlands, and finally statues of King Vattagamani Abhaya, who honored the monastery
in the 1st century BC., and King Nissanka Malla, responsible in the 12th
century for the gilding of 50 statues, as indicated by a stone inscription near
the monastery entrance. This cave is called Cave
of the Great Kings. The Buddha statue hewn out of the rock on the left side of
the room. There is also a dagoba and a spring which
drips its water, said to have healing powers, out of a crack in the ceiling.
Valuable tempera paintings on the cave ceiling dating from the 18th century
depict scenes from Buddha's life, from the dream of Mahamaya to temptation by the demon Mara. Further pictures relate
important events from the country's history.
The third cave, the Great New Monastery acquired ceiling
and wall paintings in the typical Kandy style during the reign of King Kirti Sri Rajasinha (1747–1782), the famous Buddhist
revivalist. In addition to the 50 Buddha statues, there is also a statue of the
king. The fourth and fifth caves were similar
to the others but on a smaller scale. It
was an amazing temple and certainly worth the climb at 9.30am in the
morning. We saw a troop of monkeys on
our way down and they seem to be used to people and just carry on doing their
own thing. There was one particular
monkey that had a growth on his nose and I was able to get within 2m of him to
get some pretty amazing photos. There is
always that small niggling voice at the back of your mind to not get too close
to these animals but they are so human like in a lot of ways and look like they
have little personalities. But we
continued down the stairs and I have to say coming down is always a lot easier
and always seems quicker as you know where the end is. It was a little hard on my knees but it we
made it to the bottom at 11.45am and then there were a few different options
for the group to do. Some people got a
ride into town to shop, some stayed to have lunch and then a handful of us just
headed back to the hotel. It was hot, I
was tired and my arm was throbbing.
Suzie Q and Gazza also came back to the hotel and when we got back some
of the rooms still weren’t ready, so we said we could have lunch and then come
back. It wasn’t till I got to the hotel’s
restaurant that I realized what a fancy place it was. As soon as we sat down we were given a hand
towel to cool down with, there was a cocktail menu and the ‘normal’ menu had a
lot more to choose from than ‘curry corner’.
It was an open air restaurant that looked out to the pool and even that
looked like it came from a 5 star hotel and we had decided that we were definitely
taking a dip in there after lunch. Yep, that’s
how hot it is here that I am getting into my swim gear and getting into the
pool and it was amazing. There were 4
people doing an optional excursion into the national park to go elephant
spotting, but I just couldn’t muster the energy to go and really I have seen a
lot of elephants in my travels and we were also visiting an elephant orphanage
next week, so I reveled in the pool with my book till 3pm and decided I better
get some blog writing done. So I
retreated to my ice box of a room for the next few hours and pumped out 2 blogs
which I loaded and am now officially only 3 days behind.
The trio (Pops, Christine and Lenore) returned just
before our meeting at 6.30pm and they had gone to the pharmacy and purchased
some pills for my sore arm. We got a box
of parcetemol and some ibuprofen for the grand total of 3.60AUD. I also now have some bruises to accompany the
sore arm on my left thigh and two on my ankle where the pedal must have hit
me.
I just wanted to have dinner at the hotel tonight, as the
group headed to a local restaurant, and the trio were also happy to stay in
tonight. We had to get some food for
breakfast tomorrow as we were climbing the Rock Fortress of Sigiriya and we
were going to be having breakfast when we reached the top. So we headed to the supermarket to buy our
supplies. I have found no matter what country
I am in there is always ‘laughing cow cheese’ which is that craft spreadable
cheese in triangles. Here it is called ‘happy
cheese’ but it is the same gear with the smiling cow on the front and always
travels well, so I bought a pack of that, dry biscuits, some more deodorant,
water, an onion and a tomato and wallah I had breakfast for tomorrow.
Dinner at the hotel was 5 star all the way. Christine, Lenore and Pops have done a load
of travel, and are constant travel buddies on trips throughout the year with a
bunch of other people. What a great idea
to get a whole lot of friends to travel each year. They all tried the local spirit Arrack which
I had one sip and nearly gagged so stuck with my coke. We have been super surprised with the level
of accommodation and it has far exceeded what I thought we were going to be
getting, which is always a nice place to be in.
It is a shame that we are only here for one night, but it was great to
have a relaxing afternoon as the next few days are going to be quite active,
hot and exhausting.
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