The Ancient Cities (The cultural triangle)
At the airport, we took a local bus to Kandy, in the centre of Sri Lanka. Let the road trip begin! As usual, Sri Lankan were looking and smiling at us, even one man gave his seat to Florenc who was standing: sweet, they are still as lovely as last year! We couldn’t stop smiling during the journey, so happy to be here. They drive crazy in Sri Lanka, like everywhere in South East Asia actually, overpassing sometimes in a dangerous way, but you just have to trust the driver and everything will be just fine :)
After a 3 hours trip (the bus stopps all the time to take passengers or let them get off), we jumped on another bus to reach Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of Sri Lanka. This bus was a minibus with aircon, more expensive than other local buses but going faster, but we were tired and we needed to rest, which is almost impossible in a normal local bus (but local buses are much more fun). In those buses you can see that people are richer than in other local buses, better dressed, and they don’t stare at us like other Sri Lankan do. When we finally arrived it was already dark, on the map the guesthouse was supposed to be closeby so we decided to walk. Everybody was looking at us like we were crazy, all the tuk-tuks stopped to ask us where we were going, but after 12 hours on the plane and 6.5 hours on the bus we wanted to walk. We met lovely girls and women who gave us the right direction, they were shy, smiling at us all the time as if we were famous. We finally took a tuk-tuk as the guesthouse was further than we thought, we took a shower and went to bed without having eaten anything from 8am in the plane, cuz we thought we would have dinner at the guesthouse but it was too late (though before 8pm).
***
To visit the ruins of Anuradhapura, we hired a tuk-tuk for the day. We visited 10 different places, most of the times dagobas (which is a temple with a round shape, photos coming soon) that were not so different from each other. We also saw huge lying buddhas (at least 5 meters long) and many monkeys around the sites. Actually, many Sri Lankan come here to pray and make offerings (flowers or candles), and it’s not the touristic season so fortunately we met only a few tourists. We had a fabulous rice and curry for lunch, which is a typical meal here: a big plate of rice with many small dishes such as chicken, lentils, herbs…
Note: never say to a single Sri Lankan man that you are single. Otherwise he’ll do like our tuk-tuk driver, which is taking a picture of you and asking you to send it to him by mail “to put it in his room and look at it”. I also tried the “betel” which is like a soft candy that they put in a leaf and chew, it’s a bit like the coca in South America but they gave me only a small piece so I didn’t get high :)
***
Today we had a perfect day: we woke up early to catch a bus to Polonnaruwa, another town with many ruins that belongs to the UNESCO world heritage. The 3 hours journey was very nice, with wonderful landscapes (rice fields, palm trees, lakes, vegetation everywhere), we even saw two elephants and many cows crossing the road! On arrival at the guesthouse, we had a delicious rice and curry before taking bikes to visit the ruins. Those ruins were beautiful: many dagobas made from brickwalls, round temples, huge buddhas carved in marble stone… And everything was in a park with luxurious vegetation and only a few tuk-tuks and cars. We were feeling free on our bikes! At the end of the day, we were waiting in a policeman hut for the rain to stop and a souvenirs seller, named Hatchi, came to talk with us “because we are always smiling, not like Japanese”. As I was bitten by mosquitoes, he sent his friend with his motorbike to buy a sort of tiger balm that he offered me. Then he showed us a beautiful lake were we could see elephants far away, and a big lion sculpture amongst temple ruins. He finally took a picture of us and he left, without asking us for anything! This is why I love Sri Lankan people, they are sincerely nice without asking anything in return, which is quite rare nowadays… Last pleasure, we had roti khottu for dinner, which is a typical meal for dinner (never for lunch): chicken, vegetables and roti (flat bread) chopped together on a warm plaque, delicious! Actually you can hear when a place cooks roti khottu cuz it makes lots of noise when they chop everything together. Icing on the cake, we listened to Tracy Chapman in the room before going to bed under our mosquito nets :) Finally it was a perfect day for only 7 euros each (including room, food, bikes, bus). Traveling around Sri Lanka indeed can be cheap if you don’t mind eating in local places, taking local buses, bargaining, sleeping without aircon in not super clean and humid rooms and showering with cold water :)
Sleeping under a mosquito net
***
On the next day, we met randomly Hatchi in the street, and he offered us key rings of Sri Lanka, before hugging us to say goodbye. We took a bus to Dambulla, with a fucking crazy driver overpassing even when he had no space to do it, honking a lot. He was driving so fast in turns that the bus was leant and himself sometimes had to hold to his door. We tried to look at the landscapes and not the road to still enjoy the trip :) The interest of Dambulla is the Rock temple and 5 caves with buddhas inside and paintings on the walls. The buddhas and paintings were very well preserved, and many Sri Lankan come here to pray and make offerings. Unfortunately we also met tourists groups taking pictures when it was forbidden (as usual…), and on the way up to the caves - the caves are carved in rocks on a hill - there were many souvenirs sellers which shows the beginning of the mass tourism… I am afraid that Sri Lanka will become like Thailand within a few years, because it has everything: nice people, cultural areas belonging to UNESCO world heritage, wonderful landscapes such as tea plantations and beaches, good food. That’s why I wanted to come back soon when I left Sri Lanka last year, and I am pleased to see that it’s still not too touristic.
Hoppers to be eaten with chilli sauce
Rotti khottu
***
Today was a day full of surprises. We woke up early to catch a bus to Sigiriya, where there is a huge rock on a hill with 1,200 steps to climb. We bought bananas for breakfast (as usual, 25 roupies for two people which is 0,08 euros per person, cheapest breakfast ever) and as I showed the betel to the seller to ask him for the name, he told me “not for you, only for Asian”! The ascent was not very comfortable because of the heat and the tourists groups that were yelling, but the 360′ view over the countryside was worth it! At the top, we met Turkish men who were taking pictures and videos for a touristic review, and they interviewed us with their video camera, asking us to explain what we like in Sri Lanka. Quite funny to be interviewed at the top of this rock :) On the way down we talked with a young Sri Lankan man who invited us to stay in his house until tommorow “because his parents are not here tonight so we can have drinks together”. We declined politely!
Frescoes on the way up to Sigiriya
We then took a minibus to go back to Dambulla, and it was full with middle school pupils in their white uniform. We acted like Sri Lankan and held the purse and umbrella of a woman who was standing when we were sitting. They are so lovely that we want to be nice with them too as soon as we can :) We then jumped on a bus to Kandy, and as the bus was already full, the driver told us to seat behind him, on the barrier designed to hold the luggage (which is in the front). It was super not comfortable and we had to hold to whatever we could cuz he was driving crazy (the craziest that we’ve had for now). And whenever he knew that there were policemen on the road, he put his belt on him (but didn’t even lock it). It’s strange that policemen care that the driver puts his belt on and don’t care that there are people “sitting” next to him without any protection. And as it’s not funny enough to drive really fast when it’s raining, he was all the time with his phone or talking with us! We were quite relieved when we arrived in Kandy, after this 2 hours bus journey.
|
Devenez fan de ce Blog :