ŪBlog 4 22/2/17
Ate in the buffet restaurant last night as too remote for other options. Rather poor compared to Galle Face Hotel but hotel caters for some large groups including lots of Chinese tourists who seem noiser than British on tour. Charlie would say "Too loudy"... Interesting couple in their 80s on next table. She is a wheel chair user but they have had recent holidays in places such as Antarctica and Costa Rica and doing a good job of exploring all that SL has on offer. An inspiration to us...hope pensions allow us to do similar trips in our older years.
Early start today to get to Sigiriya rock to beat the heat. The Rock Fortress is supposed to be the 8th Wonder of the World. My wonder was that we made it up and down the 1600? steps to the 200m top. The lower levels of partially excavated ruins of remnants of moats, bathing pools, gardens, summer palace and other structures were interesting and reminded us of roman ruins. Local guide did his best but us linguistically challenged brits are not good with strong accents so not sure I got all the details. The further we went the more steps...then the marble stone steps turned to scaffolding. ..oh heck...thigh muscles not had that sort of work out for a while. Heat and humidity adds to the experience. So glad I showered and put clean clothes on this morning. ...
The view from the top is brilliant once you are able to breathe and focus again. I was pleased to see younger and thinner people also struggled.
Lots to see and admire but so pleased to get back to Dommi and the air con in his vehicle....alive! Dommi tried not to laugh at our red sweaty faces.
On the way to the extensive Polonnaruwa ancient medieval ruins we discussed options of getting round the site...at the hottest time of day do we do the rental bikes or Dommi's air conditioned vehicle? Only because he gives a good commentary. ..we chose aircon!
Good museum to start then multiple sites with variety of ruins of palaces, budhist and hindu temples, toilets!, trading area, assembly rooms, academy and other structures. Lots of old stuff. Dommi gave us a interesting tour. By 3pm we were flagging so we opted to skip the lotus pool and another set of statues and head back to hotel.
On the way there we stopped for fresh king coconut. ..very rehydrating. On way back - crocodile bread from a rickshaw bread van.
Return route to the hotel took us past reservoirs near Minneriya national park so we saw two small groups of wild elephants close to the water.
During the day we have seen so much wild life including elephants, white spotted deer, Macque and Grey Langer monkeys, tortoises, water and land monitors, oxen type cattle, salamander, termite and huge wasp nests, gecko, white bellied sea eagle, Egrets, Indian Peafowl, Kingfisher, Ibis, Woolly necked strok, lots of street dogs...and other birds we can't recall names.
Felt rather sorry for the couple of elephants we saw that were being used for tourists to ride but one of them was having a refreshing soak in the lake by our hotel which she seemed to enjoy...would be better if she was free to do that at her leisure...
Been an exhausting but fascinating day.
Taken a long bath, ibropfen and liquid refreshments to recover but looking forward to Dambulla Golden Cave Temples and the Matala Spice Gardens en route to Kandy tomorrow.
Sounds energetic!
ReplyDeleteDG says that is an understatement
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