Day 7 Anuradhapura 2 August

Good sleep and ready for another day of dagobas,  monasteries and many old rocks. Hesitant start however as we wait for our driver and car, hopefully he will appear. And he does. We both agree that on the whole the local business people are honest and do not try to take advantage.even the traders outside the tourist spots give a reasonable price up front with what seems to be little room for negotiation.

Our driver arrives and admits his English is poor, he looks like a shark and arrived  in all  his Corolla glory, he appears to have no idea of where or when to go places. Awkward!!!

We are on to mr sampath who is prompt and apologetic in his reply. Our driver had a funeral to go to😉🤥 of course and a new driver will come tomorrow if we can struggle on... we do like a challenge, so the 3 of us sat together to try and make a loose itinerary of all the sights in this ancient city..

This is a huge day so please feel free to grab a cuppa whilst we share with you a pretty long post.

We will be systematic because I am not sure how else to share this.

1. Isurumuniya. This is a temple partially built into a rock. Home also to one of the many reclining Buddha’s. Reclining not sleeping!

Note carving in the rock face

2.Mirisawetina. An incredibly white Stupa, not unlike Ruwanweliseya that we saw yesterday, only smaller. We chose to admire from the outside steps for this one.we were approached by a vendor with the most beautiful bunches of lotus flowers, which we declined not being Buddhist and all...

The man then stated that the flowers were for Buddha you do not pay...wow.

3. Drove past Thuparamaya and stopped for some photos, interesting because all the pillars are leaning towards the stupa.

4. Abayagiriya. This is an absolutely huge stupa. It has been likened in size and importance to pyramids of Egypt.

It is being restored at a cost of approx 500 million dollars 😳

Very difficult to photagtapg and get a grasp on it sheer size.

5. Samadhi Buddha statue. I do think this is a new rendition because there was another broken down statue behind him that was very old. This particular Buddha has been dated at 4 th century.

6. Twin ponds or kuttam pokuna are two swimming pool like ponds, they think the monks may have used them for bathing. 

7. Sandahiru seya is a new stupa, one of 9 dedicated to the police and military: controversial considering the opposing roles of military and Buddhism.

With all those sights seen it was time to head home for an airconditioned rest.

We will be getting picked up again by our man @ 4pm to go to a little town outside Anuradhapura called Mihintale.

The history of this tiny town is very interesting. The king in 247bc was converted to Buddhism here.

The daughter of our hosts Bryan and Samantha ( yes that is their real names !!) has been telling us how special it is and we must go in the afternoon, in fact all the locals are highly recommending it.... so here goes.

After climbing lots and lots and lots of stairs we find some more stairs to climb to yet another huge, stark white stupa. ( and so many monkeys, those little critters terrify me). Interesting were the hundreds of school kids and three monks; one (Anthony - and yes that is his real name ) was from Cambodia on holidays!

Down those stairs only to climb up some very steep and barely there stairs to get to the top of a big rock with great views! Many other things here but not easy to find. Best is the views.

Finally down those stairs and up some more to be rewarded with a magnificent and huge Buddha statue (and more monks).