Birds, Beasts, and Flower Curry, January 7, 2006, Part 3

			Alu  Vihara

The hotel we'd booked by phone was a rather unsavory looking place, more brothel than rest house. We gladly cancelled and went instead to a guest house our driver suggested, with a rooster and a dog, both noisy. Although there was no running hot water, we got a bucket full of very hot water every night, which was quite adequate. The family who owned the place were Catholic and very nice. We had more great breakfasts (The other guests were from Australia and settled for the standard greasy fried eggs with dry toast.). On New Year's Day we had a traditional dish of milk rice. For the convenience of it, we ordered lunch there every day. The sites in Anuradhapura are spread over an enormous area, and we worked up a real appetite seeing as much as we could manage each day.

Anuradhapura Sri MahaBodhi MahaVihara Monastery Goldfish Park, Isurumuni, and Vessagiri Jetavana & Abhayagiri Other Sites Click an image to see more photos of that place.

				Mihintale
						(Left to Right, Top to Bottom) Ken at Kaludiya Pond - Kaludiya Pond - A Japanese teabowl? - Stupa marking the spot where King Tissa met Ven. Mahinda - Invitation Rock - Mahaseya Stupa enshrining a hair of the Buddha - An ancient refectory with a "ricetrough" - Lunch, Eisel serving

The driver very helpfully arranged monasteries for the monks to stay. In Anuradhapura they stayed at the Burmese temple, with Mon monks. In Polonnaruwa, they stayed with a monk who had spent a lot of time in India, was familiar with Buddhist sites in Maharashtra, and could even speak some Hindi.

Burmese Monastery

On our various outings with Bhante Pannasila, we saw a porcupine emerging from his nest, a huge monitor lizard making his way down to a pond, a giant squirrel, many lovely deer, and birds, birds, birds. (A beautiful russet crow with a green head shot disproves the old syllogism that all crows are black, ha!)

By chance we've been working on expanding and proofing Ven. S. Dhammika's Sacred Island, A pilgrim's Guide to Sri Lanka for publication by the BPS, so we've been up to our eyebrows in descriptions of Sri Lankan sites and history for some weeks now. How timely! This tour was partly field research. Reading up on the next day's exploration and going over Ken's excellent pictures of that day made for very happy evenings until the mosquitos drove us under the nets and bed. He has perfected the art of making panoramas, so some of his pictures are really four or five photos put together to give a idea of the grand vistas we've been seeing.

Polonnaruva

Hatadage, Temple of the Tooth Vatadage, main entrance One of the other cardinal entrances

Images in Thuparama Stucco design Guardstone

King Parakramabhu's Palace, 12th century Carving on King Nissankamalla's Audience Hall, 12th century

Moonstone, Those in Anuradhapura have bulls, but not here (Hindu influence) Carving on Nissankamalla's Audience Hall

Gal Vihara Click any of the three images to see more photos of Gal Vihara

Ashokarama Buddha, Anuradhapura

The most memorable places were those least visited, of course. Visakha found a couple of throw away paragraphs in a brief guide praising a particular Buddha image so she suggested that we take a look. Driving far from the town we passed rice fields and more rice fields. The driver parked and we trekked in between recently planted paddies where a couple of farmers were tossing a fertilizer or pesticide by the handful. At the end of the fields was a considerable area with the upright pillars. It wasn't possible to tell what any of the ruins were but in the middle was a wonderfully intact dolomite Buddha image which showed virtually no weathering (that is some hard stone!). It was an imposing statue, with a delicate, serene expression. We were all the happier because there were no other tourists--just lots of peacocks there.

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