Kandy to Pollonaruwa with Parker
Wow. What an amazing place to stay!
Lake Bungalow’s on the south side of the lake and up a side road. It’s run by an amazing couple who’ve owned it for over 30 years. They used to get a lot of trade from the VSO, but, for some reason a decision has been made to stay in Colombo, so they’ve lost out more than a little.
This is the view of their garden from our breakfast table. It took me ages to realise that there is no wall or window, and that breakfast in Lake Bungalow is taken under a veranda out of doors, in company with the most enormous yellow Labrador, and a rather cheeky Mina Bird.
They arranged a car and driver for us for the next three days. We intended to use buses, but they were aghast! And, to be fair, and with glorious hindsight, the car and driver (we dubbed him ’Parker’) were well worth it.
Now Parker is probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he has a good job driving for a Kandy tour company. The guy we booked with told us "Brand new car, sir, brand new, with air conditioning."
It turned out to be a Hyundai Elantra with rear inside door handles that snapped off. So we’ll not be buying one of those, then! Oh, it was at least two years old with about 70,000km on the clock. And I fear that the broken door handles come out of Parker’s wages.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Day one we went to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage. Ok, it is a zoo, really, but it also looks after orphaned elephants well, and it has to make money in order to do so. And you can ’meet’ the elephants, talk to them, touch them.
Even the little one in the middle of the group here was approachable, with attendants hovering, and the aunts allows us to meet it and touch it.
That was quite an experience, standing among these powerful creatures, and, as strangers, being trusted by them to approach and touch a baby that can’t have been more than a week old.
Even at Pinnawala there were very few tourists. Some would say "just as well" because the beasts certainly do not need crowding, but there were maybe 40 non local faces. The good thing is that the attractions attract the locals (and they are priced differently for the locals). The bad thing is that they need tourist money to function, and that money is absent.
We are insane, of course! We did the trip to Pinnawala by tuk tuk! That is about 30km each way! Stupid and fun!
On the way back we stopped at the Botanical Gardens. A great place for trysts, it seems. There was snogging behind pretty much every tree, and in at least one case more than snogging!
Back to Parker! We left the next day at about 10 to head for Pollonaruwa. Parker’s driving was less pushy than the tuk tuk guy’s! Actually we were almost overtaken by tuk tuks a lot of the time. It took us ages to realise that drivers are instructed to drive slowly so as not to scare their passengers. When we asked him to drive normally life become far more adrenaline filled!
We took for ever to get to Pollonaruwa. Arrived finally at around 6pm. It’s only about 150km or so, but we stopped for lunch (good food, but oh my god, the toilets! And these were western toilets, too!) at Dambulla (Parker thought we wanted to see it on the way north, not on the return trip. Getting him to understand simple instructions was not always easy. He appeared to understand us, and then did unusual things instead!).
A Google search will tell you more about the ruined city of Pollonaruwa than I ever can. It’s the remains of an astoundingly busy city, partly preserved, partly restored, based around a tank (local term for an enormous reservoir) that was the areas irrigation lifeline since time immemorial. The tank’s been restored, but the complex sluices of antiquity have been lost, and the tank isn’t managed properly to clean it out annually. Maybe that’s a government thing. Or we can blame the Brits when we ruled the place.
The enormous stupa is certainly the largest in Sri Lanka. It may even be the largest in all Asia. Unless I’ve got it badly wrong, each stupa (certainly each significant stupa) contains a stone with nine compartments, each of which holds a relic of Buddha. Makes you wonder just how many complete bodies they can rebuild from all the relics. But the stupas are solid. no-one can get in to check!
Next stop another ancient place: Sigiriya. A Sri Lankan guest at Lake Bungalow had said to us, "Even though it is an expensive hotel, stay one night at the Hotel Sigiriya, sit at the bar and look at the view of the rock with a very large gin and tonic in your hand.
We did that thing!
We’d planned a dip in the pool, but, somehow, we slept past that the next morning. It’s a bit of a package tour hotel, this one, full of people not quite understanding how to be guests in a strange land, but it does well enough.
I had my breakfast plate raided by a local verminous monkey, the food was good, though by no means Sri Lankan, the beds were comfy, and yes, even for a hotel of this size I negotiated a lower room rate.
And the next day we set out for the rock.
Ever the professional, Parker couldn’t find it, even though it was as plain as the nose on his face.
The idea was to climb the rock. Melanie (She Who Must Be Obeyed At All Times) does not do heights. We’ve told her that all the injuries happen in the last half inch of a fall, but she still doesn’t believe us! And here she was, choosing to climb a 200 metre plus rock, up steps, spiral stairs, and in once case what was pretty much an open sided narrow ladder!
I am designed to climb slowly. So I found small Sri Lankan touts pushing me up the steps in the hope of rupees. "I am helper, Sir!"
They’re so polite it seems rude to turn them away, and when you try they insist on staying. But Mel managed in no uncertain terms while I was failing to catch my breath after being pushed at speed up a flight of stairs I wanted to linger over!
In days long ago there must have been splendid buildings clinging to the walls of the rock. All that remains now is the Mirror Wall, behind which is a protected path and much graffiti dating from at least 1,100AD.
The touts tell you proudly while insisting on pushing you up steps that there are 1,202 steps, which you will never manage without their help.
It’s a long, long, hot climb. You do feel pretty exposed on some of it. And, since a king was the instigator, and since he had 500 concubines in his palace at the top (plus swimming pool) I hypothesise that the steps cut into the rock are really foundations for a more substantial structure which allowed regal progress without the danger of a sudden fall to his death!
Especially the last part!
Kings do not clamber about on rock faces. Kings are especially wary about this when one small push from an assassin could be passed off as "He slipped, honest!"
So look carefully at the rocks by the iron steps (circa 1938) and see what you think. Carved steps or carved foundations?
The view from the top is indescribably breathtaking. There’s an even better view in a few days, but this was the best so far. No wonder this was made into a palace, not just because it is easy to defend.
I wonder if they had a chair lift back then?
When we got down, Parker found us with the car. It probably took him the three hours we spent there to find the tourist car park!