Animals, birds and plants, Oh my

As usual life got in the way of finishing this series on Sri Lanka. But I just finished renaming all the photos and organizing them so I feel that it will be easy to finish it as soon as I have a few minutes to write. The renaming and organization takes a lot of time and gets in the way of regular publishing.

I have so much to share that I better get on with this.

We only spent one night at the tea factory but I could have spent many days there. The hotel itself was fascinating. They had retained a lot of the original structure and machinery. Some interior shots of the hotel. This is the lobby.

From our floor - the second one.

Looking up at the ceiling from our floor.

Our first stop, as we left the nest morning, was to wander through the town of Nuwara Eliya. This is the post office. It has a distinctly European feel to it.

Nuwara Eliya is a place where Sri Lankans come on holiday. There is a lovely lake with boating facilities.

Our next stop was a Sita temple near by. Sri Lanka features prominently in the Hindu epic the Ramayana. In the story, the demon Ravana ruled Sri Lanka. He kidnapped Sita, the wife of Rama, and kept her captive in a place in Sri Lanka called Ashoka Vana or Ashoka Forest. This temple is built on the presumed location of Ashoka Vana. According to the story, the monkey-God Hanuman, when asked to bring a herb from the Himalayas to help heal a wound suffered by Rama's brother Lakshmana, brought an entire mountain and dropped it near-by.

This is the image of Sita in the temple and this, supposedly, is the mountain that was brought from the Himalayas and dropped here by Hanuman.

Our Sinhalese guide pointed to another mountain - an island in the Indian ocean - as the one dropped by Hanuman. That was many miles from here and I'll show you a picture of it when we get to that part of our trip.

After visiting the temple, we headed off to Yala National park to see wildlife. But on the way, we stopped by a waterfall.

We got to Yala in mid-afternoon. Our hotel was right on the water. This is the Indian ocean.

Sunset from our balcony. You can see the building next to ours. We were on the 2nd floor of a 2 room building. One hotel room was on the first floor and a second was on the second floor with a loft on the third floor.

Looking the other way...

That is the hotel pool and the dining and main lobby building. Looking yet another way - inland - you can see it is all mostly scrubby vegetation.

Our first stop the next morning was the temple complex at Kataragama. This is a place venerated by both Hindus and Buddhists and there are both Hindu and Buddhist temples in the same place. It is a huge compound with a lot of temples. We had to take off our shoes when we entered and walk barefoot through the complex. At 11 am, the sand was already quite hot and by the time we finished, my soles were sore and almost blistered from the heat and the friction from the sand.

We first went to see the big Buddhist temple, the Kiri Vihara. The Kiri Vihara has one of the saplings of the Bodhi tree under which Gautama Buddha gained enlightenment. One sapling was brought to Anuradhapura and this one is a sapling from that tree. After that we went to the Skanda temple - which is a Hindu one. Skanda is the son of Shiva, one of the Hindu trinity. The temple is very simple, unlike most Hindu temples. We were fortunate to be there for one of the worship services because otherwise, the temple is closed and you can't go inside.

On our way out, we saw a procession of worshippers headed to the Skanda temple

And a lovely little kingfisher.

The bright blue larger object in the middle of the picture is a plastic bag. Look above it on the branch and you can see the little bird. He's bright blue but small with a white face and black feathers to set off the blue.

The rest of this post is going to be all wildlife. After lunch we headed out to Yala for a safari tour. We'll start, as we did, with a drab peahen.

An eagle in a tree.

We were lucky enough to see a leopard close up but I wasn't fast enough to get a good shot of it. This is the best that I have and you can see the leopard's hindquarters and tail in the middle of the picture if you zoom in. He is right in the middle of the picture just past the tree that is in the center.

We waited around for a long time to see if he would reappear, but he didn't and I took a lot of shots of green bushes hoping to get a glimpse of him to no avail. I have a shot of his head in the shadows but no one believes me when I say it is his head because it is just a shape. And you can sort of see him here closer up but he blends in pretty well with the shadows.

That big dark patch in the center consists of his legs and tail. We moved on, disappointed and elated at the same time. We saw him - one of two jeeps that actually did - but we don't have great pictures.

A boar with some birds. Did I mention that Sri Lanka is a prime bird-watching location? And Yala is one of the places that people come to watch birds?

A little green bee-eater. One of two we saw.

After many peahens, we finally saw a peacock. The first of many.

Deer.

A mountain that looks like an elephant.

Jungle fowl. The national bird of Sri Lanka.

Another peacock who strut for us but refused to display his tail. I guess we don't look like peahens.

A shore bird

Monkeys.

Yala was one of the places hit by the tsunami in 2004. On our last day, we stopped at the tsunami memorial on the other side of the island which was very badly hit. But today we stopped at a bungalow that had been occupied by some tourists and the bungalow's caretakers. The tourists were in the park on a safari so they escaped but the caretakers were washed away along with the bungalow.
All that is left is the foundation.

This is the ocean that was so destructive that day. Just steps from the bungalow is a beautiful beach.

The memorial to those who were lost. It is supposed to represent the wall of water.

We continued on from the tsunami memorial. A boar family with babies.

A hornbill in the middle of the tree.

This time I was lucky as he took flight. I followed him from this tree to another one and got some lovely photos.

This is a red bee-eater. Much harder to see than the green one.

Another peacock.

Two more green bee-eaters.

A little below center is a snake eagle. Very hard to see due to how effectively he/she blends with the tree. The body is brown but smooth, compared to the tree bark. Shooting down at the animals works better than shooting up into a dark tree against a bright sky!

And then a lone elephant decided he wanted to cross our path, but balked a few times. This gave me ample opportunity to get some fabulous photos of him.

He finally crossed and we followed him visually on the other side of the road till he vanished.

Another shore bird.

A closer picture, but not a great angle.

And with that, we left the park and headed back to the hotel. Our last glimpse of wildlife was a snake crossing the road.

We caught the sunset as we drove home.

There are many, many more pictures and movies of the wildlife in the album. I think if you click on one of the photos, you should be able to go back and forth to see the other photos if you are interested. 

Elephants and ruins

On the third day, we headed out to Polonnaruwa, another UNESCO World Heritage site. Polonnaruwa was the second capital of the Sinhalese kingdom. The first one was Anuradhapura. We had originally planned to go to both but our guide warned us that they were both ruined cities that looked very similar. It was hot and humid and there were steep entrance fees for foreigners. So we picked Polonnaruwa and changed our itinerary to go look for wild elephants in the afternoon.

But our morning started with breakfast. We were seated next to a window for breakfast and guess who kept us company outside, eating their own breakfast? A troop of monkeys.

At Polonnaruwa, we stopped by a huge lake that was built by one of the great kings of the Singhala empire, Parakramabahu. The lake still provides irrigation to the local area and has since the 12th century BCE.

Sri Lanka is a bird watching paradise and we saw our fill of birds without looking for them.

We started at the library. Only the first story and steps are left. The rest was made of wood and was destroyed centuries ago. You can see the holes where the beams were inserted for the second story.

Steps leading up to the second story

Imagine yourself baking in the hot humid sunshine. This next building is the audience hall where the king conducted business.

Close-up of the carving on the sides.

We went past the audience hall to see the king's bath.

There are places to sit around and enjoy the cooling water.

Along with a good system of drainage.

We then moved on to the temple area. The king owned a sacred relic - a tooth of the Buddha. The Buddha visited Sri Lanka 3 times and the island is mostly Buddhist. But the possession of this relic is what gave the king his authority. So each of the 5 capitals has a temple of the tooth relic. The only one that is not in ruins is the one in Kandy, which was the last capital before the British overthrew the kingdom. That temple, which we will visit later, is still alive and the tooth relic is there.

These statues are not original, I think. They have been moved here for protection against the elements. But I could be mis-remembering.

Look at the columns. They are fashioned after lotus stems.

The entrance to each building has a moonstone with carvings in it. The moonstones here do not have cattle or lions in them, the former evidence of the Hindu influence and the latter the symbol of the Singhala kingdom. In Anuradhapura, there are cattle in the moonstones. Since one steps on them, it is not auspicious to put sacred animals underfoot.

The moonstone leads to steps that are flanked by guardian deities.

Many statues of the Buddha.

The buildings are beautifully laid out in symmetrical forms.

A very long, very ancient tablet.

With carvings on the ends.

We then moved on to another area of the ruins. A monastery with stupas.

This is one of the largest in the country. Kiri Vihara

Then we moved on to another section, which is a very sacred. A temple to the Buddha that is still active and thriving. But a respite for wildlife. A parrot in a tree.

And another iguana...

Finally, we came to the Gal Vihara, the heart of the city.

We took off our shoes/sandals and walked on the hot sand. There are three statues here of the Buddha. The first is when he is meditating - before he became the Buddha. The second is of him teaching. The third is after he died.

To the left is the meditating statue. The one to the right is the temple where people worship. Meditating...

The temple..

Teaching...

And after his passing. Some people say it is the Buddha sleeping. Our guide said it was after his passing. You decide.

A statue of the king.

After we left Polonnaruwa, we had a quick lunch and headed out to a safari to see wild elephants. This is the area where the jeeps are waiting while the drivers buy tickets to the national park. This one is called the Eco-park. There are multiple parks where the elephants roam, depending on the season. At this time of year, Eco-park is where they usually are.

We caught a glimpse of one rather quickly.

And then nothing. An eagle on a tree.

We drove for a long time. It was dusty and bumpy and hot. We kept our eyes peeled. We were almost out of the park when all of a sudden, there they were.

Mothers and babies.

Lots of jeeps clustered around the herd. They pretty much ignored us. We were quiet and just took pictures and watched in awe. And then we left, hot and dusty and satisfied.

My hair was matted and a giant nest. We went back to the hotel and showered and packed because we were leaving for Kandy the next day.