Dambulla, Sigiriya, Trinco (Dec 13, 14)

The easiest way to get around Sri Lanka is by car. It's certainly not the cheapest way, but each of the main "attractions" of the island are separated by hundreds of kilometers of bad roads and jungles. That's all you'll see for much of your journey. Just winding roads, flooded roads, bumpy roads and of course, Donnelly Rhodes (danger bay anyone?). With that in mind, we left with a car and driver, friends and family in tow. We hit the road to visit the "Cultural Triangle." The Cultural Triangle is, as best I can figure, a parallelogram of some sort. My "Lonely Planet - Sri Lanka" guide book is sufficiently vague on what the Cultural Triangle is, but basically most of ancient Sri Lankan Sinhalese history can be explored within a 90 km radius. The major ancient cities within the CT are Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura & Sigiriya

The first city we visited was Dambulla. The rock temple is very cool, set in the side of a mountain. There were monkeys everywhere but they were somewhat creepy. I can't quite put my finger on why, but they would just stare past you.

Right beside the base of the rock temple steps is a very gaudy "Golden Temple." I thought it looked out of place, and when I checked later, Lonely Planet explained that "this precinct has been distastefully commercialised with the construction of what is claimed to be the largest Buddha statue in the world, in the Dharmachakkra posture."

After Dambulla, we headed to Sigiriya, to climb the Sigiriya Rock Fortress. This is a view from the last steps up to the top of the rock. Around the 5th century, King Kasyapa carved a stronghold out of the rock in anticipation of an invasion by his half-brother (who wanted revenge for Kasyapa allegedly walling their father up in a palace). At the top there are a series of pools and gardens, and these feed down into various parts of the fortress.

The fog finally cleared out as we made our way out of the fortress, and here's the rock in all it's glory.

The next day we headed to Trincomalee; Koneswaram Kovil (temple) was the first stop.

There's nothing quite like a speedo. Recognized the world over as something that shouldn't be worn. And yet it persists. Anyway, this boat had just collapsed, and there was a big crowd forming ready to pull it onto the beach.

On the way back we saw a couple of safari trucks pulled over to the side. Apparently we had just missed a small herd of wild elephants crossing the road, but they were still visible through the brush. The combination of rain (as usual), low light, and a very low vantage point meant that this was the best shot I could get. Still, it was quite exciting to see elephants roaming about.

Sri Lanka