No Fixed Abode: Buddhas of all shapes and sizes

Tue 19 Apr 2016 - Aukana Buddha and Polonnaruwa Ruins

We had a lot to do today so we were up and out and in the car by 0800. First stop the rail station to book train tickets for a few days time.

The Sri Lankan railways were installed by the British during their reign and the station was a fine Victorian affair that would have looked at home in any English town. Glenn went to the ticket office with Nana (our driver) in case there were any language issues but all the staff spoke good English. Standing at the beautiful mahogany framed aperture with lovely brass bars, so Victorian, he discovered the 2nd class reserved coach was full so had to settle for 3rd class. Not sure what the difference will be but the grand total was £4 for each journey.

Our next stop was the Aukana Buddha, a few km away. Nana had asked Glenn to follow the GPS on his phone so he sat in front, phone in hand. The GPS has a habit of taking the most direct route and after a short foray down some VERY minor roads we hit the main highway and were off. Many kms later we were directed to turn off and tracked cross country through jungle, past lakes and rocky outcrops - Sri Lanka really is rather pretty.

A couple of km from the village of Aukana Glenn announced, optimistically, that we should start looking for signs to the Buddha when Nana stated he knew it was near here - not sure why he hadn't said that at the start of the day. After asking for directions a couple of times we arrived at the monastery entrance and climbed up the granite steps to its entrance. Once shed of our shoes we hot footed, literally, across the hot rock to the statue, which stands over 11m high and was hewn from the surrounding cliff (like Mt Rushmore) in the fifth century. It’s massive and in such good condition - so impressive. Regretfully just last year the nice folks from Unesco built a large steel roof over it to protect it, though as it’s lasted 1500 yrs it seems a little wasteful and totally ruins the ambience of the place. We spent a while marvelling at the craftsmanship and the amount of rock that has been removed with whatever simple tools back then. Truly amazing.

Back with Nana we set off for Polonnaruwa, the second capital city that the ancient Sinhalese built after the fall and sacking of Anuradhapura. Nana advised us that we only needed a couple of hours to see Polonnaruwa and he knew of a National Park on the way where could go on an elephant safari - so off we went.

Arriving at a roadside halt we spoke with a sharp looking Sri Lankan who offered us a 2.5 hr safari or a 30 min elephant ride. Looking at the time we realised we couldn’t afford the 2.5 hrs so opted for the elephant ride. The photos had shown people sitting astride an elephant that was wading through a lake surrounded by various wildlife but following a short walk from the road we came to a beat up area with a rather sorry looking elephant standing in the corner. The mahout unchained him and led him to have the seating carriage fixed to his back then he came and stood with his head against the wall of the mounting point. Seeing the chafe marks from the chains around his neck we reluctantly boarded. Then we were off, slowly swaying with the elephant’s gait. A few metres into the walk a guy appeared offering to sell us a bag of cucumbers, which, he told us, the elephants love. We declined and proceeded on our way pursued by one of the crew snapping photos like crazy with our camera. Occasionally the elephant stopped and, at a command shouted by the mahout, posed with his trunk lifted. We did wade through the edge of a lake and see a few birds but to be honest the whole thing definitely took on the feel of a tourist jaunt. At the end we were pleased to dismount the poor creature and vowed never to do such a thing again. We were shown to the side of the elephant where at least we could offer it our sympathy and refused to pose with it for more photos. When they suggested we might like to offer a tip we strongly declined noting that we’d overheard another guy making a deal with some locals for a lot less than we’d been charged.

Remorsefully we returned to the car and set off for Polonnaruwa. After buying our tickets we hired a guide, as recommended by other bloggers, and started our tour of the city, which our guide told us should take four hours but he would cram in the highlights in the three remaining to us. We now regretted the elephant ride even more.

The Polonnaruwa site, while not as extensive as Anuradhapura, is much better preserved and we set off round the citadel palaces at breakneck speed. We zipped around the first palace but after bombarding our guide with questions we managed to get him to slow down to a our pace. The site dates from around 1000 AD and shows some remarkable technology including squat toilets with stone channels that feed into stone septic tanks - better than modern Vietnam!

Marvelling at the hydraulic engineering of the various bathing pools and decorative ponds we proceeded around a couple more palaces then drove through the outer city walls, which were over 3m thick, 6.5km in length and estimated to have been at least 10m high. Along with all the buildings these guys made a serious amount of bricks!

Heading down what would have been the main entrance road we passed the remains of dozens of trade stalls, not dissimilar to modern Sri Lankan towns, until we came to the remains of a large monastery with several large temples, one of which was heavily fortified to protect the tooth relic, which is now held in Kandy, it once housed.

Back in the car we drove a long way out of the main ruins to an isolated site only recently discovered and still covered in scaffolding and a protective roof. Inside the ancient image house of Pilimage Thivanka was something very special, some wall paintings from the 10th century. In places they are very well preserved and quite amazing. A real treat.

On our way back to the main complex we pulled over and followed our guide along a footpath into the jungle. It led to the most recent find of all, still mostly buried and currently under archaeological excavation was an enormous partly complete stupa some 200m in diameter. The archaeologists have only uncovered a thin cross sectional slice that shows the brickwork layers so they have a massive task ahead of them.

With those two surprises behind us we visited the main event - the rock carvings. Like the Aukana Buddha these four Buddha figures have been hewn from a cliff face. While not as large they are all in different poses and equally impressive, especially a small seated figure that sits inside a man made cave complete with decorative pillars supporting the roof - all carved from solid rock.

As the sun sunk low in the sky we had a quick tour of a large university monastery with accommodation for 1000 student monks and their tutors. The central feature is a large temple with the remains of a large brick and plaster standing Buddha. It would have had seven storeys of viewing galleries.

Lastly, as the sun began to set, we took a ride along the edge of a huge lake which our guide informed was man made. The road ran along the top of a vast embankment, which retained the water, and we passed over two of three large canals that take the water to irrigate rice fields several km away. He then told us that the lake we could see was only a third of the actual lake! It’s difficult to believe how something so vast could have been built so long ago.

After dropping our guide off we still had over 20 km to our homestay - mostly along jungle roads where wild animals roam in the darkness. Nana drove carefully coming at one point to a bit of a commotion where we found a wild elephant wandering down the side of the road.

At the end of a long day we found our homestay after much searching, at the end of a long dirt track. Somewhat sceptically we entered but were surprised to find a lovely modern house with a detached bedroom block - all newly built with modern fittings. Our host was able to quickly rustle us up a lovely dinner before we retired in readiness for another early morning.