Family Holiday (Day 24)

Had a breakfast this morning of fish curry, egg curry and string hoppers for the adults and eggs and toast for the children. We were finally able to explore the house and area and see the house and yard in the day light. Very beautiful. Many features of the house are concrete. The mattresses are on concrete risers. The table out on the patio area is a concrete table. The patio is as large as some houses and the eating area is out there. The patio has a sitting area the size of a large patio, then there is a large area covered with mats and throw pillows for relaxing under a ceiling fan. Only thing to obstruct the view/breeze are the columns. Our driver picked us up at 9 AM to go exploring. First stop was the oldest temple in Sri Lanka. The original building goes back to 300 BC and predated Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Three iterations of construction have occurred and only a small part of the original building is left. A walk way between the original building and second building had thousands of bats living under it. All of the girls heard the sounds when we walked into the wall area and immediately knew they were bats. When Mommy asked Cai why they squeaked like that he said “They can’t see so they use noise that bounces.” When asked if he remembered what that was called, he was thoughtful and answered, “Echo…echo….echo something.” At least some of the science lessons have kicked in. Our next stop was at the newest stupa being built in Sri Lanka. The President of Sri Lanka had sponsored the construction. People volunteered their time to build the stupa and all building materials were furnished. The guide said it is the first dedicated army in Sri Lanka’s modern history. Our next stop was a stupa with elephant statues all around the perimeter. The stupa is the largest in Sri Lanka. While there, the guide gave Tekla a blue water lilly flower, the national flower of Sri Lanka. Because we were walking barefoot around the temple area, most people headed back to shade because the granite was hot. However Tekla dared to accompany Daddy in a walk around the stupa. Afterwards, Tekla was even willing to pose near a monkey (after she was hissed at by a monkey in New Dehli, she has been apprehensive of them). The next stupa, only Daddy and the guide went due to everyones feet still hurting. This stupa use to be one of the most important and largest when it was built. The king at the time had the entire stupa enclosed under a roof. The tall columns seen in some of the photos would have supported the roof. Beside the stupa was another set of ruins. The only thing standing a few columns and a door frame. The guide explained that for centuries, that was the location of the Tooth of Buddha when the seat of the Kingdom was in Anurhadapura. The guide book says that the Tooth of Buddha was a sign of legitimacy to the Sinhalese kings. When Anurhadapure was sacked, the Tooth was moved to a new safe place. The current resting place is in Kandy, which we drove past the day before. (On a side note, the guide book also says that the Tooth of Buddha was taken by the Portugese when they finally conquered all of Sri Lanka. The Tooth was taken to Goa, India (a Roman Catholic/Hindu area, not a Budhist area) and ground to dust, burned, then cast into the sea. Sri Lankan Budhists are adamant that either: 1) a fake tooth was taken and the real tooth was kept safe, or 2) the tooth reappeared in Sri Lanka. Either way, the tooth has not been seen in over a century since a Western doctor saw the tooth while on display and said it was over three inches long and looked like a water buffalo tooth. But I digress.) Our next stop was at a monastic residential complex. The original complex would have housed 5,000 monks. The door frame has the most complete Moonstone threshold to be seen (moonstones are cut into half circles to bring out the shine, so a half circle mandolin is considered a moonstone mandolin. Next we went to see a temple complex Ratnaprusada Chapter House which still had one Guardstone left out of the original 5 story building. We next stop to look at a large stone Budha which had been broken when Anurhadapura was sacked. The statue had become buried and was eventually dug up and put on display. Abayagiriya was a large brick stupa that had become very run down. The stupa was originally built with bricks and mud in the first century BC, instead of bricks and mortar. At the time of its construction, the 245 foot tall stupa would have been one of the tallest buildings on earth (although some of the buidings of the time would have dwarfed them, the Great Pyramid was twice as tall). The mud of course would sprout seeds. After Anurhadapura was abandonded, the stupa had become completely over run with trees, bushes, and grass. Since being declared a UNSECO World Heritage Site, work was being done to clean up the stupa and the mud was scrapped away and replaced with mortar. While eating lunch at a restaurant buffet, we were able to see Mihintale, the site we will be going to see tomorrow. The afternoon consisted of playing cards and laying out oN the patio, trying to keep cool. Mommy and Daddy are debating whether to go to another national park tomorrow afternoon. We were able to see most of the major animals in Sri Lanka on our first safari. The second safari would be to see a leopard and/or a sloth bear. Decisions, decisions. Right now, we are waiting to see how tomorrow goes and how the kids are holding up.