Day Two - Anaruadhapura- the cultural triangle of SL

A touch of culture today visiting two World Heritage sites.  The first site visited was the WHS of Anuradhapura. The first capital city in ancient Sri Lanka. A huge archaeological site dating back to the first century.  

(Hard to show the scale of this as it's forbidden to take photo with your back to the Buddha)

One of four large temples (stupa) on this site - each one getting bigger as we went along. 

Intrepid travellers in front of the Elephant Pond. 

Part of the Refectory - trough used to keep the rice hot for the monks. The start of buffet lunch! 

We learnt about the perfect bubble shape for the stupas, Buddhist carvings, Buddhist enscriptions.  Our guide is very knowledgeable and gave us a breakdown of everything single thing we saw - with us hoping we'd not be questioned at the end. 

The second WHS site we visited was at Dambulla and the cave temples. 

All very Disney like!  Climbed loads of steps and came to the Royal Rock Temple - 5 separate caves containing about 150 amazing Buddha statues and paintings. 

Allowed to look, photograph but not touch! 

Back to hotel at 6.30pm, rush to change for dinner and sleep!  Up to meet Mahesh at 8.30am to climb the big rock, Lion Rock, 200m high, which is visible from our hotel bar. 

Goodnight!