3/9: Dambulla: Elephants on Jeep Safari

As Steven and I rightly figured that morning that our tour of the incredible Buddhist cave temples wouldn't take all day, he had gone online and found a company that could pick us up at our hotel in Dambulla in the early afternoon and take us on a private jeep safari to the nearby Minniriya National Park. Normally, we spend far more time than that researching tour options to optimize our chances of a good tour. 

We'd been on jeep safaris in both Kenya and South Africa several years ago and both those had guides that spoke English well. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case here at all with the driver and 'guide' as they seemed to think they only had to speak to each other in one of the Sri Lankan languages almost the entire time!

The park was located about 30 minutes away, near Sigiriya, which we'd gone to on our first afternoon to climb the mammoth Lion Rock.

We'd hoped to learn about the history and geography of the national park while on the lookout for elephants and other animals but we got no information at all. As I am sure you must have figured if you've read more than a few of my blog posts, I love facts and figures as they provide depth and context to what we travel so far to discover. In this situation, I was plumb out of luck as we knew no more after the tour than going on it!

After driving around on for about 45 minutes on some of the bumpiest roads we'd had the misfortune to travel on, the driver stopped the jeep when he spotted these baby Indian elephants in the brush. Surprisingly, the mama was nowhere in sight initially.

The elephants hardly paid us any attention when they first heard us approach, preferring to just go about munching the grass! We understood the 'guide' to say the bigger elephants were five years old and the baby one was just five months old. 

I think there were GPS trackers on the adult elephants' heads but I didn't understand why. Why were the rangers, whom we didn't see one, interested in tracking their movements, I would have loved to have known.

In the foreground were the same elephants and they were the focus of my shot. Only later did I notice the large rock or mini-mountain in the background! This area of central Sri Lanka was known for its large 'rocks.'

Unlike the national parks we'd been to in Africa, this one seemed very, very small. We encountered about a half-dozen other jeeps on our two-hour tour.

It was very neat going through the creek even if it was bumpy! Depending on your point of view, it was either lucky or unlucky we didn't spot any elephants bathing or drinking there!

Pretty spectacular tree but no idea what it was!

We could only guess this was another baby elephant and the driver hadn't gone around in circles so we were seeing the same ones again! It was a different experience watching the baby elephant once again just wander across the road to meet up with mama as we'd only seen babies with adults before.

This group of what we soon learned was five elephants had the tiniest baby.

Either my memory of those we saw in Africa is faulty (a distinct possibility!), we didn't see baby elephants there as young as these, or only baby Indian elephants have tusks - take your pick! 

This was the closest by far we'd been to elephants.

Thank goodness, neither of us suffers from bad backs as it would have been two plus hours of sheer torture on the park's roads as they were truly that bad.

Our driver and several other jeeps stopped at the bottom of a hill - no explanation as to why or what we'd see at the top. Oh well, we figured the exercise in the heat would be great, especially after climbing about 600 steps that morning to reach, and then descend from, the cave temples! 

We didn't know whether what looked like a hut at the top of the rock was a fire lookout or just an observation tower but it didn't matter. We climbed up to it anyway since that was clearly expected of us!

We met a mother and daughter who were touring Sri Lanka from Scotland on the viewing platform. It worked out great as we took each other's photos.

The views were pretty fabulous in every direction.

After leaving the observation tower, we spotted the backs only of water buffaloes in the pond just a few meters away.

Guess we didn't need to pay to have the 'luxury' of the jeep tour through the park as we saw these elephants beside the highway for free on the way back to Dambulla! Though the experience wasn't what we'd expected, on the plus side, we got to visit a national park that afternoon, were able to take in some pretty scenery, and saw our first Indian elephants in the wild so that was all good.

Next post: Heading north to Anuradhapura, home to the largest monuments ever constructed in the ancient world, exceeded only by the pyramids in Giza, Egypt!

Here's a link to my most recent post on our day exploring Edinburgh last fall near the tail end of our six-week vacation in Ireland and the United Kingdom:

https://bergersadventures7.blogspot.com/2020/05/103-edinburghs-national-gallery-witches.html

Posted on May 31st, 2020, from steaming Denver. Where or where has the month of May gone - May Day seems like yesterday. As I write this, I am so saddened by the death of George Floyd and the resulting pain and outrage that has spilled over onto the streets of America. My adopted country appears to be in edge; what will make this stop?

3/9: Dambulla's Dazzling UNESCO Cave Temples

Steven and I had arrived in the Sri Lankan Ancient City of Dambulla a couple of days previously but hadn't yet explored any of the city's sights so we made sure to rectify that our last day in town. We wanted to visit the magnificent Buddhist statues and murals in the cave complex that, like our trips to the nearby hugely impressive Sigiriya and Polonnaruwa, was another UNESCO World Heritage site. 

Because two rival monastic groups had sadly been fighting over legal control of the caves, the ticket office was situated at a very inconvenient spot at the bottom of the hillside that led up to the temples. That meant hiking up 364 steps to reach the main temple complex! Steven and I like to think we're in pretty good shape but that was a helluva lot of steps and even worse in the intense heat and high humidity with almost no shade!

We took the time to rest a couple of times on the way up so we could admire the panoramic views over to the great rock temple at Sigiriya 20 kms away.

Historians believe Dambulla was a place of worship since the 1st century BC when King Valagamba, expelled from Anuradhapura, sought refuge here. When he retook the throne, the interior of the five caves was carved into magnificent rock temples. Subsequent Kandyan kings and royal patrons added to and embellished the Buddhist images. This process of retouching original and creating new artwork continued until the last century.

After finally reaching the top, taking a well-earned breather, and then removing our shoes and covering our legs, we entered the main entrance gate.

The gate opened up to a vast internal courtyard where we saw the first of the caves, all located under a towering rock. Thankfully, a long corridor provided some welcome shade and cool access to the caves after the long hike up the mountain.

It was customary for Sri Lankan worshippers to bring flowers when visiting temples.

The first cave, Devaraja Viharaya aka Temple of the King of the Gods, was famous for its 15m-long reclining Buddha. The flower offerings had been left by the Buddhist faithful in front of Ananda, the Buddha's loyal disciple.

There were a fantastic number of seated and standing statues depicted nearby and exquisite ceiling decorations. I overhead a guide indicate the right hand held up indicated a belief in non-violence. 

We only just had time to marvel at the reclining Buddha and take a few photos before being ushered out of the cave!

You could almost forget walking along the long corridor that there were caves on the right-hand side because of the whitewashed walls in between the caves. See Steven wearing his very lightweight Brazilian beach coverup to cover his legs?!!

We had to wait a while while the second cave opened but the delay was well worth it. Maharaja Viharaya or Temple of the Great King was described as the most spectacular of the caves because of its two statues of kings and large size. 

Thank goodness we knew to also look up in each cave as the ceiling frescoes were as impressive as the statues and wall art. The frescoes had been painted so exquisitely over the uneven cave ceiling they almost looked a piece of fabric had been draped above our heads. We had to wonder how the sublime images had been painted in an age without artificial light.

We knew it was respectful never to turn our back on an image of Buddha so we had to back up carefully so as not to bump into fellow tourists or the prayerful in each cave. That wasn't easy as there were so many Buddhas in each cave!

Once the crowds dispersed a bit, we were able to view the cave's main Buddha statue, a painted wooden one of Valagamba that was covered in gold leaf that had been placed under an archway decorated with dragons. I read that the right hand was raised in the abhaya mudra pose which meant conveying protection. Perhaps the guide in the other cave had meant the same thing when he said the raised hand referred to non-violence.

The vessel collected water that constantly dripped from the ceiling even during droughts. It was protected because it was used for sacred rituals

I think this was the Nissanka Malla statue. but certainly not positive!

Even though these Dambulla caves were famous for their Buddhist statues and images, there were also large numbers of Hindu deities in the caves which I found very surprising. I saw no explanation of why there were images from another religion. Imagine visiting a Catholic church and simultaneously coming across representations of the Jewish faith inside!

Every inch of wall space was covered with detailed frescoes. It would have taken hours to properly really "see" and appreciate each one.

Cave III was known as Maha Alut Viharaya or the New Great Temple was said to have been converted from a storeroom in the 18th century by one of the last Kandyan monarchs. Even though the previous cave was regarded as "the best" I was most struck with the cave art in this cave from the moment we entered. There was just such a sense of peace and awe at the workmanship and love that spilled over into the statues and artwork on every surface even though we weren't Buddhists.

Just a few inches of the stunning ceiling:

I had to crane my head to take a shot of the ceiling in even greater detail!

You can see the wavy ceiling that was painted in such vibrant colors.

I've always thought of caves as being very chilly but this one was anything but - no idea why, though.

I wondered when the stunning dragons surrounding the main Buddha statue had been painted as they looked so new and bold.

Another beautiful reclining Buddha who lay just inches from the ceiling!

The stone pillow Buddha rested his head on looked so cushiony soft I could imagine nodding off on it, too!

Before venturing to Cave IV, we took in the serene lotus pond visible through the corridor's opening.

The grand entrance to one cave:

Cave IV's central Buddha figure in the relatively small Pachina Viharaya or Western Cave was posed under a makara torana or archway. Its cupped hands were in a meditative pose called dhyana mudra.

The dagoba or shrine in the center of the cave had been broken into by robbers who thought it held jewelry belonging to Queen Somawathie.

Cave V, called the Second New Temple or Devana Alut Viharaya, was the smallest cave.

It also contained a reclining Buddha, natch!

By the time we'd gotten to this last temple, we realized we hadn't left the best for last but instead had been totally spoiled by what we had just gawked at! The artistry in the other temples was of such brilliance it just took our breath away. 

As we left the caves, we were lucky to spot a holy man bestowing blessings on the faithful in the courtyard.

You can see from this shot of the entrance gate how it and the temples had been built directly into the mountain.

Rather than descending from the mountain top the way we'd climbed up, we walked down the opposite way toward the city of Dambulla.

What a breeze walking down the steps and past the rows of lovely trees that were just blooming. Several times I told tourists who were coming up the steps that this was not the way to come to buy tickets as the signage was so lousy on the Dambulla side for the cave temples. It was so stinking hot they appreciated finding out that they'd come the wrong way instead of climbing up all those steps and then learning the ticket office wasn't up at the entrance gate. Instead, they needed to go back down and all the way around to the ticket office - I kept thinking how we'd appreciate knowing we'd goofed, too!

The last couple of days, while exploring lots and lots of temples, we'd certainly seen plenty of monkeys as the two always seemed to go hand in hand. For some reason, however, there were none on the ascent but oodles on the descent!

The other reason we'd wanted to come down this way was to see the Golden Temple at the foot of the cave temple hill. The temple was certainly impressive for its size but it looked pretty kitschy compared to the grandeur of the remarkable paintings and sculptures in the cave temples. It had been completed in 2000 with donations from Japanese Buddhists.

The Buddha image was in the dhammachakka mudra or wheel-turning pose.

Next post: A jeep safari to Minniriya National Park that same afternoon.

I am also finally finishing up the posts on our trip last fall to Ireland and the UK - about time, I know! In case you want a change of pace and scenery from Sri Lanka, here's the link to my most recent post on exploring Edinburgh that I wrote three days ago, the day Steven and I joyfully discovered we'd become first-time grandparents!

https://bergersadventures7.blogspot.com/2020/05/103-edinburgh-royal-mile-new-town-new.html

Posted on May 27th, 2020, our son Alexander's 30th birthday and also the proud new dad!