March 11th and 12th 2013 Sigiriya and Kandy

Imagine a 150-metre high rock rising suddenly and solitary from a vast green plain - Sigiriya, build by a king in the 5th century AD who had killed his father to gain the throne, and was so unpopular that he moved his capital to a defensible location. Formal gardens, pools and fountains are laid out symmetrically with bubbling springs from the rock’s base.  Back in the 6th century AD this is what a visitor would have seen as well as the  rock’s westerly face covered in 500 frescoes of bare- breasted women, each festooned in flowers and jewels. On a nearby polished “mirror wall,” visitors in the next century were writing couplets and quatrains, graffiti-style, describing their responses on seeing the women.

Remaining Lion's paw 2/3rds up

The remains of a palace/ monestary (debate continues) rests on the summit, once accessible by walking from a terrace halfway up the rock through mammoth, stone-cut lion’s paws, then through the lion’s gaping mouth. In the far distance, earthen ramparts and a moat surround the whole complex.

Leslie first came here with her family in the early 1960s and Sigiriya made a lasting impression - the paintings and the scary circular staircase. The 20 remaining paintings she saw are still well preserved and continue to be under debate whether they are portraits of the Queens and courtesans of  King Kassapa, or because they are arising from the clouds, are they Buddhist goddesses, representations of the goddess Tara, or of Cloud and Lightning goddesses, or more lowly apsaras? Were they meant to be seen only from below? Many questions never to be fully answered but much debate.

David climbed all the way to the top and toured the ruins of the palace/monestary and Leslie got 3/4 of the way up and turned around...the gaps in the stairs let you see too much of the distance to fall for her piece of mind. She was braver the first visit - it made a lasting impression though. The humditiy and heat had definately kicked in by the time we finished the tour.

We were back at our hotel by 11 am to shower and change before we traveled to Kandy, stopping en route for lunch. Kandy was the last capital of Sri Lanka and the palace of the last king. Our hotel is called Hilltop Hotel, and it is a cut above the one in Sigiriya, with a better AC, a shower stall to keep in the water, and even a blanket for the bed.

We attended a cultural show featuring typical Kandy costumes and dances, although some of the performers were older and out of shape. The fire dance, dances with masks, warrior dances, and later walking on hot coals, were some of the highlights of the show. The family had gotten a large snake mask as worn by the dancer in the red.  The snake is for protection.

According to a legend, the origins of the dance form lies in an exorcism ritual known as the Kohomba Kankariya, which was originally performed by Indian shamans who came to the Island. This explains why we did not see any similarities with Indian, Khymer or other Asian dance forms we have seen (eg, hand positions, head movements, eye movements).



Ceiling detail of elephants and lotus flowers

Next morning we left at 9 AM for the Temple of the Tooth Relic, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and one of two sites believed to contain a tooth of the Buddha. The tooth was discovered after the cremation of the Buddha’s body, and was kept by various kings in India until one king was worried that the tooth would be destroyed by powerful neighboring Hindu kings, and so sent it to Sri Lanka with a senior monk, believing it would be safer on the Buddhist island than on the predominantly Hindu Indian subcontinent. The Sri Lankan king accepted the tooth and took responsibility for keeping it safely, putting it in a stupa with many other treasures.  Subsequent kings moved the tooth relic as they shifted capitals, each one building suitable monuments for the tooth, until the last kings moved the relic to their capital at Kandy. We saw the room where the tooth relic is kept, with many Buddhist worshippers bringing offerings, mainly flowers, to place in front of the room. Drummers provide music three times a day when the room is opened.  We toured the impressive buildings around the relic, where several hundred people were killed in the late 1980’s when Tamil separatists bombed the complex. Security is still fairly tight, although the Tamil separatist movement was defeated several years ago.

New Shining Room at the Temple of the Tooth Relic

We went to batik and wood-carving shops, which was interesting, although we had seen similar work in Indonesia and Thailand, with some difference.  The ladies making batik were interested in Leslie’s samples of batiks she used in her quilting projects. Here they use napthalene, then salt water to soak the cotton in first before putting the fabric in the color bath (20 minutes each soak). While most of the batik fabrics were as paintings, there was one "crackle" technique that would be of interest if you were interested in creating your own batik fabric for quilting.

The wood carving shop wa used a number of different woods to carve from, some of which are native only to Sri Lanka, one of which is the miracle known here as "rainbow wood". Our guide took shavings from a small piece of this wood and added hot water to it - instant red! If you reduce this you can use it as red paint. But then he carried on! If you dunk a piece of iron in this mixture - instant black paint! If you took this and added a squeeze of fresh lime it turned an instant yellow! If you then added chalk you got instant purple! We had not seen this before and it was interesting to see how they use this on wood as paint.

After lunch at a place for tourist buffets, we toured the impressive Arboretum, seeing many trees, giant bamboo forests, and also many giant fruit bats and some interesting birds, including a Blue-Throated Flycatcher and pair of Flame Minivets.