Visit the ‘Sri Dalada Maligawa’ – the Temple of the Tooth. See the grandeur of a temple besides a royal courtyard, adorned with the most valuable gems & protected by the spiritual energy of the guardians. The tooth of Lord Buddha lying in state to remind Buddhist pilgrims as to how far the 8 fold path has brought us over the last 2 millenniums to where we are today.Feel the energy of the holy presence of goodness, what is right and the path to love, compassion, truth, freedom and the path to the Ultimate Reality. See how suffering was brought to an end by simply being the Observer instead of the victim in the now, in the presence of the Source.
Check out the deserted Beaches, the enticing blue sky & golden sand holding the aquamarine sea in the center. In the vastness are water sports enthusiasts having fun with scuba diving, snorkeling, wind surfing, Jet Skiing or simply watching the scene.
As the sun makes all life possible, it can perhaps enable one to get a tan being horizontal on one of the lovely beaches in Negombo, one of the island’s scintillating shores.
Besides,Negombo is a busy fishing Village, with its hive of activity offers a wide variety of fish and other seafood to a large number of hotels & consumers in Town & other towns in the neighborhood. Colonial & Christian influences have left behind numerous pretty monuments & buildings with attractive architecture & grace. A large lagoon, Sea & other waterways welcome anyone with a fishing rod & bait to fish while relaxing in the old fashioned way. The water enables a substantial catch of fish for the professional fishermen, in order to supply an increasing demand for seafood by large hotels in Negombo & adjacent settlements.
The Old Dutch Canal passing through from the north to the south enabled convenient transport of seafood from the very olden days. Still it is an alternative mode of transport of goods & people, especially when the highways get jammed.
This is the safest way to observe wildlife in the wilderness, in a protected Jeep Safari. Certainly a good choice, as Uda Walawe National Park is pretty non-touristic, it is a cut above the well traversed Yala or Wilpattu Wildlife National Parks. There are more chances of spotting the wild leopards in the Uda Walawe National Wildlife Park than the other Parks, because it’s out of the way from the roads & highways of the geographical area that most tour itineraries are conducted. This is the reason why this Park is not too crowded, which implies that it is more suitable for spotting wildlife.
The only one of its kind in the geophysical area of the south Indian Peninsula & this resplendent island taken as a discrete part of the world. The closest other Rain Forest is in the Malaysian Peninsula across the ocean. The Sinharaja Rain Forest Reserve supports & sustains an abundance of creatures from reptiles like lizards & turtles, mammals like deer & buffalo, amphibians like Salamander & Iguana & birds like turkey & ducks to aquatic beings like fish & squid in addition to numerous varieties of tropical vegetation. It is an enchanting sanctuary to be with nature & ‘listen’ to the natural environment swarming with life as we know it. Though there are numerous other life forms which we look at, but fail to ‘see’. An absolutely absorbing experience to find out for one, the numerous intricacies of the instincts of nature is all here in its magnificence.
The capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo is located on the west coast of the island 25 km south of Negombo & 100 km north of the former Portuguese capital Galle. It has since recently opened its new tower to enable a Birdseye view of the surroundings by building the ‘Lotus Tower’. Built to take a panoramic or King’s view of the city, it’s the 19th tallest in the world & 260 meters above sea level with plenty of entertainment facilities including a digital art gallery. The Colombo Museum exhibits some of the numerous artifacts unearthed during archeological excavations & whatever was left over by the Colonial masters at the time of their handing over of the country after SL gained independence. The Water Park located at Avissawela is a happening place especially for kids & the young-at-hearts to have fun playing with numerous water rides, water polo & other watery games. The Colombo City has been settled on a natural estuary full of water with lakes, canals, rivers, lotus ponds and other waterways, by the Portuguese, the Dutch & the British.
This is an ancient city of a remarkable archaic civilization located in dry zone plains of this resplendent isle
Besides the stone sculptures of the ‘Stone Temple ‘ or ‘Gal Vihara’ complex, where the Standing Buddha, Reclining Buddha & the Buddha in the ‘Lotus’ position, all of them sculptured out of one rock hill, Moonstone – ‘Sandakata Pahana’ & numerous other carvings & ancient ruins of the glorious past. Vatadage, Royal Palaces, Kiri Vehera Dagoba, Rankoth Vehera Stupa, Minneriya National Park etc. are the other attractions.
An intriguing engineering feat of those primordial luminaries, is the construction of irrigation canals, streams, brooks, creeks, tributaries, viaducts, dams, sluice gates etc. to distribute water to a massive surface area exceptionally far from the base, by the least drop of elevation from where the water is fetched, in other words, taking the least drop of a few meters of altitude from the reservoir to the fields. This had been done without the use of modern equipment or machines, simply with hand held implements.
According to Historians, Sigiriya Lion Rock is a Rock Fortress of King Kasyappa during the 12th Century BC. However, it appears that it was used by previous Monarchs such as King Ravana as an airstrip to get his aircraft airborne& a temporary camp. An remarkable place to reckon with, a palace garden remains atop the boulder sitting on a rocky hill with water stored in moats, at the base ready to be pumped, deploying a sophisticated hydraulic system, which is ‘intriguingly futuristic’ back in that time. The visitor passes the royal gardens with trenches of water, ancient flower beds still as lively as new ones. Going up the high steps one enters the courtyards through the ‘Lion’s mouth, a large granite carving. From the courtyards one goes up around the boulder to where the Frescos & the mirror walls are. On the ‘rooftop’ it appears pleasant as everything a monarch should want like an amphitheater to convene meetings with the council, dining facilities, rooms to rest, bathing places, lookout points at the edges, etc. are there replete with nothing overlooked. If a roof is fixed over the columns the ‘palace rocks’, as lively as anything alive. On the way down past the ‘Lion’s Mouth’ the exit is to the left, then one passes the ‘Amphitheatre’ and just about 10 meters down is a Stone carving entirely flat, the size of a University blackboard, long but not perpendicular, its slanted to about 30o with a pedestal at the bottom to sit or stand on. The dept. of Archeology & National guides are at a loss to decipher as to what it could have been. The traveler is given the honor to find out what it could’ve been used for.
The Rangiri Dambulla Rock Temple is full of numerous Murals, Carvings & Statues of Lord Buddha and his “hero’s journey”. It is a must see attraction located in the dry zone plains north of Kandy and Matale.
A small ascent up a rock hill with steps carved into the rock takes one to an awesome viewpoint from where a 180′ view of the flat plains below is there in all its beauty.
That’s where the entrance to the largest cave temple is. Inside are incredible art work done in the name of the Lord. Any exaggeration is sinful, so it left for the visitor to see, capture & be astounded by the craftsmanship.
Besides the luxuriously built Dutch Fort, is the kind of unassuming old town located across the main road. It is packed with shops of groceries, clothing, shoes, & so on. There is an open air Market to buy fish, meat, vegetables, spices etc. situated in between a road going into the interior and the ‘Indian Ocean Blvd’. The ancient bazaar contains one of the oldest produce markets in order to supply goods to the capital and other distant destinations. It is a must see as this old town exhibits a variety of vivid medieval architecture of the old Ceylon &old fashioned to be slow moving to match the appealing charisma, but somehow simply pleasant.
Visit the 8 Buddhist Temples that every Traveller should visit in Anuradhapura which are : 1. The Jaya Sri Maha Bodiya – Holy Shrine & site of the first sacred Bo tree 2. Thuparamaya – Monastery for the diligent monks 3. Lovamahapaya – Brazen Palace with a bronze roof 4. Ruwanvelisaya, 5.Mirisaveti. 6. Abayagiri, 7. Jetavanaramaya,. 8. Lankaramaya. Besides these holy sites there are awesome gardens, stone carvings, paintings, inscriptions, ancient ruins, herb gardens, royal spas, tanks & vats to collect water &streams, canals & viaducts to convey water to distant fields at the minimum of the drop in elevation, royal courtyards & mysterious inscriptions &drawings that arouse the curiosity of the visitor.
Discover the teeming survival of life forms other than mammals such as Crocodiles, Water Monitors, Alligators, Iguanas, Tortoise, Frogs and Birds in the river basin of ‘Nilwala Ganga’ in this Tropical Paradise of creatures.
Watch how matter of the prey becomes the energy of the predators and the energy of the predators convert back into the nature as matter as the game of survival takes place during our observation of numerous processes of the natural environment as these creatures live side by side even if we aren’t watching.
As the heat of the sun beams the ideal temperature into the water and the swamp full of creatures teeming with lifein the Nilwala Riverside basin numerous tropical life continue to live, reproduce, breathe and exist on their path of survival. We’re compelled to inspect this nature here in silence as life goes on in perfect harmony as if time has managed to somehow stand still in this space of the river and the surrounding estuaries where the reptiles, amphibians and birds live essentially on a diet of amoeba, plankton, bacteria, fungus, fish, insects and numerous other amazing creatures which become edible matter to be used in the conversion into energy.