After a leisurely breakfast of string hoppers (nests of
boiled rice noodles), dhal, coconut sambol and chicken curry we set off on the 80km
journey to Polonnaruwa.
Ravi drove us across the northern plain, mostly agricultural
land displaying a rich variety of greens, from the luminous light green of the
paddy fields to the darker hues of the coconut palms. This year's monsoon had
been particularly wet and a little late, so there were large areas of wetlands
where we stopped to watch egrets and ibis.
 |
Water Lilies - the egrets and ibis are there somewhere, too
Northern Plain, Sri Lanka |
Beyond the straggling village of Habarana we paused for a
coconut. We had become devotees of the ‘coconut break’ in Southern India a few years ago; cheaper, healthier and more
hygienic than morning coffee, coconut water is a superbly refreshing drink on a
blisteringly hot day. Indian drinking coconuts are large and green,
in Sri Lanka they are yellow and outwardly much smaller, though there is at
least as much liquid within.
 |
| Coconut break near Habarana |
Indian coconut sellers have the alarming habit of
holding the coconut in one hand and hitting it with a machete held in the other.
The more circumspect Sri Lankans usually place the coconut on a tree stump.
 |
| The less alarming Sri Lankan way to machete a coconut |
Looking across part of the Minneriya National Park we
thought we could see one of their many elephants, though using binoculars to tentatively
identify something the size of an elephant suggests it was not close. Wild elephants
are not confined to the national park and local farmers build tree houses from
where they guard their crops at night from bands of marauding elephants.
 |
| We did not need binoculars to see this domesticated elephant |
The artificial lake at Minneriya was created in the third
century AD, and the availability of so much water for irrigation was the start
of Polonnaruwa's rise to prominence. For six hundred years it was an occasional
royal residence of the kings of
Anuradhapura. As the expansionist Indian Chola Empire
regularly sacked Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa's greater distance from India, rich
agriculture and trading links through the port of Trincomalee made it
increasingly important.
The Cholas ruled southern India for a thousand years
from around 300BC to 1279. Emperor Raja Raja I invaded Sri Lanka in 993 and
sacked Anuradhapura so comprehensively the city was abandoned. With Polonnaruwa as their capital, the Cholas
ruled northern Sri Lanka for 80 years. Vijayabahu I inherited the southern
kingdom in 1050 and after a long and ultimately successful campaign to remove the
Cholas he ruled a united island from 1070 to his death in 1110.
 |
| Sri Lanka |
Polonnaruwa was the Sri Lankan capital for the next 200
years. During this time there were over a hundred kings, only Vijayabhau, Parakramabahu
I (ruled 1153-86) and Nissankamalla (ruled 1187-96) survived long enough to
provide any stability and they were responsible for much of the building.
In the late thirteenth century marauding Tamils made it time
for the capital to move on again and Polonnaruwa was swallowed up by the jungle
until it was dug out again in the mid-twentieth century.
There is little of modern Polonnaruwa, but there is a museum
beside an artificial lake, and there we hired an official guide and paid
another £16 entrance fee.
The museum has the usual collection of stonework and
statues, mainly Buddha images but also a few Hindu gods, including the ever-popular elephant-headed Ganesh. Models of the main buildings were, perhaps, the star
exhibits. The palaces once had six or seven storeys, but only the stone-built lower
storeys survive. In the models the wooden floors above and the roofs that covered the dagobas have been reconstructed.
The huge site is surrounded by an ancient wall and, directed by
our amiable new guide, who spoke excellent English, Ravi drove us through this
outer wall to the heavily restored inner wall around the 'Royal Palace Group'.
This is a blog, not a guide book; what follows is not a
comprehensive description of this vast site, it is merely a record of what
caught our interest.
Parakramabahu I, known as The Great, built the Royal Palace
which, according to a 13th century chronicle, had seven storeys and a thousand
rooms. The latter figure is undoubtedly an exaggeration, but the number of
storeys… who knows? Three storeys survive; there are holes for the beams which
supported the upper stories and plenty of evidence of the fire that destroyed
them.
 |
| The Royal Palace, Polonnaruwa |
The nearby Council Chamber also lacks its roof, but the
columns on which it stood remain.
 |
| Council Chamber, Polonnaruwa |
You can cross the moonstones, climb the steps.....
 |
The steps up to the Council Chamber with two moonstones (the carved semi-circular stones on the threshold)
Polonnaruwa |
.....
and imagine you are waiting to give the king the benefit of your boundless
wisdom.
 |
| Ready to advise the king, Council Chamber, Polonnaruwa |
Another set of steps descends to the Royal bath, which must
have been impressive in its time, though now it looks like the bathwater needs
changing.
 |
| The Royal Baths, Polonnaruwa |
A little north of the Palace Group, ‘The Quadrangle’ is the
religious heart of Polonnaruwa.
The Vatage, or Circular Image House, is the most notable
building with intricately carved moonstones and seated Buddhas marking the
cardinal points. It was also built by Parakramabahu, with embellishments by
Nissankamalla, who tinkered with a number of buildings and always left an inscription
to claim the credit for his work - and everyone else’s.
 |
| Seated Buddha in the Vatage, the Circular Image House, The Quadrangle, Polonnaruwa |
A long-vanished upper storey probably enshrined the Tooth of
the Buddha. The sacred relic had been brought from Anuradhapura; its presence
(until modern times) defined the island’s capital.
Several other image houses adorn the Quadrangle, including
the Atage , built by Vijayabuha and one of Polonnaruwa’s oldest buildings, and
the Hatage. Both were probably intended to house the Buddha’s Tooth, any king worth
his salt would want their own Temple of the Tooth.
 |
| The Hatage, The Quadrangle, Polonnaruwa |
The Gal Pota, near the Hatage, is a 9m long granite slab
densely covered with inscriptions praising Nissankamilla, including a dramatic
bigging up of his very modest military expeditions in India. Known as
Nissankamilla the Vainglorious, he worked hard to live up to the title. The 25t
stone was brought 90km from
Mihintale, though there seems nothing special about
it that would justify so much effort.
 |
| Gal Pota, The Quandrangle, Polonnaruwa |
In the corner by the Gal Pota is the Satmahal Prasada. It is
unlike any temple anywhere else in Sri Lanka and is conjectured to be the work
of Cambodian craftsmen, but nobody really knows.
 |
| Satmahal Prasada |
The Lotus Mandapa, also the work of Nissankamilla, faces the
Hatage….
 |
| The Lotus Mandapa, The Quadrangle, Polonnawura |
…while in front of it is a statue traditionally believed to be a likeness
of Vijayabahu, though it may actually be a Bodhisattva.
 |
Possibly a statue of Vijayabahu I - and possibly not
The Quandrangle, Polonnawura |
Ravi drove us a little way north from the Quadrangle and a little
off the main drag, to see first the Pabula Vihara - a dagoba reputedly built by
one of the wives of Parakramabahu and turned into a strange two-tier hump by
restoration work - ….
 |
| Pabula Vihara, Polonnaruwa |
,,,and then, a little further from the road, the Shiva
Devale no 2. A Hindu temple and the oldest surviving structure in Polonnaruwa, it
dates from the Chola occupation and is entirely Indian in style.
 |
| Shiva Devale No. 2, Polonnaruwa |
Back on the main drag we paused by the Rankot Vihara. Built
by Nissankamalla, it is, at 55m, the largest dagoba in Sri Lanka outside
Anuradhapura.
 |
| The Rankot Vihara, Polonnaruwa |
Gal Vihara, the Stone Shrine is a little further north and
consists of four Buddha statues carved from a single granite outcrop, two
seated, one standing and a 14m long reclining Buddha.
 |
| Gal Vihara, Polonnawura |
The carving, some of the finest
in Sri Lanka, is from the time of Parakramabahu. One of the seated Buddha’s is
in an iron cage and the whole ensemble is covered by a corrugated iron awning.
I appreciate that ancient and delicate carvings need to be protected from the
elements, but there must be a less ugly way to do it.
 |
| Gal Vihara, Polonnawura |
We were flagging, but decided to make one more visit, to the
Lotus Pool at the northern end of the city. Apart from its unusual shape there
is not a lot to say about it. It was probably used as a ritual bath by those
entering the city.
 |
| The Lotus Pool, Polonnaruwa |
It was now two o'clock, well past the time when this man’s
thoughts turn to lunch. We had been in Polonnaruwa for almost three hours and
although we had seen most of the major sights, we had by no means seen
everything - and I have not described everything we saw. To examine every rock
and ruin we would require weeks, not hours, but we had had our fill; it was
time to move on.
Ravi drove us back the way we had come. At any moment I
expected him to pull into a restaurant forecourt, but he kept on driving. We
passed back through Habarana. In October 2006, a hamlet on this next section
of road had been the site of the Habarana massacre. A Tamil Tiger suicide
bomber blew up an explosive laden truck among a convoy of buses carrying naval
personal. Over 100 were killed, including several local civilians, and many
more injured.
Eventually Ravi stopped. Concerned that the restaurant
should be clean, he was over-fussy about where we ate, though food hygiene
standards in Sri Lanka are generally good, certainly much higher than in
southern India. Inevitably we ate in a tourist oriented restaurant, but Lion
Lager dealt effectively with rehydration and I enjoyed my spicy omelette and
Lynne her chicken curry sandwich. Two American girls at a nearby table were
eating rice and curry washed down with Coca Cola, a flavour combination my
brain refuses to even contemplate.
Ravi had been keen that we should have an Ayurvedic massage
and had pointed out the best massage establishment when we passed through
Habarana in the morning, and said we would need to book. Lynne was not
interested, but I told him I was happy to revisit the experience - I had an Ayurvedic
massage in India in 2010. This conversation had apparently slipped his mind until
we were nearing Dambulla, but then he suddenly nipped down a side road that, twenty
winding minutes later, brought us back out in Habarana. We called into a complex of
thatched huts in a Buddha-strewn garden where I booked a massage for tomorrow and
we then set off back towards Dambulla. I suspect he was hoping we would not notice
the strange circular route. I did, but I said nothing.
 |
| Where to get a massage in Habarana |
We reached Dambulla this time, a dusty town we would pass
through a few times more. Beyond it we turned along a minor road and, a few
kilometres later, down a dirt track. It was hard to believe this was the approach
to a five star hotel.
 |
| The road to Kandalama |
Geoffrey Bawa (1919-2003) was Sri Lanka's pre-eminent architect.
Trained in London he was a 'modernist' but modified his approach on returning
to Sri Lanka and developed a style which became known as ‘tropical modernism’.
He is responsible for, among other buildings, the Sri Lankan parliament, the
University of Rahuna and several hotels. His most famous is the Heritance Hotel
by Kandalama Lake, and that was where we were headed.
 |
| The Heritance Hotel, Kandalama |
It is difficult to hide a building that is five storeys high
and over a kilometre long – it is reputedly the longest hotel in the world, but
we were there before we realised it. The Heritance Hotel faces Lake Kandalama
with its back to a rocky hillside. The abundant greenery sweeping down the hill
also sweeps over the hotel and the building of steel and glass somehow merges
into the jungle. Very keen on recycling and energy efficiency the hotel sets
out not just to be eco-friendly, but to merge into the eco-system.
 |
| The Heritance Hotel, Kandalama |
A ramp brought us up to the entrance and from reception we
were taken through to the pool bar for a welcome drink. Having entered on the
lake side I could not quite work out how the pool at the back also overlooked
the lake.
 |
| The Heritance Hotel pool and Kandalama Lake |
After our drink we were escorted down to the third floor -
the building plays games with your sense of space - and along the corridor to
our suite (yes, we had been upgraded!). Sometimes at the back of the building,
sometimes at the front, the wide corridor is open at the sides, giving views
across the lake or of the vines down the rock face. It was a long walk,
reception is in the centre of the building and our room was the last in the
wing, and in the evening, we were told, bats occasionally fly down the corridor
above you, but we did not see that.
 |
| Walking to our room, Heritance Hotel, Kandalama |
The suite consisted of sitting room/office, bedroom and a
luxurious bathroom, the spa bath with more controls than an airliner’s cockpit.
Lynne was disconcerted to find the bathroom had no blinds but as the picture
window looked out over only the jungle canopy I could not see that it mattered.
 |
The walk to our room
Looking over Kandalama Lake with the faint outline of Sigiriya Rock, our challenge for the next day |
We were warned about monkeys on the balcony – always lock up,
their little fingers will find a way in otherwise, and when they tap on the
glass in the morning do not open the door.
 |
| The view from our balcony, Heritance Hotel, Kandalama |
The dining room dress code was described as ‘smart casual’.
Wearing a sweaty tee-shirt and crumpled trousers – it had been a long hot day –
I asked for clarification. The very elegantly dressed young lady looked me up
and down with, I thought, justified contempt and then said, ‘as you are,’ which
put the emphasis heavily on ‘casual’ rather than ‘smart’.
I was ever so slightly smarter when we went to dinner. I do
not generally like hotel buffets, they can so easily turn a dining experience
into mere feeding, but I must admit this was a very good one. It was also expensive
- by Sri Lankan standards, though perhaps not by five-star hotel standards.
Sri Lanka, The Isle of Serendip
