Sri Lanka Day 28 (Anuradhapura): Cycling at Ancient City; UNESCO World Heritage

Started the day super early because the train scheduled would depart from Colombo at 6am, which meant that we had to leave Welisara at 5am, which also meant that I had to wake up at 4.30am. I slept rather late that night at around 12.00am so I only had 4.5h of sleep. ):

We left Misuki at 5am and even though we knew that the bus would have started operating at that hour, I was surprised that there were quite a few passengers too.

Reached the railway station on time and we sat on the wrong seats, thinking that we were supposed to get the first class seats but actually we didn’t know ours were 2nd class reserved seats.

HAHAHHA feel so bad for chasing the guy away. Anyway the train had a blackout and everyone had difficulty finding their seats!

To be honest, the train we took to Anuradhapura was in a rather bad condition and there wasn’t any difference between 2nd class reserved seats and 1st class seats to me. Usually, 1st class seats would have aircon but that did not happen for this. So instead of hoping to get some good rest on the train, I ended up watching videos because my seat was too straight and I couldn’t adjust it and the sun was shining in and the train was just too hot. I should have asked for the window seat instead but I didn’t know I would end up not sleeping and she ended up sleeping. Wanted to take photos of the paddy fields though. I tried to from my seat and I hope they looked fine.

Reached Anuradhapura at around 11am and took a tuktuk to Lievi’s Tourists. Had a hard time communicating with the people there for a change a room. The room was decent but it was super stuffy. Aircon will cost an additional of $8, quite ridiculous pricing I think so let’s just bear with it.

Rent a bicycle and off we go! Went to New Town and Seedevi Family Restaurant first for lunch and for LKR500, you get to enjoy a buffet. That is considered cheap but given the portion I ate, it was difficult to determine if it was worthwhile. I also got a 1.5 litres bottle there as well as a $0.50 banana cake. Total bill was only $7.40.

The staff were really friendly too! He even helped us to take photos.

Continued cycling to the ancient city of Anuradhapura. The pros of having a bicycle are that you would not be disturbed by tuktuk drivers, you would save a lot of transport and it was easier to sneak into the sacred city. The ticket to the different attractions cost LKR3250 per day, which is around SG$32.50 and usually tourists would just hire a tuktuk for the day to travel around the ancient city. It is quite huge and difficult to cover by feet. Bicycle is the best mode of transport there. We rented at a cost of $4 at the place we stayed for the whole day.

Here are the different attractions we went. We couldn’t really cover the whole area because some attractions would have tickets checked and that we really didn’t have the time to. It was interesting at first but slowly you would realise that the stupas all looked the same and it was almost impossible to differentiate them. The pictures turned out very similar as well.

Sri Sarananda Maha Pirivena, where we took a lot of photos of the tree, thinking that it was the famous Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi but we found out later that it wasn't. HAHHAHA.

Isurumuniya Vihara, where you have to get a separate ticket apart from the $32.50 one to enter. Just a small fee of LKR200 + tips for the boy who looked after your shoes.

Climbed a small Isurumuniya rock and this is the view of the place you will get. The climb is definitely not as tough as Mihintale as it wasn't as high (I will blog about Mihintale in the next post) and so the view will understandably be not as nice

This is the Bo-tree, which is still not the famous tree we were looking for.

Walked to the back of the Isurumuniya temple and you will see the steps leading to Thissa Wewa, which was really beautiful.

We passed by the construction side of Sandahiru Seya. It was really interesting to see that the construction is rather manual. A little bit about Sandahiru Seya, the government has planned to erect nine monumental Stupas in each province of the country in appreciation of the noble service rendered by the armed forces and police to defeat terrorism and bring lasting peace to the country. As the first phase of the project, construction of this first Stupa in the ancient city of Anuradapura is being underway on the directions of Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa. You can see the artistic impression in the first photo.

Next we went to the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi (yes, finally the right tree). It is the the world’s oldest authenticated tree. From the same entrance, you will get to Lovamahapaya, the Brazen Palace, as well as the Ruwanwelisaya Stupa. You can even get to Jethawanaramaya Dagoba but we didn't know and entered from the other side.

Brazen Palace because the roof was covered with bronze tiles. Total of 40 rows, each row consisting of 40 stone pillars and believed that it took 6 years for the construction of the building and the plan was brought from heaven. The building was completely destroyed and small building seen today is late construction.

Ruwanwelisaya Stupa is the most ancient stupa in Sri Lanka

Some ruins in front of the Ruwanwelisaya Stupa

Mirisaveti Stupa

We then cycled to Jetavanarama. The first route we took brought us to the ticketing area and the guy was asking to check our ticket but since we didn't have the ticket, we just acted like we accidentally cycled to this area. so we took the other route instead, which is the outer route. It was longer but we managed to sneak into that monastery without the ticket.

Jethawanaramaya Dagoba is one of the tallest structures in the ancient world. Currently the largest with base area of 233,000m2 with 93.3 million baked bricks used in construction. It is a must-go for Anuradhapura and usually introduced in Sri Lanka documentary.

It was a pity that I couldn't get a full photo of it because my camera was down and the focal area of my phone is limited.

Last attraction we went for the day was Thuparama Dhagaba. A local followed us but we were able to ditch him with our limited experience with the locals here.

On our way back, many many cows blocked the road and we had to cycle through them. I was so scared taht I would bang into them or stepped on their tails. Something I noticed was that all the cows were branded maybe as an indication of ownership.

Cycled back at around 6pm and we cycled pass the night market. The market was really lively! Really wanted to go in and check it out but the road was blocked and so no vehicle can enter (by right). By left, we saw a lot of Tuktuk, bicycles and motorcycles going through but unluckily, the police’s eyes were already on us and so we had no choice but to park our bicycle somewhere even though the road actually led to our accommodation. Clothes were really cheap at around LKR100-200. I bought my dinner there hahahhaah and they got me the diarrhea. Both had curry potatoes inside like how curry puffs are in Singapore. The outsides were different for both, where one was prata and the other was deep-fried.

The hotel had no water heater but I was fine with it because I was sweating like crazy. Came out after bathing and started sweating too because of the stuffy room.

So we had to choose between covering the Abhayagirya Monastery and Mihintale. Kept calculating to see if it was possible for us to cover both before the train ride at 1pm. In the end, we decided to go ahead with Mihintale only because we have no idea if we are able to enter into the Monastery since online tourist guides mentioned that tickets would be checked there and time wasn’t on our side. It would be stupid for us to pay $32.50 for the all-attractions-ticket and we had no idea if ticket for it would be sold separately. On the other hand, Mihintale is the top-attraction on TripAdvisor. I think no matter what, having to give up one will be a pity because it makes me feel that the trip is incomplete and I am not coming back to Sri Lanka anymore. But oh wells, we can just make the best out of the time we got.

#srilanka #anuradhapura