Janet's Journal

Another year, another English winter to escape from. Yes, back to Sri Lanka with another ‘first timer’ for a three week tour.

Once again Tharindu was our driver/guide and he took us straight to Palugaswewa.

We began the tour with the City of Kings. Polonnaruwa became the capital in the 10th century after the fall of Anuradhapura. This time I went through the museum which has models of important city sites. and background information before walking round the mixture of royal palace, court and religious buildings

A elephant safari was booked for the afternoon in Kaudulla. Always so special to see elephants in their own surroundings. Luckily there were almost no other vehicles in the reserve.

Ritigalla Mountain is a strictly controlled nature reserve, most of it closed to the public. Visitors are allowed to walk some of the way up to visit the ruins of the ancient Forest Monastery. A very quiet and peaceful site.

Then it was a visit to Anuradhapura, my companion was struggling to walk barefoot so declined some of the temple visits.

Time to head up to the far north again to the Jaffna peninsula, a short stay gave us enough time to explore from; Point Pedro, the most northerly part of the island, through Kankesanthurai, the end of the railway line.

Then to Dambakola Patuna, where Sanghamitta brought the gift of a sapling from the sacred bo tree to Sri Lanka. It was planted in Anuradhapura and all bo trees on the island descend from this one tree which can still be seen. Our last stop was to see the ‘bottomless’ Nilaverai Well.

After a morning seeing the sites of Jaffna town, we drove westwards across the causeway to Katys. We stood and watched the ferry but decided against taking the car across on it and instead took the long way round by road to Hammenheil and looked across the water to the tiny island with Fort Hammenheil perched on top.

Time to leave the peninsular via the Pooneryn causeway and the long drive back to Palugaswewa visiting Mihintale en route.