Yesterday we moved to Anuradhapura in order to visit the sacred city which we did today. This is a UNESCO world heritage site and it is amazing. It is a vast site with many Buddhist dagobas and stupas, from huge to tiny. These are are usually dome shaped. Some on this site are over 2000 years, although most are from the 4 th century. One the Jethawana Stupa was 122 metres tall and the 3rd tallest building in the world at the time. This site is still active and we picked the perfect day to visit as it is Poya, the full moon holiday when Buddhist’s visit their temples. There were several monasteries here and they must have been enormous from the unimaginable size of the stone rice trough and the smaller curry trough. We hired a tuk tuk for the day and this was a wonderful way to get around the no car site. It did mean getting in and out of the back seat over and over. It wasn’t pretty, but I did it. At one of the sites, we had to go through an inspection that we were suitably dressed. Jim had to loosen his belt and pull down his shorts to cover his knees! The worst part of the day was that the ground seemed to be burning hot. We started out at 7:30 but by late morning it was painful to walk to view the sites (to show respect, no hats or shoes are allowed). We dashed from one shadow of a post to another but still it was awful. Eventually, I couldn’t take any more and we turned around to get our shoes before seeing the 2000 year old Sri Maha Bodhi tree. We may go back at sunset!
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