Sri Lanka Adventures Continued

Yesterday we climbed Siguriya, a very tall bit of rock that was an elaborate palace and gardens about a thousand years ago.  Our pictures don't do it justice!

The walk starts off with a very pleasant stroll through the "pleasure gardens" which are under restoration.  The original fountains still work if there's enough water in the pools above.

This one's for you Dad!  Except you would never build stairs this high!

The climb is about to start with the passage between two boulders.

Almost there!  Just the last set of stairs.

At the top.  The royal pool has been restored and has filled with rain water which the workers were using to wet down their bricks--they were restoring some of the walls.

On the way back down--can you see the lion's feet at the bottom?

Looking at the staircase with the lion's feet either side.

Continuing down...

Today we spent part of the morning in Kandy at the Temple of the Tooth Relic--one of the Buddha's teeth was saved from cremation fire and somehow made it to Sri Lanka over 2000 years ago.  It's been housed in several places, and has been in a special temple in Kandy for the last several hundred years.  The casket holding the tooth comes out for a special festival and procession once a year, but otherwise stays behind locked doors in the temple. It's a very special place for extremely devout pilgrims.  But full of tourists as well.

And then our driver helped find a barber shop for Lloyd to have his beard trimmed!

Lloyd says it was probably the best barbering experience ever--complete with scalp massage.

We spent a good part of the afternoon at the Botanical Garden--a wonderful place--some very unusual trees like a "cannon ball" tree, precocious monkeys who came running over when we started eating our lunch, and a HUGE flock of fruit bats that had been disturbed from their roost by the lawn mowing.  I'll sort through those images and post some tomorrow.

When we arrived back at the hotel, the laundry was still drying on the front lawn.  This was the view from our 2nd floor room:

Sheets and towels from guest who had checked out this morning.

As I type this post at 10:30 PM Wednesday, many of the drivers, hotel staff and some guests are out on this lawn drumming and singing (I assume) Sri Lankan songs.  While it's quite pleasant at the moment, I will have to put in my ear plugs shortly in order to get to sleep!