A Couple of Daytrips

Using Unawatuna as my base, I did some more stuff:

First, I did a cooking class inside the town.  It was a bit overpriced, given that all I did was help a matronly lady cook an oversized meal...but I guess it's the experience that counts, right?

I made this, and ate most of it

Next, I visited Matara, where there's a fairly incredible temple on an island right across from the bus stand. 

Next, if you get outside Matara, you can visit a temple with a giant Buddha and pretty much the most wildest illustrations of the life of Buddha you've ever seen.

It's like an art museum where the pictures are painted directly onto the walls (including those of "other" benefactors to the temple, like various monks and a few soldiers.

The Giant Buddha (bigger than it looks here)

Augustus Caesar?

Illustrations of the life of the Buddha

You can also go underground where there are these giant catacombs filled with yet MORE illustrations of the life of the Buddha.  Same thing; cartoons cover every square inch of everything.  Of course, foreigners have to pay 500 rupees just to lay eyes upon it; luckily, some guy found me and bullshitted my way through with me posing as an archaeological student.

Take a look at the catacombs:

One of the "non-Buddha" paintings.

The catacombs

Pictures on EVERYTHING

Next to Matara is the Dondra lighthouse.  It's remarkable only for being the southern-most point of Sri Lanka.

Dondra lighthouse

There's also another temple at Belliatta, near Dickwella (emphasis on the DICK), which apparently has the largest Buddha in all of Sri Lanka.  It's also got yet another torture-of-sinners museum inside, which I kind of wanted to see.

It's easy to see from the roadside, so I stopped there.  The problem was that the guy tried to charge me 200 rupees to go inside (which was twice the amount printed on the ticket) so I just walked away, trying to imagine a church in the US charging someone the local hourly wage to go inside, then doubling that price.  LOL.

There's also a blowhole near there that I really, really wanted to see, but it was getting quite late in the day at that point, so I just continued eastward.