"Anna radda pura" is the last of the ancient cities, and is a(nother) UNESCO world heritage site. I stopped there for my last leg of my journey through the ancient ruins, but wound up regretting it.
The city itself is so sprawling that it almost takes on suburban American proportions. The guest house area is about 4 km away from the main archaeological sites, which are highly spread out themselves. The whole thing is so large, you either have to buy multiple tickets (i.e. a new ticket each day since they expire at the end of each) or else you must provide your own transport ( which in my case meant renting a
bike).
If you can already see how this whole setup is a bad idea... well, you're a lot smarter han I apparently was.
I actually cycled around for a couple of hours before realizing that literally nothing is marked or labelled in the entire site. Given that the damn ticket itself costs over $25 (for non Sri Lankans, anyway) I found this incredibly shitty. I mean, the least you can do is tell folks what they're buying. I drove around in a haze of confusion.
Pretty much the last straw came when the lock to my bike refused to work, so I couldn't even go investigate places on foot without leaving the bike vulnerable to theft.
To make a long story short, I got sick of wasting my day on utter bullshit, returned the bike with the idiotic lock, and skipped town. I simply had no desire to be there anymore, and I urge prospective visitors to do the same. Stick with Polunarawa...it's big, but a million times less stupid.
In the end I wasted $25 on an unused ticket and 24 hours on a fool's errand. In a blaze of hatred, I went north to Vavuniya (pronouced "vow WOO nya"), which I am sorry to say, was just as much of a hassle (as in, I couldn't find the archaeological museum, and no one understood my pronunciation of the next city I wished to attend). Just take a direct bus to Jaffna and don't mess around with that Vavuniya, either.
Lessons learned.
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The city itself is so sprawling that it almost takes on suburban American proportions. The guest house area is about 4 km away from the main archaeological sites, which are highly spread out themselves. The whole thing is so large, you either have to buy multiple tickets (i.e. a new ticket each day since they expire at the end of each) or else you must provide your own transport ( which in my case meant renting a
bike).
If you can already see how this whole setup is a bad idea... well, you're a lot smarter han I apparently was.
I actually cycled around for a couple of hours before realizing that literally nothing is marked or labelled in the entire site. Given that the damn ticket itself costs over $25 (for non Sri Lankans, anyway) I found this incredibly shitty. I mean, the least you can do is tell folks what they're buying. I drove around in a haze of confusion.
Pretty much the last straw came when the lock to my bike refused to work, so I couldn't even go investigate places on foot without leaving the bike vulnerable to theft.
To make a long story short, I got sick of wasting my day on utter bullshit, returned the bike with the idiotic lock, and skipped town. I simply had no desire to be there anymore, and I urge prospective visitors to do the same. Stick with Polunarawa...it's big, but a million times less stupid.
In the end I wasted $25 on an unused ticket and 24 hours on a fool's errand. In a blaze of hatred, I went north to Vavuniya (pronouced "vow WOO nya"), which I am sorry to say, was just as much of a hassle (as in, I couldn't find the archaeological museum, and no one understood my pronunciation of the next city I wished to attend). Just take a direct bus to Jaffna and don't mess around with that Vavuniya, either.
Lessons learned.
~~~
FOUR USELESS PHOTOS
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