Nalanda

There's a temple you can visit on your way to the next town from Matale.  It's called Nalanda (say NAWlanda).  It doesn't merit staying over night in Matale, because you can reach it from there if you take a bus.

It's located near a reservoir, and it's a nice place to spend an afternoon.

You have to go the last couple of kilometers on foot--they say it's 1 km, but you and me know better.  You get to pass through some truly lovely real-estate.

Then the road dead-ends into the temple:

It's near a reservoir.

Views of the temple.  It's supposed to have depictions of sex acts on it, but I didn't see anything resembling that.

The statue inside.

It's an active temple, so you still have to take off your shoes and stuff.

A lovely chameleon.  Green today.

Matale

Matale (pronounced Motta Lee) is a small town north of Kandy.  They have some cool temples you can check out for a small fee if you're foreign.  I don't know why I bothered staying there for 2 days since you could do the whole thing in one hour in the afternoon.  Presumably because I didn't feel like hauling all my luggage with me, lol.

It's within walking distance of the Matale (2 km or so), so I walked there.

Here's the photos:

A small remembrance.

A couple of shots of the entry way.

Inside the temple--a reclining Buddha.

Detail work from one of the archways inside the temple.

A view of the grounds.

Supposed to be a vision of Hell for the unrepentant.

Seemed more like a torture museum.

I couldn't resist another shot.

Hilltop Buddha.

A view from the temple on top of the rocks.

I forget what this is about.

Design painted meticulously on the rocky ceiling and walls of the temple.

King Norodom of Cambodia apparently helped make this temple possible.

Pretty cool.

You can also visit "Spice Gardens", which are basically gardens where they grow spice plants--cinnamon trees, citronella, tamarind plants, red and green pineapples, coconuts, jasmine, etc.  They'll lecture you about each thing, then try to get you to buy pricey goods.  Luckily, I was so broke I wasn't tempted to buy anything, but it was an interesting place to visit nonetheless.

Spice Gardens abound in this area, but the one I visited was located about one kilometer past the temple.

You can also stop by A&C restaurant which is between Matale and the temple.  I actually stopped in to ask directions to the temple, and ate a fruit salad since (in my usual careless style) I had forgotten to eat lunch.  

I loved their bathroom signs.  

Esala Perahera

So I said I came to Kandy to see the Esala Perahera display.  The processions last for 10 days, with the greatest one on the 10th day.  Although I was in Kandy for 5 days, I didn't bother with the earlier processions...it just seemed like too much of a hassle with people pooling on the streets around midday for a procession that would begin around 8 pm.  But dammit, I was going to see the LAST day.

The problem is that you have to pay upwards of $40 to get a good seat.  Being a wage-earner in a Least Developed Country, that pretty much puts it out of my daily budget.  I stuck a 2000-rupee note in my pocket (which is like $15) and negotiated.  

After hours of intense negotiations, I found a seat.  Not an ideal seat, because of the bars that block the lower-half of the procession, but a seat along the front rows of the procession.  It was better than standing on someone's rooftop and straining to see over the edge of the gables at the tops of elephant heads ten floors below, anyway.

First of all, people come by breakdancing with fire.  

It's possibly the coolest part of the procession.

Breakdancing with fire wheels.

And throwing it in the air.

I rest my case.

The best seats in the house!

There are about 90 elephants in the procession.

This is one of them.

Some are big ones, and some are lil babies.

Another elephant!

More elephants!!

The crowd looks on.

(Incidentally, this is why it was so hard to get places during the day).

This is the moment the whole crowd was waiting for.

The elephant is carrying something that may be the Buddha's tooth.

(Worth noting that the tooth is kept in a box in a temple during the day, and no one's allowed to see it.)

Everyone stood up when these elephants came past, to pay respects.

After that, the brainwaves scattered and minds wandered.

No one spoke, but you could feel the tensions had broken.

The rest of the procession was much the same as the first half.

More elephants!

You can't see clearly from this photo, but these are peacock dancers, and possibly the only female dancers in the parade.

Anyway, the procession lasted about 3 hours.  I didn't bother to hang around till the last dancers by, since everyone else was slipping away, and I wasn't eager to get stuck in the mass exodus.

Esala Perahera is an ancient custom, so it was a real privilege to be able to witness it as a foreigner, even if I had to pay for it.  Eh, the price was right.  Here's Wikipedia in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esala_Perahera

Peridenya Botanical Gardens

Kandy has a Botanical Garden which is also a UNESCO world heritage site.  It's on the outskirts of town, and you can visit it with a taxi.  Or, if you're poor like me, you can take a bus to Peridenya.  It's nicer when you go early and there aren't a million tourists swarming all over the place.

Here's my pictures:

Pretty much the scariest suspension bridge you will ever go on.

View from the suspension bridge.

Weird-shaped trees.

More weird-shaped trees!

Some sort of cool water plant.

Really big palm trees 

(if you look at the two figures on the ground, that gives you an idea of the size).

Pretty flowers!  

From the Orchid House.

The pole at the bottom is waist-high.  It shows you how giant this bamboo is.

Pretty much the way a park is supposed to look.

Big Rock Kandy Lake

Yes, the name of the city is "Kandy", just like the delicious foodstuff that little kids love to indulge in.  After flying in and spending the night in Negombo, I took the first bus to Kandy to catch the annual Esala Perahera parade, which takes place over a ten day period.

Unfortunately, pretty much everyone in Sri Lanka came to visit the parade, so I wound up in a guesthouse on the outskirts of town (though when I say "outskirts", I mean a 15 minute walk from the center, lol).  It has a nice view anyway:

Kandy is famous for a large lake on the south side of town which has a lot of waterfoul, komodo dragons, and turtles to look at.  I entertained myself for a day by hanging around the lake and looking at things:

A great bird!

A great fallen tree!

An awesome duck!

A baby water foul.

Komodo dragon?

Turtle!

The lake also has some museums and cultural events nearby, which I skipped over.

Back Again

Where is holyrockthrower today?

Actually, I am back in Sri Lanka.  And I'm going to be here for a few more weeks.

Why? you ask. 

Because I received a very small amount of inheritence money, which I have determined is best spent doing something I have been wanting to do--wander through Sri Lanka and look at stuff. 

I like Sri Lanka.  It's small, it's compact, and you can get across the entire country in just a few hours for only a couple of dollars.  Yet there's such an incredible diversity of wildlife, terrain, and culture that you'd never think it was a country half the size of Ohio.

So, I thought I'd explore while I am still young enough and monied enough to do that.

Anyway, it's become exorbitantly difficult for me to update the blog, seeing that my only means of online communcation was forcibly taken from me several months ago.  It's even harder uploading pictures from a public venue, which often won't work or misfires on me.  Yet, I need somewhere to store the pictures I take, precisely because I DON'T have anywhere else to store my photos anymore.

So, I will be putting up lots of pictures, with maybe a blurb about each.

No Justice, No Peace

It's been about 3 or so weeks since I was attacked and robbed in a park on my way home.

I wish I could say there was some resolution to this, some form of justice, some answer...but that's not the way it is.  This is IRL, not a story, not a dream, not Hollywood.

The police did nothing to help me, no matter the price I offered them.  They claimed the robbers disappeared when they showed up at night, and therefore tracking my laptop was impossible.  They then claimed that because of the upcoming election, their full attention was needed in maintaining civil order.  Not helping me.

I doubt they made any effort at all, to be honest.

I actually tracked the thieves myself, with the aid of a local friend.  I wanted to find out about them, who they were, and what I could do to avenge myself.  Listening to some local security guards, we figured out that they operate every night in the park across my house.  (Is this not an indignity?)

We waited outside at night for them to show up.  I dressed up as bait (30 year old jail bait, lol) to get them to rob me again and capture them.  Instead of the two who assaulted me the last time, we found a gang of at least ten, some of whom were women.  So, we lacked the wherewithal to make any moves.

We followed them to see if they possessed a motorbike, or anything I could possibly destroy in retaliation for my losses.  In doing so, we stumbled across a social ill so large, any action we could take would have resulted in a woefully Phyrric victory.  At best.

There was nothing more we could do.

My entire last five years, so carefully stored, groomed, and maintained were taken from me by a pair of cowards who attacked from behind and punched me lying on the ground.  The only things I ever cared about in life were robbed, erased, and sold for no more than $25 in a second hand electronics shop to fuel the drug addictions of pathetic losers who are better off dead ... and my soul died guttering in the rain like a fallen swordsman.

So, that's my story of crime and punishment.  Apparently, crime DOES pay, and moreover, there's nothing YOU can do about it.  I've learned that the world is a brutal inhospitable place where only the most evil prevail.  Consequently, I've permanently lost respect for a) mankind and b) Cambodia.

For these reasons, I will be taking a leave of absence very shortly.  There is nothing for me to do here anymore except be bitter and useless.  I'm out.