We were up early the following morning to try and beat the heat and drove to the Dambulla cave temples. Outside the main entrance devotees can buy beautiful flowers for offerings
The cave temples are up a steep hill
at the top is a large plateau with an overhanging rock ledge housing the caves
Buddhist prayer flags fluttering in the wind sending the prayers upwards
The temples are thought to date back to the 1st century
There are five separate caves
all contain amazing statues of Buddha and beautiful paintings on the rock walls
Over the centuries more and more images have been painted in the caves
so that almost every inch from floor to ceiling is decorated
At the bottom of the hill is a much more modern Buddhist temple with a giant golden statue on the top with a huge flashing neon sign below the statue
We stopped off for a brief visit to the local market, one of the largest wholesale markets in Sri Lanka
by the end of the day a lot of this produce will be on sale in Colombo and around Sri Lanka
Types of long beans and pumpkins
Blowing his horn the ice-cream seller tries to tempt his customers to buy.
One stall seemed to trade in onions and garlic
We could identify most of the fruits and vegetables on sale but not these..
..we decided they must be 'snozcumbers', the favourite food of the BFG as told by Roald Dahl!
After lunch and a short rest (in which we were joined by two lovely and friendly local dogs)
we were off for another afternoon's safari. This time we visited the nearby Minneriya National Park
Initially we drove through quite thick jungle but were lucky to spot more Purple Faced Langurs
and several monitor lizards searching for something tasty
We drove under a huge bees nest, we could hear the quiet hum of the hundreds, maybe thousands of bees
Our eagle eyed driver cleverly spotted a Crested Serpent-eagle on a low branch by a stream
A bit further on a beautiful Indian peacock strolled passed
The jungle can be a hard place to spot wildlife but we were lucky and just caught sight of a small group of Spotted Deer in the thicket
As we came out on to the plain we came across a lone bull elephant, this chap, unlike the previous day's lone bull, seemed very calm and we watched him for a long while
Once onto the plain we got beautiful views of the ancient tank (reservoir) with some local cattle at the waters edge and the hills behind
Elephants were starting to move out of the forest and down to the water
The lake was huge, further on we saw a large herd of Water Buffalo
There were lots of birds as well including this pretty Indian Roller
As he flew off we could see his electric blue feathers
Not quite so eye catching but still very impressive was this Southern Coucal
Elephant foot prints in the sand
Enjoying an evening sand bath was this lovely Little Bee Eater
By now, late afternoon/early evening, more and more elephants were appearing
After a long drink and time to play in the water this group then clambered out to continue grazing
The sun was going down quite quickly so we started to head back but came across another large herd, with some very playful youngsters play fighting and pushing and shoving each other
as the 'teenagers' played the older elephants kept a young baby elephant safely out of their way
We just made it out of the park before it got really dark
We had been very lucky to have seen so many fabulous animals and enjoyed visiting these two small parks. There are several more parks in Sri Lanka we would love to visit, some of which are known for leopards but I suspect they will be much harder to see.
No comments:
Post a Comment