Of monkeys and mangey dogs

A morning of stuffups got the day off to a dandy start. First off we had a wardrobe explosion that required an emergency shop for suitable garments to keep the local gods appeased when visiting long disused sites of homage. Then we ran into a serious cash availability issue due to wrong cards in the wallet syndrome, an issue that resonated throughout the rest of the day. Moving onwards and under the guidance of our trusty Grand Turismo champion we bullied our way over to the facinating temple town known as Polunnaruwa. This place is the epicenter of a long bygone era where human ingenuity was outstanding. Thousands of slaves would have constructed this place under the guidance of brilliant engineers and yet the person who gets the accolades down through the ripples of time and history is the despot that ruled over them all. The power seems to be all based on the hiding of a stolen tooth that survived a cremation of a reveared seer of the time. Or something like that...the names and the stories all become a bit of blur when stumbling around in oppressive heat, feeling the skin burn on the heals of your feet because you had to enter the ruins barefoot in the midday sun. Someone seemed to have forgotten that you can take your shoes and hat off when entering an abode with a roof. That's not too much to ask of visitors when you can offer the hospitality of a cool floor and protection from the elements in return. Imposing these rules in the burning sun 1500 years after the roof disappeared is possibly misguided. The museum which we were obliged to struggle through needs a rework, however the intent is still solid. Show 'em the context before experiencing the actual. 1600 (ish) years ago they dammed significant areas of the place to manage the water flow, thus stability to the crops, society developed, education thrived and the king got a grouse bath house and a bevy of princesses to adorn it.

The forgotten engineers however created a legacy which survives to this day. The lakes remain and physically defined the history of the area ever since. The ruins of the bathhouse are still reasonably intact. What went on there is totally up the imagination of the beholder (ne: "archeologist"). The rest of the ruins are well defined patterns of brick foundations (the footings remain, the weatherboards long since eaten by white ants) which are strewn over an extremely large site. The highlight of this myriad of oppressively heat laden brick patterns admist sea of green grass and trees was the stone temple. Almost worth the burnt feet on sharp stones to get close to the 3 large characters carved out of a rock face.

It was a long morning. Lunch on the way back was beautifully situated on one of these lakes. Two days in and we're already over buffet meals. So we ordered other stuff...and got by..just. We then suffered the pain of not having enough cash earlier on by taking over two hours to get onto a 4wd jalopy and join the massive throng of like minded jalopyists heading of for a "safari" into the Minneriya National Park. This was definitely the highlight of the day.

Elephants were guaranteed and they did deliver. Given the chaos of the myiad of people waiting in their vehicles to take off it was obvious that they were also going to deliver the global tourist era experience of experiencing something outside the boxes that you live in that you've seen plenty of times on the boxes that glow and flicker inside those boxes. Hordes of them. Outside their boxes, Capturing images on their devices so they can look at them on their boxes when they return to their boxes. One count was over 50 jalopies loaded with tourists on a safari gawking at 6 elephants.

Luckily the beasts themselves were totally unperturbed by all the gawking eyes and rumbling engines nearby. The whole experience was fabulous. And a bucket load of fun. The dust imbedded itself into every pore as we stood up ridding the rough roads, dodging low branches and listening to our (as it turns out) avid twitcher guide scream in delight as he spotted a small patch of colour in an obscure tree 200 meters away. To his credit he did point out a sea eagle carrying a fish overhead (photo missed in the chaos of swamp foxes circling elephants whist bumping roads inadvertently pressing wrong buttons on the camera). Watching elephants graze is much more insightful than being fed in a zoo. Those trunks are an amazing tool. We made a good call as the sun was setting by snapping a pick of that and heading home. It took a long time to get back to the protection

of our compound and the joy of another buffet meal. Tonight the minstrels were confined to the other end of the area. Just as they started to harrass the guests (by playing next to them as they are trying to consume long-time warmed concoctions) we skedaddled as we had an early start and a blog entry to construct. And I didn't even get to mention monkeys and mangey dogs...