Monday, December 19, 2016

Swapping Elephants for Buddhas

We called the driver to see if we could switch our safari to the morning. He said he spoke to the safari people who claimed that they could guarantee that we would see elephants. At this moment, there was a very strong downpour and we noticed that the vehicles had the cheap plastic windows you would find on a Jeep Wrangler from the early 90s. In shorthand, this meant that our pictures would be absolute rubbish when taken through a piece of cheap foggy plastic. When we met up with the driver, we explained our concern, and we were able to switch it.

Since we were already in the car, I suggested we drive to Dambulla, 20km away to see a temple there, since I had initially planned to do it tomorrow morning. I think this was a wise decision. And unlike everything else we had experienced today, this site wasn't trying to take us for a ride. In fact, it was free. After walking beyond the big golden buddha at the entrance, we continued up a series of steps to another temple entrance, where there were caves . . . and a lot of monkeys -- toque macaques to be exact.


In order to access the caves, one had to take off their shoes. Nicole wasn't too keen on this idea, so I ventured off briefly on my own while she became busy taking pics of monkeys. Here you see one eyeing up a pair of Converse. They can't be trusted. Many people had flowers to lay down inside the cave temples, but the monkeys very much liked these flowers and would do anything to bite into them. Nicole reportedly saw a father holding his child on his back holding a flower and a monkey leapt into the air to snatch it.


While Nicole was valiantly defending the area from monkey attacks, I was checking out five of the cave temples. Each was a little bit different, but most had frescoes painted on the ceilings and walls. It was good to see these since we were unable to do Sigariya rock. The cave temples are believed to be about 2000 years old, so it was a very interesting experience. There were other large buddhas lying down in some of the other caves. Some were big and some were quite small. I found myself wedged between a wall and a french tour group in one of the smallest ones.

Fortunately, there weren't crowds in the others. In many cases, I had unobstructed views of the bodhisattvas and caves. As Nicole pointed out, she was far from the only one who decided not to go barefoot on the wet rock. There was a gathering of folks with haole feet or afraid of their shoes getting stolen by monkeys. Look I get it. Monkeys will tear your face off for sport. Monkeys are terrible people. After returning from the temples, I linked back up with Jane Goodall to check out the monkey situation.





They were photogenic when they weren't masturbating or stealing flowers. The rainfalls from the previous hour created an eery mist over the area that made the whole temple site appear very mysterious. We carefully walked down the wet steps and slopes until reaching the bottom again. After arriving back at the hotel, we walked to a small food store to get some items that could act as our breakfast for tomorrow. Nicole was craving chocolate. She also yelled out, "Barbecue Sauce!" like she was having a fit of tourette's.


I asked the driver today what he typically eats when we aren't around. The answer was rice and curry, which is literally what I've been eating for the last week. I thought he might offer up some other ideas for me to try, but nope. To be completely honest, I do like curry, but as Nicole pointed out...it's like going to Subway and ordering the Spicy Italian sandwich every day for two weeks. It becomes a bit taxing and sometimes you just want a burger. In spite of our massive intake of rice, Nicole and I have both lost seven pounds a piece on this trip. No good. Now we are concerned (ironically) that Austria could make us ill. We are going to go all in on meaty and fatty foods and possibly implode.

Tomorrow we have take two on the safari. Wish us luck towel elephant!








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