Okay, this is going to be off-topic, but I just had a great adventure, and I want to talk about it. I went to Sri Lanka for 13 days with my brother, on a guided tour, and saw some absolutely amazing stuff. Ancient cities in ruins, amazing wildlife (including elephants, chilling by the road!) and some really busy, vibrant markets. Oh, and the food was great too. So, I’m gonna have a go at being a travel blogger for a post. And I’ll share some of the art I made along the way.

On a personal level, this wasn’t just a vacation for me. I had quit my job of eleven years just before I left, and had a new casual job lined up for when I got back. This meant that during the whole trip, I knew I was not going back to my normal life. It made the adventure seem surreal at times. To add to that, the world went to shit while I was chilling at a beach resort at Kalutara.

But I don’t really want to dwell on that here. There are plenty of people online more informed than me talking about this war. (But, to add my two cents… fuck Trump and Netanyahu. Yes I am aware Iran is a repressive state. Still, fuck them.) I also want to keep this blog mostly positive, so the rest of this post will actually be about how awesome Sri Lanka is. It just feels a bit fake to gush about how great everything is when I am really anxious about everything right now.

I was travelling with my brother, and we took a guided tour that started in Colombo, went to see the ancient world heritage temples and ruins of Dambulla, Sigiriya and Polonnaruwa, before going towards Kandy and the mountains then to Galle and the coast. Our guide was super knowledgeable, he explained a lot about Buddhism to us, which is good because Sri Lanka seems to be an extremely Buddhist country. Everywhere we went, there were Buddha statues and stupas everywhere.

We also learnt about The relic of the tooth of Buddha, and it’s impact on Sri Lanka’s history. The tooth was one of four taken from Buddha’s funeral pyre, and it eventually became seen as something that bestowed a divine right to rule onto whoever had it. This website has a pretty good account of the tooth’s 1700 year journey, though some of the dates contradict what our guide said. I think any story about a sacred relic this old is going to have some conflicting information. (A good example; I saw an alter that encased John the Baptist’s head at Amiens Cathedral in France once. However there are three other heads of John the Baptist out there, in Damascus, Rome, and Munich.)

The tooth was smuggled to the first Sri Lankan capital of Anuradhapura from India, where it stayed for 500 years. Our tour didn’t go to Anuradhapura unfortunately, however we did see some later capitals. One king from Anuradhapura, King Valagamba, was forced to flee the capital from invaders in 1BC, and he took refuge in the caves of Dambulla. Our guide said he took the tooth with him to keep it safe, but Wikipedia mentions a different relic. After hiding in the caves for 14 years, Valagamba was able to take back his kingdom. In gratitude for the sanctuary they provided, he went back and converted the Dambulla caves into Buddhist temples. Later kings, especially in the 11th century, would add to this temple, and it is still a functional religious site today.

Dambulla was our first stop once we left Colombo. Stepping into the caves, knowing how ancient they are, is absolutely amazing. The murals on the ceiling are incredible. As well as being blown away by the site itself, we also got to see some of the local wildlife. There were so many monkeys playing around the place. As well as the local street dogs (guitar dogs apparently) and we ever saw a huge monitor lizard digging for bugs. Of course, we’d see much more impressive wildlife later.

The next day after Dambulla, we went to the most famous spot in all of Sri Lanka; Sigiriya Rock Fortress. This place really lives up to the hype, and I’d say was the highlight of the trip. The fortress and surrounding gardens were built by King Kashyapa in 477CE. He took the throne after murdering his father and exiling his older brother, and apparently, he was paranoid about his brother coming back and reclaiming the throne, so building a fortress on top of a 180m granite rock surrounded by jungle and a moat seemed like a really good idea. Sigiriya was only occupied for a short time, and hasn’t been fully excavated. There is also a lot we don’t know about how it would of looked back during Kashyapa’s time, and we have no idea how he made this place. There is a massive pool on top of that giant rock, and while it is now filled by years of years of rainwater, we don’t know how they got enough water to fill it back then.

It was a very demanding climb to the top of the rock, but it was so worth it. If the description of Sigiriya sounds familiar to you, it maybe be because it was the inspiration for the pleasure palace Yakkagala in Arthur C. Clarke’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fountains of Paradise, which compares the engineering feats of an ancient king making his palace to the construction of a space elevator.

Buddha’s tooth didn’t factor into the story of Kashyapa and Sigiriya, but at our next stop, the ancient city of Polonnaruwa, we saw the ruins of temples where the tooth had once been kept. Since the tooth was tied so closely to the kingship, it moved whenever the capital did. We were taken to the ruins of the first Temple of the Tooth in Polonnaruwa, built by the first king to move to this new capital. Right next to it were the ruins of a bigger Temple of the Tooth, made by his son and successor, who wanted to show he could do a better job of taking care of the relic. There were other temples in the area of unknown purpose, but I think I can spot the trend.

Like in Dambulla, these ancient temples are still in use. It is so unbelievably cool to walk into the ruins of a building, and find an ancient Buddha statue with an alter covered in fresh flowers. We were only there for a few hours, and we did it after climbing Sigiriya, so we were exhausted. But if history is your thing, there is enough at Polonnaruwa to keep you occupied for a couple of days. It isn’t just the ruins of a palace and some temples, it is the ruins of an entire ancient city.

Speaking of being exhausted, I should mention that the heat in Sri Lanka is hard to deal with. As an added challenge, religious sites like Buddhist temples require a modest dress code, with all visitors regardless of gender having to be covered from shoulders to knees, and hats and shoes are also not allowed. Loose-fitting clothes made of natural fabrics are best, but I would also recommend having a sarong with you. When I was at Polonnaruwa, I wore shorts but kept a sarong in my backpack, which I was able to tie around my waist before entering religious sites. Keeping a sarong on me came in handy later on in the adventure, when we were given unexpected opportunities to visit temples.

After these ancient sites, we went further up the mountains. We visited a tea plantation, saw some breathtaking scenery, and visited the final stop on the Tooth’s journey, the sacred city of Kandy. Kandy became the capital when European colonizers started showing up. Due to it’s location in the mountains and all the surrounding jungle, the colonizers could not get to Kandy, so the kingdom and the tooth were safe there. From 1469 to 1818 the Sinhalese Kingdom of Kandy resisted Portuguese, Dutch, and British invaders. The king was betrayed to the British in 1818, bringing the entire country – and the tooth – under British dominion until independence in 1948. There is no longer a monarchy in Sri Lanka, but the tooth remains at the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, leading Kandy to be considered the cultural capital of Sri Lanka, despite Colombo being the actual Capital.

After Kandy, the focus of the tour shifted from the ancient culture, to Sri Lanka’s beautiful nature, and the colonial history. We took the famous train ride from Kandy to Ella (except, due to the floods the month before, we couldn’t get on at Kandy. We also didn’t get off at Ella, because our guide though we’d have a better time if we took the train over the famous nine-arch bridge that is past Ella. So, we went over the bridge, got off at the stop after Ella, then got a crazy tuk tuk ride out to the bridge. There was another tour group from the same company on the train with us, and our guide told us not to tell them what we were doing, so hopefully no-one from that group is reading this.)

It was great watching the countryside roll by on the train. Also fun watching all the other tourists hanging off the side of the train. We’d been warned not to do it, but I guess when there are open doors with handrails on a moving train and you’re in adventure mode, stuff happens. Though seriously, if you ever do take this train, use some common sense. People have been injured or even killed from hanging off the side of the train. I was only brave enough to stick my head out the window occasionally.

I ended up on the right side of the train, which had a much less impressive view. Though, it is easy enough to get up and walk to other doors and windows for a better view as long as there isn’t a line of people trying to hang out the door. The toilet in the carriage I was in actually had quite a nice view too. I decided to have a go drawing the valleys below in my tiny sketchpad, and am happy with how they turned out. You can kinda tell how bumpy the train was.

The next day after the famous train ride, we were up before dawn to go on safari in Yala National Park. Alongside Sigiriya, this was the other S tier experience for me on this holiday. (Maybe I would have put the Kandy-Ella train in S tier if I’d been in a better seat. My brother said he’d put it in S tier. I tend to have bad luck with seating on scenic train rides, but would still put this one as a high A.) I had never been on safari before, and this one blew me away. We did not see any leopards, which are one of the ‘stars’ of Yala, but I’m fine with that because we saw so many other animals, including a fishing cat, kinda a tiny leopard. We saw crocodiles, water buffalo, deer, peacocks, mongoose, monkeys, lots and lots of really pretty birds, and we had a close encounter with a family of elephants.

This wasn’t our first encounter with wild elephants. We’d seen some by the side of the road back at Sigiriya. Actually, we’d seen one on the road that we’d had to drive around. It is crazy to see animals as big as elephants just chilling by the roadside. Though knowing that there is conflict between the wild elephants and the local farmers, I am glad they also have a home at Yala. It was very special seeing them there.

Being on a safari and taking photos of all these animals made me feel like I was playing Pokémon Snap for real. Which is probably why after the safari and a quick stop at Galle (which was cool, but we didn’t spend nearly enough time exploring this area), when we were taken to a beach resort for three days of relaxation, I spent a lot of time playing New Pokémon Snap. Though we did take a couple more tours. Both in boats, to see some mangroves and more of Sri Lanka’s beautiful birds. We also visited a turtle hatchery, which has given me a great idea for a new story, so I better finish off this post so I can get back to writing.

Oh before I do go, Colombo is a really cool city. We started and ended our journey there, and it was a great mix of colonial age architecture, busy markets, and super modern buildings. With how much is being invested in the city, it’ll be interesting seeing how it changes over the next few years. Here are some tiny sketches from Colombo, both of which are from Pettah market. The first is the market streets with the Lotus Tower visible in the background, and the second is of the Red Mosque.

Anyway, if you have been wondering why I haven’t been posting as much as I usually do, this is why. I had a big adventure. And if you’re looking for a big adventure of your own (maybe when the world feels a bit safer) then definitely consider Sri Lanka.

~ Jayde