Route: Anuradhapura - Pollonaruwa
Kms: approx 90.
Hrs: approx 6
Road: smooth roads and barely any traffic. Dirt road for about 30 mins
Weather: warm & humid with clouds
Had an interesting, spicy brekky with the Euros this morning. Funny watching them struggling to handle the hot spices.
Fairly uneventful first part of the ride as we were on smooth blacktop for ages. Once we got near Drambula we passed the intersection where we'd looked for a Safari tour in Feb - from there I had a rough idea that we were going to head thru the wildlife park where we went on Safari... instead we rode next to it which was a bit disappointing, but the dirt track we took was FAR smoother than the safari road. Was nice riding next to the dam that the wildlife park is next to... didn't see a single bit of wildlife tho. What we did see were SHITLOADS of butterflies - while we were off road it was like we were riding through an ocean of them.
As we rode into Pollenaruwa we stopped past the entrance to the ruins and Mo spoke to an old man hanging around... it cost $25 to get into the attraction which seemed a bit steep, then another 2000rupees ($13) for his services as a guide. Decided to go to the hotel and think about it, because Mo was sure I had to wear long pants, and I couldn't be arsed walking around in my only long pants - riding pants. Something about the old guy gave me a good vibe tho - for a bloke that was a bee's dick over 5ft and about 50kg soaking wet, he had a peculiarly deep voice and was fairly well spoken.
At the hotel we found out shorts were fine, so ditched the bags & riding gear, put on some shorts n sneakers & went to the museum to get tickets. As we entered the museum car park some local tried to sting me $20 for a guide, then the bastard hung around like a bloody blow fly, thank God he couldn't follow us into the museum.
The museum was bare bones but quite interesting - there were diaramas made of what the ruins looked like before they burned down - interesting architecture that I'd never seen before - a cross between Tibetan, Chinese & maybe Japanese. Another interesting thing is that the King of the time (1100AD or so) dug rivers and canals like the Khmer in Cambodia - canals that are still being used to grow rice today.
I was feeling a hangry, so told Mo we should go eat. Had a feed in a town down the road, felt like a bit of a celeb - was getting all sorts of looks on the bike, and a bunch of men came and sat on the table next to us and watched me eat... which was also a bit odd. Went to use the toilet - probably the most 3rd world back of house I'd ever seen... it would probably classify as 4th world. Luckily there was a guy in it splashing around, so decided it was worth holding in.
Went back to the little old tour guide with the deep voice and told him I just wanted a quick tour of the main parts of the attraction - he didn't argue at all with 1000rupees. His knowledge was awesome - apparently he was a tour guide for 18 years.
Some of the stonework was incredible - similar to the monolithic structures in Egypt & Lebanon with its precision cutting & placement. Old mate didn't have any idea how the rock was cut... probably aliens.
It's a shame the Indians destroyed this place back in the day... and no surprise that when the British discovered the place in the 18th century they looted all the artefacts and took them back to London.
We were able to ride between points of interest in the tourist area which was handy. The last stop was probably the most interesting and well-preserved - when the Buddhists realised the Indians were destroying everything, they protected their huge Buddha carvings in the side of a rock by caking them in mud so the Indians wouldn't see them. Clever.
Highlight of the tour came at the end - watching a couple of monkeys shagging like a couple of freaky fucking monkeys, then the male monkey pulling out and eating his own jizz 😂 Video was on my insta story for those lucky enough to catch it.
The rest of the night was uneventful - a couple of beers and a buffet then off to bed as there was nobody interesting at the guesthouse. Guesthouse had a nice pool & hot tub too - shame we got back too late to use it.