Mar 14, 2008 - Tropical Rain at Mihintale

The journey was uneventful as I slept most of the way. The driver did wake me up at one point with a coconut in his hand – absolutely wonderful! About 3½ hours after leaving the airport, I was deposited at the Lake View Guest House, whose view of the lake was from about ½ kilometre away and involved being able to see a tiny bit of the lake through gaps between trees and other buildings. It was still a lake view, I suppose, but a great place to stay. Even the Bryan Adams impersonator from one of the more upmarket hotels up the road couldn’t...

Feb 16, 2008 - A short trip to Mihintale

A short 20 minute bus ride from Anuradhapura is the small town of Mihintale, which is famous for where King Devanampiya Tissa met a Indian guy called Mahinda whilst deer hunting and agreed to be converted to Buddism, thus ensuring that Buddism became the most popular religion in the country. Mihintale being a buddist sight means that there's going to be another walk up a steep hill, and in this case their's a shrine where the king was converted and a dagoba (basically a huge buddist shrine) to visit, both at the top of a flight of 2000...