SRI LANKAN DIARIES - COLOMBO

We left Nuwara Eliya after breakfast and started our long drive to Colombo. After some two and a half hours, we visited a Spice Garden. 

We had expected a tour of the spice garden, just as we had enjoyed on the way to Munnar in Kerala. But that wasn't to be. An ayurvedic expert, distributed pamphlets about the various ayurvedic products prepared and sold there for various maladies. As he explained, each of the products and its effectiveness, all of us in the group being above 50, fell a prey to his enticing words of cure for illnesses trying to befriend us.

We had all made a mental list of products to be procured from their outlet right there and followed the expert. Everyone started piling up a couple of bottles of each, for themselves and relatives. But at the payment counter, they realized the exorbitant prices, and quietly put away most of the products. I bought only a bottle of red oil - for arthritis - paying just 3300 INR for a 300 ml bottle. My husband was joking that we could buy Volini or its ilk for our entire lifetime with the amount shelled out.

After another hour's drive, we stopped for lunch at an Indian restaurant.

Another three hours drive, and we reached Colombo and drove straight to the craft store - Laksaru, Sri lankan experience. Lots of souvenirs to choose from, but prices were pretty high.

I picked up a few memorabilia - shell items, magnets, ladles ... But the high-priced moonstone and masks put me off.

As we drove around the city, we could get glimpses of the different architecture there. 

Places of worship included temples, shrines, churches, mosques ..... 

We passed by St. Anthony's Church which had been bombed a year ago; it had been rebuilt. 

Our local guide pointed out to us, the traffic policeman, with his motor bike parked next to him.

At another point, he showed us a traffic policeman on horseback. There were very few electric signals. Vehicular traffic was less. 

We could see lot of pedestrians at market places.

During the drive, we did not fail to observe several statues of Buddha.

We also noted that there were places of worship of different religions.

We then had time for more shopping, yes, at a mall. We could pick up some gifts / souvenirs from here.

We then checked in at Hotel Pearl. 

For dinner, there were wheat chapathis for the first time - after all these days in Sri Lanka. Another point to note was they had never heard of 'Sugar free'; we were glad that we had carried some with us.

We checked out of our hotel after breakfast.

After an hour's drive, we reached Kelania Temple.

At the entrance to the temple, florists sold colorful and fresh lotuses and lilies,which devotees bought for offering at the temple . 

It was a sprawling temple complex.

Kelaniya Temple is a sacred Buddhist temple dating to the time before chronologically recorded history of Sri Lanka. It is believed to be the place where Lord Buddha visited Sri Lanka for the third time. The initial temple is said to be built on the ground where Lord Buddha preached dharma to people in Kelaniya, enshrining the jeweled seat lord Buddha sat on for the preaching in 543 B.C.

The interiors have beautiful paintings, statues, golden roof....

Devotees attired in white, maintained silence as they offered flowers / water at the deity.

Many chose to sit there and meditate.

The temple was destroyed frequently throughout history by Dravidian attackers giving rise to the popular saying ‘if Kelaniya falls, the country falls’. Kelaniya temple was completely destroyed by the Portuguese in 1510. The temple existing today was initiated in 1927 and completed in 1946. 

How is Kelaniya Buddhist Temple related to Ramayana Story of Sri Lanka ?

  

This important Buddhist Temple has a direct link with Ramayana, which states that after the death of King Ravana, his brother Vibhishana  was crowned as the King of Lanka by Lakshmana in Kelaniya, which had been ruled by him. This was because Rama had to return to India as he had to continue his self-exile of 14 years to honor the commitment to his father, King Dasarath of Ayodhya. King Vibhishana was considered a fair king, as he supported Rama against his own brother Ravana’s injustice, and is still venerated by Sinhalese Buddhists as a God, as one of the four guardian deities of Sri Lanka, especially in its western territories. There are no temples for King Ravana but many temples for King Vibhishana in Sri Lanka, which proves that his stand for Dharma and justice has raised him to the status of a God.

Attractive murals are found here.

In the temple of Kelaniya a shrine of Vibhishana can be noticed even at the present. Murals depicting the crowning of king Vibhishana by Lakshmana give proof to the epic story of Ramayana and its importance in Sri Lanka. Many devotees visiting King Vibhishana’s shrine pray to him asking his intervention to a fair recourse to their problems even today.

We spent almost an hour there. Then we started our one hour drive to Colombo airport to fly to Male, Maldives. Our tour guide collected packed lunch for all of us from an Indian restaurant close to the airport.

After formalities at the airport, we sat outside our gate and enjoyed our 'biriyani' and 'raita' and juice - yes, all these made it through security check!

It was one hour before our flight that we were allowed inside the 'lounge' of our gate. We were surprised to have yet another security check there.

From Colombo to Male, Maldives, it was an hour's flight. Sri Lanka and India are in the same time zone. Maldives is 30 minutes behind IST.