Only kidding, but…there comes a point where a little voice in your head mutters ‘…and if I see one more reclining Buddha…’ But you can’t come all this way and ignore sites like a stupa so enormous that an early guide book calculated its bricks could construct a nine foot wall from London to Edinburgh.
Funnily enough, one of the things we’ve enjoyed most about today has been not the big ticket items, but simply wandering through the innumerable anonymous remains, which sprawl everywhere you go round here. Crumbling walls, broken columns through the trees, enormous pools – like brick-built lidos, but 100 metres wide, and twice as long. Everywhere you go there are remains of..well, who knows. All overrun by nature, exotic birds swooping around, butterflies fluttering by, everywhere atumble with monkeys, the occasional cow nibbling at the grass. Apart from anything, it’s peaceful. The trees kill traffic noise, and the remains just go on and on, so you seldom see another human. Soothing for the soul to escape the coach party hoards and the general frenzy which is par for the course in everyday local life.
By lunchtime, we were pretty much cultured out, and headed back for a bit of chilltime, ecnountering school’s out en route – Virle managed to get a video, which in truth hardly does justice to the incessant torrent of yoot, which went on for minute after minute, but it gives at least an impression. And this was apparently all from one gigantic school.
The morning was top ‘n tailed by a hit and a miss: we started out by visiting a tailor lady, who raised the hem on Virle’s pantaloons perfectly while we waited. She asked 200 – 50p – but V gave her more ‘cos that was just bonkers. Sadly we later discovered that the train we’d been hoping would take us to Jaffna tomorrow isn’t running, so it’ll be back on the bus. Not that we don’t enjoy the buses, but they aren’t exactly comfy-womfy, especially with legroom designed for Sri Lankans, and this one’s going to be six hours and change, which is pushing it even for us. With any luck we’ll at least miss school’s out this time.
