Dambulla Cave Temple

These murals were painted between 1747 - 1782.... and cover an incredible 2,100 m2!

The motifs and colours are still as vibrant and fascinating some 228 years later... I just wish my shitty ass photos did them justice! :)

xx

Helga's Folly

As soon as I heard about Helga's crazy over-decorated "anti-hotel" in the hills of Kandy it went straight to the top of my list of places to visit. Luckily Helga's is open for meals for those not rich/ brave enough to spend the night (I think I fall into both those categories!) so I was able to spend an lovely afternoon taking in the chaotic surrounds and visual overload that is Helga's Folly...

For those who can't afford the airfare to Sri Lanka just yet, this website gives you a taste of the Helga experience!

xx

Weligama!

Surf lessons! Buddhist temples! Bathing in the Indian ocean at twilight! Tuk-tuk rides! Tropical rain storms! Cows!

Beautiful!

xx

Lunuganga

Okay... new tactic! Otherwise this holiday wrap up will finish in... March. 2012. So I'll focus on highlights, which won't really cut much out, since everything was pretty amazing. But I'll try!

Lunuganga was a DEFINITE highlight and my second stop after Bentota beach. Although technically still located in Bentota, Lunuganga was a fifteen minute tuk-tuk ride through villages and paddy fields, perched on a hill overlooking a lake and an island of overgrown jungle. Being the estate of Geoffrey Bawa, I knew it would be something special... but I was unprepared for the absolute stillness and serenity which enveloped me second I was escorted through the gate. This was architecture like I had never before experienced. The initial view of the house is designed so through the corridor a glimpse beyond to the lake and island can be glimpsed. And what a view it is...

One of the other highlights of staying at Lunuganga were the staff, who are keepers of the estate and so informed and passionate about Bawa's work. From the charming Krishna who guided me through the main houses and gardens, pointing out all Bawa's favourite spots and the many incredible details of his work, to the cheekily humoured Damien who took me for a 6am stroll through the overgrown island jungle over paths and bridges he had made... and the manager Michael, whose conversation was just the right amount of witty and dry for my taste! Michael and Damien insisting on referring to everything... animals, peoples, inanimate objects... as "fellows" and "chaps" which I utterly adored. I felt like I was in a Gerald Durrell novel, listening to the lively conversation chattering on beside me.

Heaven!

And as if the delightfulness of my companions was not enough the beauty of the surroundings never failed to make themself known... the dining table overlooking the magnolia tree and lake, the nooks and crannies where one could sit and drink in the view, the shaded spot where Bawa sat and ate lunch every day, the meditation corners, the houses built to best capture the view and jungle environs... so delightful. During the day colourful flowers carpeted the ground, and in the evening fireflies glowed on the horizons and in the thick trees, buzzing around me as I padded over the damp grass to tea. Monkeys cavorted between the tall palms and frogs croaked in the afternoon heat, dragonflies flew over the wild waterliles and cows lazed by the pond. And no walk would be complete without the accompanying presence of four cheerful dogs.

Did I mention it was heaven??!

I will let pictures do the rest of the talking before I run out of adjectives to gush with... or before I whip myself into a frenzy of "homesickness" for this magical spot...

Did I mention it was heaven? Oh... yeah... I guess I did :)

xx

Day One - Beautiful Bentota

I'm going to divide the trip up into chunks, so I can savour remembering each part all over again all by itself! And because it would be a very long post if I didn't.

Bentota was my first stop in Sri Lanka, and my favourite. Maybe because I got to see the beauty in everything for the first time, that later in the trip would seem normal. I love the feeling of seeing everything with such fresh eyes, alert to the smallest and humblest of charms.

However before we get to Bentota there is a drive... a chaotic, sensory overload of a drive, from Colombo through the coastal towns of east Sri Lanka. This was my first realisation that nothing on this trip was going to be as I imagined... but rather much more vividly better and unexpected! I had pictured sleepy coastal towns, the cliched palm trees rustling in the wind, sea and sand. How boring, on reflection, that would have been. Instead Colombo stretched into town after town of bustling activity... all along the road were ramshackle huts languid but busy with the activity of daily life... men fixing bikes in small shacks, towns full of wood-workers carving cricket bats in the sun, busy towns heaving with buses and shops selling mobile phones, clothes, all the accoutrements of modern life, smaller villages trading coconuts from stalls lining the shore. Not one shop looked the same, not one chain store or faceless corporation to be seen. Nothing hidden... but rather life in all it's glory, playing out along a dusty, crowded and frankly rather dangerous road!

By the time we arrived my eyes were sore from taking so much in (not to mention my hands, from gripping tightly to the non-functioning seatbelt that dangled uselessly by my side) and I felt drunk with the excitement of being so utterly captivated and surprised. After I settled in I took my first of many cycles through the village behind my guesthouse. Again what I saw both surprised and moved me beyond measure. The homes were so simple, and often shacks or simply made bungalows, but so pretty and surrounded by the lushest jungle I had ever seen. One lot blended into another, with vegetable gardens, cows, dogs, washing wells and old bikes dotting the forest floor. No-one seemed to be inside, instead people sat in doorways or on porches, talking or playing depending on their age. To me it seemed utopian, and although I know it's easy to don rose coloured glasses when viewing another culture what I saw seemed to me more right than any apartment building or walled off suburban lot than I have ever seen. The small village heaved with life, as rich and substantial as the jungle enveloping it.

As I returned, prayers began to play over a loud speaker and float through the dusky evening sky to indicate the end of the fasting period for Ramadam. I lay on my back on the pool as the music swirled all around me and the first stars began to appear in the sky.

And had the feeling... that this was just the place I wanted to be.

xx

Devastated!

Just got back from Sri Lanka. Which wasn't devastating... in fact it was beautiful, inspiring, amazing and well... as many superlatives you can squish into a run on sentence. I took my new Diana Lomo camera along to record the many wonderful sights I saw and memories I made... which unfortunately was a HUGE mistake... all the photos were ruined due to a light leak. Like, every single one. I'm so disappointed! Luckily I backed many of them up by digital, but there are a few things I lost any record of completely... and who knows when the next time I'm going to have a baby crocodile on my head is going to happen again!

Anyways, as I was walking home (I may or may not have been crying... yeah, okay... I was) I started thinking... and realised maybe losing those photos wasn't such a big deal as in that moment it did seem. After all... they were just images, capturing sight alone. They wouldn't show the prayers that drifted softly through the air from speakers, mingling with the bread truck blaring out "It's a small world" and competing with the tinny sounds of bollywood tunes, or Michael Jackson or, in one case, classical piano coming from the windows of the homes I passed. Or the cheerful greetings of "good morning"(in the case of adults) or "bon bon?" (in the case of children) which followed me wherever I went. Nor would they show the smells of cooking, fire, jungle, tuk-tuk fumes, incense, jasmine intermingling in the air... or the feeling of a tropical morning ripe with the potential of another sunny day... the warmth on my skin, making everything I had ever known seem so far away. Those photos wouldn't have captured the taste of a fresh king coconut, purchased to conquer the heat, and for the novelty of guzzling straight from the husk... or the sensation of the warm afternoon rain clinging to my clothes, the itchy bites, the feeling of the gravel of an unknown lane underneath my feet.

Or the freedom and beauty of feeling in love with a place, and a time in life.

There's a lot looking at those photos wouldn't tell you. But a lot that I could.

And suddenly, I'm not so devastated after all.

xx

Geoffrey Bawa

"Architecture cannot be totally explained but must be experienced"

"Every artist works on a different scale. A page. A painting. A sonata. A film. A novel. A house. A garden. But essentially they all create, in some ways, self-portraits of themselves. Art is a long intimacy. The scale of the achievement might be grand and take years but it has to be personal and carefully pieced together and specific to its culture"

(Micheal Ondaatje, on Lunuganga)

xx