Weekend #2 - Blowhole and Rock Temple

SATURDAY -

We woke up on Saturday morning to monsoon rains. The lagoon outside of our place which is about the size of a football field, filled 2 feet higher than the level it was sitting in a few hours. We spent the morning having a slow breakfast and reading and catching up on a few things we neglected over the week. Then I said, enough of this. We are Vancouverites, when did a little rain ever stop us from doing anything. The answer is fairly often, but since the rain had begun to ease we decided to get out of the house.

The staff at Moonstone called a Tuk-tuk for us and we were on our way. After hurtling down the main road a few clicks we were off in the "sub-urbs" again. Passing a few lagoons, produce stands, cows, mangey dogs and homes along the way.

Our driver let us out here. He told us to go up these steps to get to the blowhole. He waited, we went.

I would call them stairs, but they are not really stairs. They are stone steps that are crookedy ad jaggedy.

This was a small beach on the way to the Blowhole. I could stay here for a while.

We paid a foreigner fee to get in. I am thinking it was about 3 times as much as the locals pay. But its not like I can try to fake that I am from this country. Not by a long shot. Anways there were more stairs to the top of the rocks and then a fantastic view of the hole. There were lots of local people there taking in the sight. We waited around for about 10 minutes before things started to take off and the blowhole lived up to its name. 

 Blowhole in action.

The crowd of people where hoooooooooo-ing and hollering to encourage the spray to come up.

 A snap of us in front of the hole. We didn't get to close as suggested by the signage. And the bars.

We were just about to leave when the blowhole gave another shorter and less impressive performace, but it was appreciated, none the less.

Krista posing in the mangroves. Some of the people from work had tried to take us with them when they went last week, but we missed them because they were super late for the arranged meeting time, and they took a bunch of photos and posed here, so we took some too!

SUNDAY -

At our usual Saturday night dinner at Ruwan's (our landlord's) place we arranged a tuk-tuk ride from his brother the tuk-tuk guy to go to the Muligiri rock temple Sunday morning.

Again, another crazy tuk-tuk ride through town and into a more rural area. Our guy once again dropped us off and pointed to some stairs. So, we climbed them.

The stairs leading up from the parking lot to the ticket office. Where again we had to pay a foreigner price. C'est la vie I guess. The guy at the ticket office was albino and spoke pretty good English. He told us to check a few rooms on this level then head on up in the other direction.

There were several little rooms in the rock temple Each had granite walls that were covered (every inch) with either a painted pattern or scenes like this one. Even the roof was painted.

Each room had a massive yellow Buddha in a side-lying position along the back wall. I am not really sure what the significance of that was. But it was cool to see. There were also other statues of the Buddha in each room.

This is looking up form the bottom of the big granite rock to the top.

A little lizard we found basking in the sun on the terracotta roof tiles. We saw Sri Lankan people carrying these up as we were going down to repair the temples at the top. Probably another reason we pay a foreigner entrance fee ;)

 

Krista climbing even more stairs!

Krista sitting at the edge of the rock with the valley behind her. Almost at the top!

These stairs to the last level were crazy. I don't think this picture does it justice. They were steep and headed  at an unusual angle. They were mind boggling like something you would expect to see out of one of those optical illusion paintings.

Temple at the top.

We saw these monkeys on our way down. The moma has a baby. So cute!

View up the rock again with a bell in the foreground.

View from the top.

Our legs were pretty beat after doing the climb. And we were really sweaty. But it was worth it. The few temples we have been to have an air of peace and serenity about them. They seem to always be very calm places with good energy.