Today's breakfast was potato curry with roti, papayas, bananas and coffee.
The hotel arranged a tok-tok at 8:40 in the morning. We asked the driver
to take us to the intercity bus terminal but the driver took us to Kandy
station by mistake. So we had to ask again to take us to the bus terminal.
The driver gave us a paper on which his name was written as we were about
to leave. He probably wanted us to recommend him to any of our friends
who might visit Sri Lanka.We visited Anuradhapura, a sight-seeing spot in the cultural triangle, a number of historical areas found between three cities in the northern part of Sri Lanka. There were several buses going to Anuradhapura from Kandy terminal offered by different bus campanies. We got on one of the buses, a small one whose drivers were trying to attract customers. Although the driver said the bus would depart at 9:30, the bus actually departed at 9:15. A middle-aged man sang songs on a tambourine and asked for tips. Some passengers boarded and some got off on the way. Finally the driver dropped us off at a bus stop. It was a kind of central part of Anuradhapura but not a bus terminal. Later we found out that the place was an old bus terminal. A man who said he used to live in Japan talked to us in Japanese. We had lunch in a restaurant nearby which he recommended. We ordered a chicken dish, fried rice, juice and cola which cost 450 rupees. He kindly asked the restaurant not to season the dishes with spicy sauce but to serve it separately.
Then we took a van taxi to Mahanela Guest House. Soon after we checked in, we went to Isurumunia temple by tok-tok. The tok-tok fee was 150 rupees and when we gave him two 100 rupee bills he said he didn't have change. But while we rounded up coins, he suddenly revealed that he did have change and gave us a 50 rupee bill. Clearly, he had change but if possible he didn't want to give it to us and at the same time he didn't want to carry a lot of heavy coins.
The temple premises was fenced off and we paid 200 rupees at the entrance and took off our shoes to enter. Some tourists walked around in their socks as the sand and flagstones were hot. There was a lying Budda and a seated Budda with his disciples in the temple and there was a roost of little swifts near the ceiling.