Last days in Chennai, new days in Sri Lanka

Kandy lake with view of the Temple of the Tooth

Temple of the Tooth, Kandy

This is downtown Kandy, showing both new and very old buildings

Lankatilake temple, 13th century, this is a back to back temple, Buddhis on once side, Hindu on the other

It was a Buddhist holyday and many women were dressed in white, these women asked me to take their photo, so I obliged!

Tree shrine in the neighborhood I lived in in Chennai, I love how the trees are painted, this shrine is active day and night

Hi, I am in Sri Lanka now, but wanted to put up some photos from my last days in Chennai, as well as my first here. But, I discovered that its taking a whopping 7 minuites for each image to load, now I have a lot of time on my hands, but this tests even my patience. On my last two days I enjoyed again walking around my neighborhood and that of my favorite temple area early in the morning, but this time taking photos of small neighborhood or street shrines. I'll post more if I find faster service later.

I love the little roadside shrines in India amost more than the larger formal ones. There is always a certain amount of doubt if I should photograph or not, the photographer's dilemna, wanting the shot, but not wanting to exploit anyone, or be insensitive. In the large temples there are notices of where you can and can't photograph, so its easier, and I often just wait to see what other, particularly Indian, tourists are doing. there is no particular rule, mostly you can't photograph the core image in a shrine, but somtimes if you ask the priest, its ok, my friend Michael has hardly ever been turned down and you always give a small donation at the shrine anyway. In other cases I ask, or I take my camera out and hold it, allowing anyone to see that I have it and if anyone sees, they have time to tell me not to take a photo. In some small or mid-size temples, there is a caretaker family and from my experience, for a donation, they are more than happy to let you take as many photos as you want.

It was a beatiful flight to Sri Lanka, down the east coast of India, until you start to see the western coast of Sri Lanka, Colombo where the airport is near is in the middle of the east coast. I'll be there my last 2 1/2 days, its a large city, but the Fulbright director there who I've been in contact with, got me a room in a nice b&b in an old house in what sounds like the nicest parts of town, near the embasies and museums and university, because he said there were definately areas in Colombo that I should not even consider going to. (of course these were the very areas I was headed as that's where the discount hotels were, smartly this man organized it for me) plus he said the old woman who runs the place would gladly have a drink with me and watch Obama's innaguration, that's a must for me.

I headed straight up and inland to Kandy, in the hills, its the sacred city of Sri Lanka, where the temple of the Buddha's tooth is. Its formally called the Sri Dalada Maligawa) You can see that view by the building with the gold roof. The story is that the tooth was rescured from the flames of the Buddha's funeral pyre in 543 BC and smuggled to Sri Lanka in the 4th century AD hidden in the hair of a princess. It has huge importance in Sri Lanka as whoever has the tooth aparently has the right to rule the Island. The Portuguese said they stole and burned it, but the Sri Lankans said that that was a fake, and that even the one in the temple today is a fake and the real one is buried somewhere for safe keeping. There are only certain times of day to see the box the tooth is in, aparently you really get pushed along. Ironically I was in a bank being annoyed at how long it was to cash my travelers checks when this was happening so I missed it, but I saw the outside doors and the orange clad monks locking things up. I think I'll live my life ok without having seen it, the building and grounds were beaitiful. Today was a special day for Buddhists, so the place was mobbed and there were women wearing white all over. At one of the smaller temples a group of them asked me to take their photo which you see.

Some of the photos look pretty gloomy, but it was just hazy, with an antomospheric sky, and the haze was welcome for when the sun came out today, it was really hot. Occasionally there was a spot of rain, which stopped completely of course, since I bought an umbrella, my worthy sacrifice, it always works! The center piece of Kandy is a very large lake and the city clusters mostly to one side of it. I did put a photo of that, my hotel is exactly on the opposite side of the temple on the lake. For a modest $13.00 I have a large clean room with hot water, and large double doors that open onto a narrow balcony with a view of the lake. There is a very larger verandah at back where breakfast is served. Like many houses in the tropics, the original bungalows, which there unfortunately do not seem to be much left of, have very large open porches, and high peaked ceillings. I also have one photo of a street in the rather chaotic grimy part of "down-town", I believe the one I put up was of a new building on one side and a very old one on the other. There are some pretty old buildings, mostly hotels like "Queens" and "Old Empire" there is a lovely pub on a generous verandah in one with wicker chairs, I enjoyed a beer and steak there the other night. (I needed a wee break from Indian food.)

Today I took a trip to visit three 13th century temples out in the countryside, the ride was beautiful and each temple was pretty spectacular. The large white one you see is the Lanktilake Temple, which interestingly was two temples back to back, one Hindu and one Buddhist, I've shown only one side at present. Its pretty natural to see a mingling of Hindu and Buddhist imagery, not so Hindu and Muslim!

Tomorrow I hired a car to get to my next destination and on the way stop at two important sites, some cave temples with old paintings and an intersting geological site that was a palace, then to Polonnaruwa, one of the two ancient cities I'll visit, the other is about two hours from that one, Anuradhapura, then from there back to the coast at the old Dutch city of Galle, which will be the first place I'll probably have faster internet. Its intersting being here as the 30 year civil war with the Tamil Tigers agains the Sinhalese Sri Lankan army comes to an end!

Everyday I also get some painting done, its been lovely but I miss you all!