| Picture: Image Bank |
THE orange-robed monk motions me forward through the crowd.
I scatter a few coins on the ground, as I’ve seen other
pilgrims do, and kneel to touch my forehead against the sacred
stone. I feel a sudden rush of excitement before being shunted on
by the procession of local devotees. I’ve just touched the
footprint of Buddha.
Visiting the stone imprint involves a long climb up the steps of
an ancient volcano to Adam’s Peak, named after another legend
that says this was where Adam planted his first footstep after
being thrown out of heaven.
Adam’s Peak is relatively easy to book locally as an
add-on or to include in tailor-made itineraries, but the 2,243
metre climb is not for the faint-hearted. If clients want to make
the three-hour ascent by sunrise they will need to set out at
2am.
At the start of the climb there are hawker stalls piled with
refreshments, joss sticks and offerings for Buddha, but the wide
path swiftly becomes narrow and steep. Climbers are soon panting up
steep concrete steps before reaching a small Buddhist temple at the
top.
Once there, chanting visitors throng the temple. The overall
experience is quite spiritual and I wondered how many before me had
pressed their head to that stone.
Sri Lanka has plenty, more accessible, ancient ruins and
architecture for clients to enjoy. Most of these are in the
Cultural Triangle, an area of Sri Lanka’s interior that
contains five of the country’s seven UNESCO heritage sites.
The area encompasses Kandy, the two ancient capitals of Polonnaruwa
and Anuradhapura, the ornate cave temple at Dambulla and the rock
fortress at Sigiriya.
Odyssey Experience product manager Jenny Morris said: “Sri
Lanka’s ancient culture spans some 25 centuries, with royal
and sacred cities, Buddhist temple caves and seven UNESCO World
Heritage sites. All this is combined with an amazing setting of
rich biodiversity, flora and fauna.”
Somak Holidays product executive Mercy Okuley said: “Kandy has
got a lot of hills but you get incredible views of the temples and
ruins. The shopping is also good.”
Kandy is a friendly old colonial town an hour north of
Adam’s Peak. It is the former royal capital of Sri Lanka and
is rich in ancient sites.
The rock fortress of Sigiriya, built by King Kassapa in 478AD,
lies further north from Kandy. It’s another climb to the top,
but at only 200 metres it’s shorter and slightly less
vertigo-inducing.
The first flight of steps is built in the form of a huge lion
and from below the rock castle sticks up out of the jungle canopy
like a craggy thumb. Incredibly, it is the size of several football
pitches. The views are impressive and the fortress features many
ancient and fragile paintings protected from daylight by large
shrouds.
Polonnaruwa is close to Sigiriya and can be incorporated into a
busy day trip. While I was there a large crowd of locals emerged
from a temple, walking behind a monk dressed in a red robe.
They paraded slowly to another nearby temple and congregated
within the ruins. Surrounded by a jumble of pillars and broken
walls, they then knelt in front of three disfigured Buddhas while a
priest led them in low chanting prayer.
The reverence of these pilgrims brought the ruins to life for me
and for the rest of the day I walked with an even greater sense of
awe among the remaining temples.
