Polonnaruwa is the second major empire in Sri Lanka, and was built around 1000AD, and became the new capital of Sri Lanka. Just like Anhradupura there's lots to see - with the most famous site being the carving at Gal Vihariya.
But first...the museum...
Now I'm not one for museums - everything we know about history tends to be conjecture and theory - so there's no real way of trusting what we're told, and theories keep changing as new things get discovered. In fact - it's thought that recent findings have invalidated some of the theories currently being presented as fact at Polonnaruwa...
But having said all of that - it's worth taking a look around, because it's excellent display gives a real appreciation for what there is to see and how best to get around the various sites. Bearing in mind that Brock was still in significant amounts of pain we tried to work out a route that would cut the walking to a minimum.
From the museum it's a short walk to the ruins - with the first thing on the list the Royal Meeting Chamber:
View of the large artificial lake, used to provide water to the capital:
Our shoes - stacked out of the rain at one of the temples:
Temple at the Royal Palace:
Detailed carving:
A giant book style carving:
Taking a well earned coconut break:
And a huge snake we saw at the ruins (click on the pic to view the video):
And finally the most famous and impressive site here - the carvings of Gal Vihariya:
On one of the evenings we decided to head up to the Polunaruwa guest house which sits on the lake and is famous for having been used as an overnight visit by the Queen a long time ago. It's not a bad spot for a cup of tea as the sun sets - but the food portions are very very small...I wonder if the Queen takes snacks on trips - because she'd have needed them if she'd eaten here :-)
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