From Colombo to Dambulla

On Tuesday we were up at first light ( which is about 5.30 am, here) to make the journey from Colombo up to Siguria.This was to be another bone jerkingly protracted drive along very crowded roads because, as yet, Sri Lanka does not have any equivalent of a motorway. We did not have the family's usual driver but a security guard who worked for my host whose driving skills were not as accomplished as the usual diver so the trip was definitely of the extreme stoccatto kind. He  had other attributes however, which proved invaluable later on.
we had a cup of tea before we left but after several hours we stopped for breakfast at a very smart cafe called:
Wahalkada
When I walked inside  knew that my time of reckoning had come because there were pots of curry on offer for breakfast> "Bite the bullet, Elaine", I thought, because up until then I had avoided the bowls of curry for breakfast thinking that my digestive system would not stand it. I chose some milk rice because I know that I like it, with very small amounts of dahl and potato curry and coconut roti. I can't say that I will ever get accustomed to eating curry for breakfast but I have learned to enjoy eating it.

After another protracted drive, we stopped at Dambulla. Here, there is a huge golden statue of the Buddha facing the road, a Buddhist televison station and a quantity of plaster Buddhist monk statues and many pilgrims including a very large group of shaven buddhist nuns. Above all this is a climb to a cave with a large number of statues of the Buddha and also frescoes inside. Merton mentions this in his Asian Journal on p.231:
"The caves are dark....The guide is not interested in the frescoes which are good, only in the rank of Buddhas which are not good."

 On the strength of this, I decided not to make the steep climb in the searing heat up to the cave but i climbed with our driver, who is a Buddhist, up to the huge golden Buddha. He showed me that I must remove my shoes and hat because it is a holy place and I stood there with the frangipani flower offerings  before the Buddha, making my own offering of myself to the vast open sky, baking heat and the quiet reflection of the Buddha for the journey to Pollonuwara which lay ahead of us.