Sri Lanka Cycle Touring- Day 2 and Day 3

Starting the ride. The previous camping place in the
background

Day 2: Minneriya- Polonnaruwa- Bakamuna (66 km): The day started with an early morning coffee from our warm hosts. We were really lucky to have found such a generous family. As a mark of gratitude, we brought some chocolates for them. After saying good bye to the family, we started pedaling towards Polonnaruwa, an ancient capital of Sri Lanka. The weather was no different today and there were no signs of it changing either.

As we moved, we made several small observations. The streets were much cleaner than India, most of the houses had verandas with pillars in them, the towns were less densely populated and several other small things. After riding around 10 km we settled at one place for breakfast. We were quite surprised to see that people here serve everything in bulk. Like they'll place a lot of parathas in one serving plates, some curry in another. One can take how much ever one wants and the bill be generated on the basis of what is left in those serving plates/bowls. We had seen this reverse bill generating method for the first time. Anyway not concerned about what maths the'll use, we bulged our tummies and moved further towards Polonnaruwa.

A Sri Lankan monitor lizard

On the way, just after a small bridge, one person stopped us pointing out towards something. We saw that a big Sri Lankan water monitor lizard. was coming out of the stream. The person was feeding it with fishes and asking us to take pictures of it. I had seen this creature for first time and was amazed at its size. It seemed the guy's livelihood was this. He'd stop tourists on the way, shown them these lizards and get some money in return. It just made me think, if one wants to earn livelihood, there are so many ways one can do so.

Free food can make you do lots of things ;)

One of the many Buddhist temple which we saw on the way

Standing Buddha. A controversial posture though. Buddha is
typically not seen in such a posture in any form of art

After a while, we reached Polonnaruwa. While we were discussing about the ticket pricing, one guide told us that the fees for all the archaeological sites is half for Indians (SAARC countries to be precise). That is when we realized that we paid extra amounts at Sigiriya and Dambulla caves. Anyway grabbing the tickets, we familiarized ourselves with the history of  Sri Lanka in the museum. After a while we started for the real stuff. On our bikes, we started roaming around the ruins of the big city. The old seven storeyed palace, the temples, the swimming pools, the Polonnaruwa vatadage etc all made us realize that how beautiful the city would have been in the ancient times. It was a thoroughly planned city and one of the prime examples of the ancient urban planning. Though it was raining, it was a delight to roam around in our cycles around these ruins.

Polonnaruwa Vatadage- Supposedly built to hold tooth relic of Buddha

After spending quality time in the ancient city, we headed towards Kandy. It had started raining heavily by that time. We kept pedaling fast to keep the body warm. Hunger striked us soon and we calmed it down by having a delicious Sri Lankan traditional buffet. We started again after this and took a not so busy road. It ran parallel to a river which was overflowing with water due to heavy recent rains. Capturing rural Sri Lanka in mind we kept on proceeding on this road till we hit Bakamuna. It was dark by the time we reached here and we decided to camp in this village. We tried explaining one family that we wanted to put our tent in open space in front of their house but all efforts went in vain. Of course, the language was the barrier. We tried another house a little further away and luckily lady in that house knew some English. This came as a great relief for us. The family was very amiable and they asked us to sleep in their hall itself.

Day 2 Home stay

This was a common thing for the remaining days as well. People who had never used a tent, pitied on us thinking about how would be sleep inside the tent in the rain and everything. So they always asked to sleep inside their houses inside. The lady made some coffee for us after which we went for dinner in the town. We ordered some normal spicy fried rice (people here eat very spicy food compared to India). We got some snacks for children of the family we were staying with and settled down to sleep. I slept thinking that, not only the beauty of a place but also the warmness of the people of the place makes the journey truly memorable. The first two days gave truly that impression Sri Lanka is not beautiful only because of the places it offers but the people equally.

Day 3: Bakamuna- Illukkumbura- Rattota: The beautiful day started again with a warm coffee from the host. It was really heartwarming to see them coming out of their house and bidding us good bye till we were out of sight. We rode through some beautiful rural roads, passing through paddy fields, going parallel to a river, sighting varieties of birds. Soon we reached Elahara, where we had our breakfast. No was the time to decide to which route to take. To reach Kandy via a highway of a ghat road. The ghat road was a steep one but it promised beautiful views and the highway was mostly flat and of course, it will be as beautiful as the ghat road. We decided to take ghat road through Illukkumbura.

The initial stretch to reach the base of the mountains was not so great. The road was in bad condition at many places and the mud/sand was going into the chain and the discs. Soon we hit the ghat road and the initial few minutes gave us the idea of what we were about to encounter. Nevertheless, we were determined to conquer the slopes. From a flowing stream, Nobal and myself washed the chain and the brakes to remove all the sand getting into them. After a while we stopped to had some tea and snacks. It was around noon time. I had 2 sweet idlis. The journey resumed again. The slopes were quite steep and they challenged us both physically and mentally. Peter had moved much ahead of us. After a good climb, it was downhill. And as you might be aware of that, all downhills are short lived. Soon we reached the town Illukumbura where we had hoped that Peter would stop for lunch. But not seeing him, we kept on moving.

Base of the mountains

The actual climb started after this village. It seemed like a never ending uphill. And that was a smaller issue. The bigger issues was that we didn't have anything to eat. Nobal searched his bag and he could find a sneaker to share. But that was it. A tough climb without food is certainly not a good idea. We hoped some small village or a shop will come on the way. But it was just a hope. After sometime, Nobal and myself started feeling

The continuous rain made sure that people keep working and
didn't get lazy

energy deprived. We stopped at few points to fix puncture and brakes and recover ourselves. The continuous rain did not offer any views of the valley too. Nobal was pretty down and he asked if I had the Getorade in my bag. I took the last remaining food with us and it fueled us for some more time. I asked an autodriver if he had some food but he said he didn't. Our eyes were just searching for something eatable around us. The banana trees didn't have anything to offer to us. We looked around in some houses but they were all abandoned ones. One autorickshaw driver coming from opposite side mentioned that the uphill is only there for 1 more  km and from there onwards it is all downhill. This gave us some relief.

After reaching the top point, we decided to stop at the first shop we encounter. We saw some tea estates on either side of us on the downhill and soon encountered the first shop on the way. We ate to quench our hunger and sat there for a while. It felt really great gaining some energy back. It was all downhill from here till Matale (our original planned target of the day).  We started again only to realize that it was now dark and really cold with the rain and the altitude of the place (about 1200 m). We decided to settle down for the day in a nearby place. Our search lasted for quite a sometime. Not being able to find a guest house, we cycled around 2 km and reached RE Western Hotel. There we requested the manager to provide us the worst accomodation he had and he politely obliged. He provided us a damp room in 2000 Sri Lankan rupees. The floor was wet and the mattress was wet at some places. After a while, we realized that we had only around 2200 of cash with us which meant  dinner was not possible with that much amount. Rest of the money was with Peter. One of the staff knew our condition and he offered us food from the hotel without asking money from us. Such a friendly gesture. We contacted Peter and told us our position. He was in Matale waiting for Sinu to come who was on the way. He asked us to come and join him there in Matale. Although it was only 20 km from our place and it was all downhill, but it was too cold that time and the rain had not stopped too. Over to that it was foggy as well as dark. We planned to meet up in Matale next morning instead. We squeezed ourselves in one corner of the bed to avoid the water over it. We did not complain but rather slept peacefully that we could get a place to sleep at least.