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On Tuesday we visited the Rangiri Dambulla cave temple, which along with Sigiriya, are UNESCO world heritage listed sites. There are five caves and Buddhist mural paintings that have been inhabited and worked on since the 3rd century BC.

The complex is also residence to a whole bunch of monkeys who manage to be simultaneously very cute and very menacing. We stopped for some mango with chilli salt, which was so tasty. I am a firm believer in chilli salt making most things better. A monkey kept harassing the fruit lady, eventually making off with some pineapple. As we wrapped up, our guide Udi got us some ridiculously sweet Sri Lankan treats (that I don’t know the name of but seem similar to Indian Jalebi).

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “cave.” Use it as a noun or a verb. Enjoy!

 The word ‘cave’ reminds me of our trip to Badami cave templesmany years ago. We had gone to the Hospet to be with my father’s elder sister’s family. Hospet too is an ancient city. It is famous for Hampi, the capital of the Vijayanagar rulers and the Tungabhadra dam. Badami is not very far from…

Mandapa is a Sanskrit term for a typically-square vestibule, pillared hall or pavilion. It was a space for people to gather socially, usually for ceremonies and rite-of-passage rituals. Cells or sanctums would often be included, creating a vihara. Mandapas also refer to rock-cut cave temples or shrines, built according to the same concept, and Mamallapuram has many mandapas dated to the 7th and…

Dambulla Cave Temple, Lion Rock and Kaudulla National Park.

After our couple of nights in Kandy we moved onto Inamaluwa, which is situated midway between Dambulla and Sigiriya. It’s a very quite place with not a lot going on, but has a few home-stays dotted here and there. “Incidentally they are also very cheap, the cost of ours was just £14 per night” but the main reason for choosing Inamaluwa was because it is roughly midway between Lion Rock and the…