Sri Lanka Day 3: Beautiful Dumbulla Caves

After Sigiriya, we decided to visit Dumbulla Cave before lunch.  The place is easily recognised with the giant Thai-style Golden Buddha statue that can be seen far away.   It is constructed recently. .

You purchase the entrance tickets at the tourist office.

Dumbulla, a World Heritage Site, is divided into the old and new section.  The photo above showed the newer section.  If you have a vehicle, you could drive up mid point to visit the Dumbulla Caves, which is the main purpose of visit.

From there, it was a fair bit of inclined but manageable walk to the caves (15 minutes) and the route did not provide much shelter from the sun. 

The first cave features a large reclining budha.















Even the feet of the statue was beautifully crafted.

In another, several seated deities...

and beautiful wall mural.



















One of the caves have the most beautiful statues, some of them appear on the publicity materials.

The modern part of the Dumbulla Temple, the Golden Temple, was nothing special.  It houses an exhibition hall that would only make sense if you have a guide.  

It is an easy climb to the Golden Temple, where you could walk around the exterior.

Interesting sculpture.

And of course, the tourists were intrigued by the monkeys at the Golden Temple. 

We had lunch at Gimanhala at Hotel Dambulla.  The buffet spread was not exciting and we were also more thirsty than hungry. 

And so, we had the first non-buffet lunch in Sri Lanka. The fried rice turned out to be nice and filling.

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