Elephants to view

There have been some heavy rains but whenever we left our vehicle to view a site we had a bit of sunshine.  Lucky us.  Yesterday on our drive to Polonnaruwa we stopped at some caves with Buddhist  paintings as well as the 'largest' Buddhist statue in the world (so it says).

The caves were stunning.  Every inch of the ceiling and walls are painted.  At first I thought they were cloth covered because the rock is not smooth or straight.

You can see how the interior is painted.  We climbed a few hundred stairs to arrive at the caves.  Good thing since I have been eating too much.

Outside the caves.

We arrived at The Lake Resort mid afternoon.  A nice 50s style lodge at the edge of a small lake close to the National Park.  Again there are monkeys everywhere.  A few climbed up on the roof and looked in our open window.  Frank noticed and quickly closed it so that camera and things would not be taken.  Despite the cloudy weather, I took a late afternoon swim.

View from our window with the pool in the foreground.  There are bikes here and so today we may bike a few km to some ruins and then tomorrow take a jeep safari to see some of the animals.  We can see elephants from our room.  They roam freely here and usually come to the lake in the afternoon.