We got up early to an overcast day. It had obviously rained overnight.

A somewhat strange breakfast - a cold fried egg, what must have been banana juice, a big pot of loose leaf tea and 15 pieces of toast with about a quarter of a pound of butter and a big dollop of some sort of marmalade. Initial price quoted by the Mistress of the Guest House: 2,000 rupees (very roughly, about $18,00). At our looks of amazement she immediately dropped the price to 400 rupees - which is more like the going rate.

At 8.00am (and after quite a lot of toast) we set off on foot to the Cave Temples which are on the main (Kandy) Road that runs through Dambulla.

About 400 steps (I counted them) later and you are at the top ready to go view each of the five separate caves. Happily (& surprisingly) you are allowed to take flash photos inside. You are not allowed to takes photos of living people inside though. At many/most/all Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka you are not allowed to take a photo of someone with their back to the Buddah image so perhaps it's something to do with that.

The caves as they now appear date back to about the 1st Century BC. The then King Valagamba was driven out of his position by Tamil invaders. During his exile he hid for some time in these caves. Once he regained his Throne 14 years later he had the caves carved into these Temples, with many statues and frescos on the walls and ceilings.

in many ways they are superior to the cave Temples on Elephanta Island off Mumbai (& the Monkeys here are nowhere near as aggressive as their Indian cousins). We took many photos in the caves and just a few are in the Photo section of this Blog.

After spending a few hours at the caves we hit the road and visited a Spice Garden operation where the Guide showed us growing pepper, jasmine, aloe vera, vanilla, cardomom, saffron etc. He told us a number of times (as did the Tuk Tuk driver who brought us here) that this was a free tour as it was "100% Government owned". Naturally we were therefore thrilled to get out the door at the end for only 800 rupees! To my credit I did not ask the Guide why he kept saying the place was "Government owned" as if that was a good thing.

Back to bustling downtown Dambulla (Pop. 65,000) where we found a nice clean friendly Restaurant where we had a lovely Fish Curry and Chop Suey (plus fresh fruit & ice-cream) for much less than we paid for a dubious meal with a similar name at our Hotel the night before.

Now we are back at our Hotel where at least the WiFi is fairly reliable and the rising damp smell is reducing as we have the Air-con on permanently. I also found some mosquito coils in a shop so have had them burning too in an attempt to avoid Dengue Fever.

OK - gotta hit the sack now as there is no TV here This is a bit of a blessing really as it's kinda crappy.

By the way - ignore the photo of Elephants shown above. We haven't seen any as yet but you need to upload a photo of something to be able to save/publish the Blog. Plus we like Elephants.