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We arrived in Anuradhapura in the late afternoon, after an eight hour ride on a packed bus through winding, bumpy, unpaved roads. Police wearing fatigues and armed with machine guns were on every corner of every street, and we even noticed them keeping watch inside grocery stores and restaurants. There was only one reason to venture this far into northern Sri Lanka, and that was for the magnificent ruins of the ancient city of Anuradhupura, located just a few miles north of the new city. However, the strong military presence made us feel uneasy, and we learned that this city had been a major theater of conflict during the 20+ year Civil War that had finally ended in 2009. We walked for what seemed to be hours with our heavy backpacks looking for a guesthouse with a room under $10, and finally found one (though it quite nasty, with bugs flying around, dim lights, and too many holes in the mosquito netting.) However, the owner was friendly, and that night he invited me into his living room to share a drink with him and his friend. They were drinking Arrack mixed with Coke. Arrack is a strong alcohol, probably made from rice, and it tastes like a cross between bad whiskey and bad rum. He also offered me some curry, which was to be eaten with my fingers, and newspaper to wipe off my hands afterwards. He told me about the end of the war in his thickly accented English, and that he was happy tourists were beginning to return to Anuradhapura. He seemed optimistic about his country's future, a mindset I see in many Sri Lankans, and happy that peace had been restored, however fragile it may be in the north.
The next day, Margaret and I rented bicycles and rode through the ancient city. We went to the sacred Bodhi tree, a site of Buddhist pilgrimage, which too was guarded by machine-gun weilding police, and then cycled through some amazing dagobas and ruins (though not quite as amazing as Angkor Wat.) The one positive side of the strong security presence was that the police were so concerned about stability that no one asked us to pay the $30 dollar park entrance free and we got to see the temples for free!
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