Blessings On You

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Elephant at Gangarama Temple parade

Quiet morning catching up on blog and editing photos. Lunch Sri Lankan style. Team came her to Krisha and Aygu’s home for 4-ish (lots of timing here is –ish) for cup of tea and biscuits. Lovely. Then to Gangarama Temple for special parade and guided tour by Janaka Edirisinghe, a Rorarian and priest whom we met at Conference. We were asked to wear light coloured clothes and invited to be blessed by the priest – a wonderful moment followed by having wool strings tied very tightly round our right wrist.

With janaka and High Priest at Gangarama

A wonderful insight into the temple and we were shown into the Inner Temple and museum which is only open on certain occasions. The Buddha relic was paraded through the streets with drummers and musicians and an elephant in golden dress which floated elegantly at it swayed from side to side. Claire was in her element taking photos and I had my orders to ‘flip’ sequences so also felt run off my feet. Really energising though.

The temple caretaker then enthusiastically showed us the amazing collection which is irreplaceable and beautiful, and Claire got a good long interview with Janaka about the temple itself. Very satisfying.

One of many stone-carved Buddhas at Gangarama

Brief stop back at Krish for a chilled champagne – highly recommended on a warm evening, then out for the evening dinner with Colombo South Club. We dropped Jenny at Jay’s house on the way with orders to get some sleep!

Dinner was held at a beautiful location with really friendly people and we had a good chat with Krish, Cristantha, Jay and Mahil (our hosts) once more. We ate quite early – around 9.30-ish and left just as the others came for their Chinese meal – by then rather cold. A reasonably early night as we knew we’d a long day ahead starting at 6.00 the next morning.