"Sri Lanka" means "the delightful island on the Indian Ocean". A guide explained that the size of the land is 65000 square kilo meters, which is smaller than that of Hokkaido and bigger than that of Kyushu. It was unexpectedly vast. It takes four or five hours from one site to another site by bus. Most main roads have been paved but mountain roads are so rugged that once it rains, it gets out of hand. On the third day of our trip, we saw a bus having fallen down on the bottom of the valley on our way to a tea-producing district. We heard four people were killed in the accident.
　　With the only six-day trip, we could see only the west coast of the island and part of ruins in the middle of the island. Tsunami hit the east coast and south part of the island two years ago. As I couldn't see the sites, I bought some memorial stamps at a post office in Colombo that a word "TSUNAMI" is printed, which means the Japanese word "Tsunami" has become a worldwide common word.
　The first site we visited was Polonnaruwa Tanbura, the stone caves where Buddhist architectures were built, around the center of the island. Those architectures were built around 100 B.C. and resemble those in India. The picture on the right is of a stone Buddhist statute, Nirvana Buddha and the left of the Buddha is said to be Hozo bosatsu. Now I remember here that the guide said something strange. It goes: "Please do not take pictures in front of the Buddhist statue, but take pictures of only the Buddhist statue." I didn't get it at first, but found out afterwards that they didn't want us to show the back to the Buddha.
　Next we moved to Sigiraya Rock, a very much characterized World Heritage. It was a huge rock with the height of 180 meters on which a fortress was built 1500 years ago. Fresco paintings depicted 23 beautiful women around the halfway up the wall are very famous. They are simple and unaffected ones different from Ajanta's in India, looking like graffiti. You have to go up quite steep stairs and spiral stairs to see them. One of the big-heartedness in this country is that you can take pictures wherever you like. Sometimes you are not allowed to use a flash, but not stopped if a flash is automatically set off. If you give some tip, they even open the curtain. I have come to like such a country, Sri Lanka.
　Finally, we went to Busshi-ji temple. What a bustling temple it was! It might be after 8:00 at night, but it was packed with many people. As the Chinese characters(Buddha and teeth) show, Buddha's teeth were said to be worshiped, but there were so many people that I couldn't see(miru in Japanese) them well― no, I should say, I couldn't respectfully observe(ogamu in Japanese) them well. On top of that, they close the door when time was up, whose system may be similar to the Japanese system for secret Buddhist statures. Anyway, it was the trip in which I had a strong impression that Sri Lanka surly is a Buddhist country.