Sri Lanka - An Early Visit

Ceylon! OK - not quite; the country had changed its name to Sri Lanka ten years before this quick, one-week trip to central Sri Lanka in 1982. From Negombo, I travelled to Anuradhapura,* the first capital dating from the 5th C BC. I then went to the ancient (5th C AD) rock fortress of Sigiriya,* climbing the perilous stairway and - as you could back then - photographing the famous frescoes. I then headed to Kandy* with its most sacred Sri Dalada Maligawa Temple and finally to the hill station of Nuwara Eliya. For some reason, I took very few photographs - and they are all pretty awful, having been scanned from badly processed negatives! It was certainly a different time back then! (* = UNESCO World Heritage site - both Anuradhapura and Sigiriya were inscribed in 1982, the year of my visit)