Notes on the Geography of Sri Lanka: GampolaBack in the 14th century, when temples like Gadaladeniya were being built, Gampola was a royal city. There's not much regality left, but there is a surprisingly ornate Hindu temple and a good deal of cultivable land that, in this hilly country, must once have put the city in the center of its own granary. Make default image size larger ![]() Downtown: the central crossroads. ![]() Let's follow those trucks. ![]() They take us to this paint-deprived Hindu temple, built for the plantation-based Tamils. ![]() Inside, a quiet courtyard. ![]() The back of the inner sanctum. ![]() Shady colonnades. ![]() Before the inner sanctum, a quartet of elaborately carved columns. ![]() A few miles downstream, along the Mahaweli. A temple sits on the floodplain--the river running at the foot of the ridge. ![]() The form echoes Embekke. ![]() Ornamentation is minimal, however. ![]() You won't find many places in the old Kandyan Kingdom with land like this--certainly nowhere near Kandy. In the background, the fields are growing manioc, a popular crop here, with profits much higher than those from paddy. ![]() A close-up of the manioc (the source of tapioca). ![]() A very unusual sight for central Sri Lanka: perhaps ten acres laid out in exceptionally large paddies. ![]() We've come upstream from Gampola, where again there's a lot of cultivable land. ![]() The farmer is letting a second crop sprout spontaneously from the last crop's stubble. |
* Argentina * Australia * Austria * Bangladesh * Belgium * Botswana * Brazil * Burma / Myanmar * Cambodia (Angkor) * Canada (B.C.) * China * The Czech Republic * Egypt * Fiji * France * Germany * Ghana * Greece * Guyana * Hungary * India: Themes * Northern India * Peninsular India * Indonesia * Israel * Italy * Japan * Jerusalem * Jordan * Kenya * Laos * Kosovo * Malawi * Malaysia * Mauritius * Mexico * Micronesia (Pohnpei) * Morocco * Mozambique * Namibia * The Netherlands * New Zealand * Nigeria * Norway * Oman * Pakistan * Peru * The Philippines * Poland * Portugal * Romania (Transylvania) * Senegal * Singapore * South Africa * South Korea * Spain * Sri Lanka * Sudan * Syria (Aleppo) * Tanzania * Thailand * Trinidad * Turkey (Istanbul) * Uganda * The U.A.E. (Dubai) * The United Kingdom * The Eastern United States * The Western United States * Oklahoma * Uruguay * Uzbekistan * Vietnam * The West Bank * Yemen * Zambia * Zimbabwe *