Anuradhapura, the city of king was the capital city of Sinhalese for 1,400 years with long history of royals, wars, and religious to be one of the most important ancient cities in this region and the cradle of Buddhism outside India. Everything of Anuradhapura is Buddhism and the center of the city is the sacred city. The word “city” in this term is quite similar with Vatican City or Beijing’s Forbidden City which are the city inside the city. The sacred city was the large complex of ancient monasteries with thousands of Buddhist monks when the city was in its zenith.

The center of the sacred city is Sri Maha Bodhi, the holy tree, the symbol of local Buddhism, was bought from India 2,300 years ago, and is considered to be one of the oldest living trees in this world. Not only the holy tree, but Anuradhapura also has many big stupas, the most famous of all maybe Thuparama and Ruvanvelisaya. Thuparama is regarded as the oldest stupa in the world and is the model of Buddhist stupa in many parts of Asia. The gigantic white stupa of Ruvanvelisaya is just breathtaking with its size and hundreds of worshippers. The city is also famous for its art, the guard stone and moon stone at Mahasena and Ratna Palaces are the must see for their amazing mastery craving qualities.

Visiting Anuradhapura was quite a unique experience; I had to walk 1 km on bare foot in Sri Maha Bodhi and Ruvanvelisaya areas passed many security checking points with hundreds of local pilgrims. These places should be spiritual and peaceful, but the thing I saw were soldiers with guns in every corner of the area making a war zone liked feelings. There were also many rules of photography and dress code. But I could not compliant since terrorists had attacked the holy tree and killed many people, so having these soldiers maybe the best thing for this sacred city.

All in all, Anuradhapura is a nice place to visit, but in my opinion these place is not a must since most of the places are stupas which are looked quite the same for non-expert who is unable to separate the differences of bubble, bell and rice heap styles; it is quite hard to appreciate unless you are in deep interest of Sri Lankan history or local Buddhism, the nearby Polonnaruwa maybe the better place for normal casual tourists and typical Kodak moments.