Recreating the Night Sky!

Birth Centenary of the Planetarium

 

“When we look out into space, we are looking into our own origins, because we are truly children of the stars.”

– Brian Cox

[The motivation to write this article has come about not only because this year marks the centenary of the advent of the planetarium as a powerful educational tool for learning astronomy and related sciences, but also because of the expected completion and commissioning of a state-of-the-art planetarium, the first of its kind outside Japan, in my home city of Mysore next year.]

 

Inside a modern planetarium

A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky. Planetariums of today employ sophisticated computerised digital processing and display techniques to recreate the night sky and astronomical events in stunning detail.

 

The Beginnings

When ancient cave dwellers summoned enough courage at night to come out of their hidings and step out into the open, with the firmament over their heads, what they saw was the amazing, though chaotic, sight of a dazzling night sky, which the light polluted city-dwelling modern man often yearns to see in its pristine glory.  Initially, they looked at the night sky as something to be feared, for they knew not what to make of it.  But the fear gradually yielded to some sort of curiosity, marking the birth of astronomy, the oldest science known to humankind. Over the past few millennia, observational astronomy has become as much of a hobby among the inquisitive as a science in pursuit of the unknown among those who have made it a profession.                                                                                  

One of the earliest discoveries was of a handful of night sky objects called planets, which behaved differently from the innumerable stars.  Stars seemed fixed in their positions in the sky, whereas the positions of planets changed.  The role of the earth’s rotation about its own axis on the observed motions of the night sky objects was an equally significant discovery. Since then, the chaotic looking night sky has lost much of its sheen of mystery through systematic observations, leading to a complete picture of our solar system against the background of stars, and of the stars themselves and other objects as part of our Milky Way galaxy. Initially, the observations were only visual, aided by some simple measuring instruments. In this context, the reader may like to refer to one of my blog articles here for a detailed account of the wonders of the night sky visible to the naked eye. 

The invention of the telescope and its use for the exploration of the night sky by Galileo (1564 – 1642) opened up a new frontier in observational astronomy. The subsequent application of spectroscopic and photometric techniques in conjunction with telescopic observations led to an understanding of the composition of stellar objects, their physical properties, and a complete description of their motions, eventually leading to a definitive understanding of our stellar neighborhood, of a picture of galaxies beyond our own, of clusters and super clusters of such galaxies far beyond, and of the vast expanse of the universe itself around us right from its birth in the Big Bang. 

Limitations and Impediments

A totally dark night sky, without any light pollution, affords the best theatre for observational astronomy, but nature has its own say in the matter.   Here are some hurdles to overcome:

· Cloudy and hazy skies introduce an uncontrollable impediment even in the best of locations.

· Weather and climatic conditions introduce additional constraints.

· Urban and semi-urban locations, with significant light pollution, are the least conducive.

· A bright moon can interfere with observations quite severely.

· The number of viewing days/hours in the year with an acceptable level of suitability is severely limited even in good locations.

[Amateur astronomers sometimes use the ‘bortle scale’, which is a good guide to the observing conditions at a given site and its level of light pollution. There are nine levels to the Bortle scale, with Class 9 being the most extreme of light pollution, something that most dwellers in megacities experience most of the time.]

· For all practical purposes, observational astronomy is a night time endeavor, bringing in many logistic and other constraints, especially for providing direct educational experience, particularly for girls in many conservative societies.

· Portability of telescopes and support equipment to the observation site can pose a problem at times, while larger, permanently mounted telescopes are inflexibly linked to the observational conditions available at the site.

Below is a very instructive picture posted in Quora Digest by Eva Silvertant, a professional observer, showing how greatly the night sky visibility changes with atmospheric conditions. Over a period of four decades since I moved in to my present home in Mysore in south India, I have experienced the whole gamut of changes shown here, from right to left of course, as visible even in the best of times overhead from my home! 

Birth of the Planetarium

Initially, astronomy education and the pursuit of amateur astronomy depended mostly on detailed maps of the night sky and other printed material, with very few visual aids, barring the telescope.  A major breakthrough came with the invention of the modern projector planetarium exactly a hundred years ago. It was an electromechanical planetarium projector (see picture below) designed principally by Walther Bauersfeld and built by the German optical firm Carl Zeiss of Jena in 1923 for the new Deutsches Museum in Munich, and unsurprisingly named ‘Mark I’. The first official public showing was at this museum on 21 October 1923.  It generated all the necessary movements of the stars and planets inside the huge optical projector, and projected images of the night sky onto the white plaster lining of a 16 m hemispherical concrete dome.

In view of the historic importance of this pathbreaking innovation, the following detailed description of it from the ‘howstuffworks’ website is relevant here:                  

           A concave metal sphere known as a star ball used 31 lenses to show images of 4,500 stars on the dome. Seven additional projectors attached to the ball created images of the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The movement of these projectors replicated the movement of the solar bodies relative to the stars. The illumination of the images came from a bright electric lamp in the centre of the ball, surrounded by the 31 lenses. Behind each lens was mounted a disk called a star plate which served as a photographic slide. Light from the lamp passed through holes in the plate, each of which represented a star. With each lens focusing light on the dome through holes in its star plate the 31projectors together produced an image of the entire sky.

          However, the Munich Planetarium had some limitations. The view of the planetarium was confined to Munich and other places that have the same northern latitude, which means the planetarium could only show stars that rose above the horizon at the latitude of Munich. But with the technical advancements the improved versions of Munich planetariums could show the sky from any place on Earth and at any time up to 26,000 years into the past or future. In the improved planetariums, which use two large star balls and a planet projector in between, stars appear similar from any place in the solar system but the planets do not. This is because the solar system is much smaller than the distances to the stars. 

 

     The success of the Zeiss projectors led to the establishment of thousands of planetariums in the 20th century. In the United States, the first Zeiss projectors were installed in the 1930s at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, the Fels Planetarium at the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, and the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

Here is a picture of the Zeiss Planetarium Model II, an improved version of the one described above, in operation at Barmen, Germany in 1926, one of the earliest ones to come up anywhere in the world:

In the 1941 picture below, visitors to the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York are seen with the Museum’s first Zeiss ‘two star-balls projector’, and one of the earliest in USA:

A vastly improved version of the electromechanical Zeiss planetarium (Model Skymaster ZKP4 LED), with the two large star balls and the planet projector in between, is in wide use all over the world. Shown below is a picture of this planetarium projector installed at the Tamilnadu Science and Technology Centre, Chennai, India. It uses LED light sources and fiber optics.  The two star-balls, one for the northern celestial hemisphere and the other for the southern celestial hemisphere, driven together by a single motor, ensure that the star field can be produced synchronously, everywhere on the dome, encompassing the whole of the night sky.

The latest version in the evolutionary history of the celebrated Carl Zeiss planetarium projectors is the UNIVERSARIUM Mark IX LED (see picture below), designed for large domes and multimedia star theatres, for all types of domes.

Why a Planetarium?

The advantages of a planetarium as an educational tool are manifold. Here are some, pertinent to conventional electromechanical projector type planetariums: 

· The night sky can be recreated in a closed space very realistically.

· The night sky corresponding to any geographical location at any time, for any calendar day, far into the past or future, can be recreated accurately.

· Motions of the objects of the solar system can be shown precisely with respect to the background of stars and other stellar objects.

· The apparent motions and appearances of night sky objects can be controlled in a variety of ways, resulting in an immersive experience.

· The motion of the Sun against the backdrop of stars can be shown, something that is virtually impossible otherwise.

The modern state-of-the-art computerized digital display-based planetariums outperform the conventional ones in a big way.  Here are a few of their superior features:

· Ability to take the viewer beyond the Milky Way, to galaxies and extra-galactic phenomena/events such as supernovae, dark matter, etc.

· The appearance of the night sky and stellar processes within it can be recreated as viewed from anywhere in our solar neighborhood, or even beyond.

· The whole evolutionary process within the universe, from the Big Bang onwards, can be simulated in consonance with current theoretical models.

· Phenomena such as eclipses and transits for any set of solar system objects, including solar and lunar eclipses, can be predicted and simulated with high precision.

· Because of their advanced video and audio capabilities they can be used in any area of education and entertainment.

· The more recent LED projectors are distinctly superior to conventional video projectors in depicting a wide variety of stellar phenomena.

Planetariums for Education

The role of planetariums in science education, going beyond just astronomy education, is best described in the following statements excerpted from the website of The International Planetarium Society:

The star projectors that show the night sky itself are among the most durable, versatile, and cost-effective of educational tools.

Planetariums are the world's astronomy classrooms and theaters of public science education that have served perhaps a billion people during the past century. The world's 3000 planetariums are found in schools, colleges and universities, and museums and science centers in all 50 US states and in over 100 countries around the world.

In a time when quality science education is more important than ever, a scientifically literate public is an essential part of the progress of any country. Planetariums around the world both inspire and educate people of all ages about our surroundings - the Earth itself and our place in the Universe - and they are often a place in which young people become enthused to follow a scientific career. Many of today's leading scientists chose their careers because they were captivated by the experience of a planetarium visit.

Planetariums also were used to train early astronauts in celestial navigation techniques. By showing the fascinating discoveries in astronomy and space exploration, planetariums are a major tool in increasing science literacy. This dissemination of knowledge distinguishes our time from the Middle Ages, when knowledge was restricted to an elite few.

Also, a one-page summary of the “Value of Education in the Planetarium” in the same website, highlighting other ways in which planetariums can inspire prospective STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students and influence the community as a whole, is also instructive.

Modern Planetariums

Pioneered by Carl Zeiss, the early planetariums were all essentially analog devices, with an optical projection technique manipulated ingeniously by electromechanical controls. The advent of computers of ever-increasing power and sophistication, especially computer graphics, opened up exciting new possibilities, ushering an era of hybrid planetariums.  They employ the best of both technologies – the superb quality of the star fields created by conventional opto-mechanical planetarium projectors, and the versatility provided by computer graphic visualization techniques to produce a range of special effects like simulation of views of the sky from any desired location in space, flying through space at varying speeds, rendering images from digital data bases created by telescopes and spacecrafts, providing views of astronomical events in real time, etc. 

The hemispherical domes whose interior surfaces served as the screen for the planetarium projectors, were passive ones even in the early hybrid devices.  The directly projected images, using multiple projectors each with its own computer control system, were supplemented by computer graphic images projected in a variety of ways, including use of fisheye lenses, superimposed on them.

One of the most advanced graphic techniques is the digital dome in which the entire curved screen is made of tiny LED (light emitting diode) elements, which can be controlled individually to light up in different colors and brightness as on a TV screen.  The resulting videos are remarkably vivid, much like the experience in IMax theatres, with 3D effects also possible. They represent the latest in planetariums today, achieving resolutions as high as 16K, in tilted domes designed for better interior layout and viewer comfort. They can also be supplemented by conventional projectors, operating in a hybrid mode.

Some Famous Planetariums

Most major towns and cities in the world today are served by planetariums of some type or other, offering valuable educational content to students and the general public. Many of the older ones with conventional electromechanical projectors have undergone a major upgrade to more sophisticated hybrid type projection systems, suitable for numerous academic disciplines besides astronomy and related sciences.  They are also being used to provide educational as well as general entertainment.

Here are brief descriptions of just a few of the better-known contemporary planetariums in different parts of the world:

The Adler Planetarium: This is part of a public museum in Chicago, USA, dedicated to astronomy and astrophysics. Located on the northeastern tip of Northerly Island on Lake Michigan, and founded as far back as 1930 by local businessman Max Adler, the Adler Planetarium (see picture below) was the first planetarium in the United States. Since inception it has undergone a series of expansions and technical upgradations, and is now one of the best in the world. Its broad mission is to inspire exploration and understanding of the universe. Surrounded by several thematic sculptures, its stunningly attractive building has been declared a National Historic Landmark.

Birla Planetarium: The Birla Planetarium in Kolkata (see picture below) is one of the oldest in India and the largest in Asia, as also the second largest in the world.  Its 23 m diameter dome has a seating capacity of 688. It reopened to the public on 18 July 2017, after closing down for over two years for major renovations work. The technical upgrade equipment was delivered and installed by Carl Zeiss AG. The renovated planetarium has a ZEISS Hybrid system, with the STARMASTER, an optical-mechanical planetarium projector, working in sync with a dome video display system.  It offers to the public and students more than 100 astronomical projects dealing with various facts of astronomy, astrophysics, space science as well as myths concerning stars and planets. 

Zeiss Major Planetarium:  The Zeiss Major Planetarium in Berlin (in the part of the city belonging to GDR, formerly East Germany) is one of the largest modern stellar theatres in Europe. The dome of the main hall, with a diameter of 23 m and a seating capacity of 307, is equipped with a Universarium IX planetarium projector from Carl Zeiss AG, the inventors of the world’s first modern planetarium a hundred years ago. The planetarium dome is shown in the picture below, with the inset showing the planetarium’s old Zeiss projector that was decommissioned in 2014. The facility is also used for frequent music concerts and as a venue for the annual for the Berlin International Film Festival. 

Nagoya City Planetarium: The largest planetarium in the world is in Nagoya City, Japan and is part of the larger Nagoya City Science Museum.  With a dome diameter of 35 m, it can seat 350. First opened in 1962, it was shut down in 2010 for a major reconstruction. The new planetarium (see picture below) is equipped with a Zeiss Universarium Model IX Starball Projector, and later further upgraded to a digital DYNAVISION LED dome system developed by the Konica Minolta company in Japan. 

Hayden Planetarium: The historic and iconic Hayden Planetarium, part of the Rose Center for Earth and Space (see picture below), which is itself a part of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, is considered to be the most famous and most visited planetarium in the world.  Its current director is the world-famous astrophysicist, innovator and science communicator, Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has stated that he owed many of his accomplishments to the motivation he derived from visiting a planetarium in his formative years.

The upper half of the huge 27 meter diameter dome (appearing to float inside a glass cube) seen in the picture constitutes the Hayden Planetarium, a 429-seat Space Theater, which features a custom-made Zeiss Mark IX Star Projector and a Digital Dome Projection System to display a hyper realistic view of the planets, star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies, using an accurate 3D map of the observable universe based on millions of astronomical observations.  It opened in 2000 along with the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and remains an enduring beacon of astrophysical education and research, as was its predecessor, which opened in 1935. Its Digital Universe Atlas is a 3D map of the cosmos maintained by a team of Museum scientists and visualization experts, in collaboration with colleagues from organizations such as NASA and ESA. It also provides the foundation for the Museum’s Space Shows, which are screened in the Space Theater.  

On 19 August 2017, just two days before I viewed the great total solar eclipse of that year near Nashville, TN, I had the wonderful opportunity to spend half a day at the Hayden planetarium viewing the numerous exhibits, exploring the 13.7-billion-year evolutionary history of the universe on its spiral ‘cosmic pathway’, and ending with a spectacular show in the Space Theatre. 

Yokohama Planetarium:  On 24 March 2022, KONICA MINOLTA PLANETARIA YOKOHAMA, the fifth directly operated Konica Minolta Planetarium, opened in the newly constructed Yokohama Gate Tower in Yokohama City, Japan. The planetarium (see picture below, and at the beginning of this article) is equipped with the DYNAVISION-LED dome system, released by the Konica Minolta Planetarium in July 2019.  A much higher brightness and a wider color gamut than conventional projection systems are its most impressive features. These are combined with their latest digital planetarium solution, Media Globe Σ SE, to create an amazingly photorealistic experience of the starry sky and the universe. With the combination of DYNAVISION-LED and Media Globe Σ SE, it is now possible to reproduce the beauty of the vivid blue sky and ocean, the red brightening of a gorgeous sunset, and the twinkling shiny stars. The depth of the image serves to increase the sense of immersion and makes it more realistic than ever before. 

Shanghai Planetarium: Opened in 2021 in Pudong, Shanghai, this is truly an architectural marvel besides being the world's largest planetarium in terms of building scale (see picture below). Its dome covers an area of 38,000 square meters. The planetarium, designed by New York City based Ennead Architects, serves as an educational and entertainment site for visitors and is part of the much larger Shanghai Science and Technology Museum. With no straight lines or right angles, the building was designed to reflect the shapes, movement and geometry of the universe. The foundational design concept of the museum was to “abstractly embody within the architecture some of the fundamental laws of astrophysics, which are the rule in space.” 

Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bangalore:  The Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium (JNP) is administered by the Bangalore Association for Science Education (BASE). BASE is basically devoted to science popularisation and non-formal science education. Located in the heart of the megacity of Bangalore, which is also the nearest to my home city, JNP (see picture below) attracts over 300,000 visitors annually, a majority of them being students. The planetarium is equipped with a large 15 m dome and a state-of-the-art hybrid projection system commissioned in 2017 after a major upgradation from its previous version. The JNP organizes several interesting programmes aimed at school students and the general public. They include sky-theatre shows every day, monthly star gazing, science club activities, science movies, viewing of astronomical events, etc. One of its notable ongoing outreach activities is a three-year long week-end programme titled REAP (Research Education Advancement Programme) for undergraduate students. Equally noteworthy are its indigenously developed sky theatre shows, with commentary in Kannada, the predominant language of the state. 

Mysore COSMOS Planetarium

As indicated at the beginning, my motivation for writing this article is not only the centenary this year of the invention of the first (Carl Zeiss) projector planetarium, but also the imminent prospect of a state-of-the-art planetarium soon coming up in my home city of Mysore, India.

This cutting-edge planetarium is being built in Mysore as part of the Cosmology Education and Research Training Centre (COSMOS) project, which is funded by MPLAD (Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme) funds from the Indian union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Department of Science and Technology, and the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India.

The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bangalore, has initiated a significant landmark in the development of astronomy in the country by placing an order for the world’s first commercial DYNAVISION LED Dome Planetarium outside Japan with the Konika Minolta Inc Consortium, Japan, which includes RSA Cosmos in France and Orbit Animate in India. The project is being overseen by the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and is managed by IIA, an autonomous institution under the Department of Science and Technology.  Furthermore, Kothari and Associates in Kolkata has been awarded a contract for the architectural work of the campus and building, with the building plans currently being finalised and the process for selecting a civil contractor underway. The planetarium is set to be completed next year.

Here is a picture taken at the time of signing of the customer contract between IIA (represented by its director, on the left) and the representative of Konika Minolta on the right:

Most planetariums worldwide rely on a hybrid projector system to cast images and movies onto a passive dome. However, the planetarium system to be installed in Mysore will be unique since it does not need a conventional projector at all. Instead, the dome will be made of panels of millions of self-luminous LED elements that are directly controlled by a highly sophisticated computer graphics system. The planetarium show will be displayed through the LED elements on the dome itself, offering much better contrast, with 8K resolution, and eliminating issues typically encountered with conventional projection systems.

There are currently only two installations of such a system in the world, both in Japan, and both operated by Konica Minolta for public viewing. This planetarium in Mysuru will be the first LED dome planetarium in the world supplied by the vendor to an independent customer. Here is a picture showing the world’s first such undertaking: 

The Mysore COSMOS planetarium is expected to be much like the Yokohama and Nagoya planetarium systems outlined above. It will have a 15 m diameter 15⁰ tilted dome, with a unidirectional seating capacity of 150.  Besides the planetarium, a permanent astronomy and space exhibition, and other related activities, are also being planned.

The planetarium will be located in the campus of the University of Mysore (UoM) at the foot of Chamundi Hill and is being executed through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the IIA and the UoM.

To prepare for the planetarium’s opening, various astronomy outreach and education activities have been underway in Mysore and surrounding areas for the past year. These activities include talks on astronomy for college and school students, astronomy data analysis workshops, educational events for rural schools and telescope sessions for the public. These activities will be further intensified in the coming months leading up to the planetarium’s completion.

At the time of this writing, no technical details about the planetarium and its housing and support facilities were available.  I hope to revert to them in a future article sometime after the planetarium starts functioning.

Concluding Remarks

I thought of writing this article only after I fortuitously realized that this year marked the centenary of one of the great inventions of modern times, from the land well-known for such trailblazing achievements, and within it, one of the legendary pioneers in electro-optical instrumentation, the Carl Zeiss company. I also didn’t want to wait until 21 October, the actual date of the centenary, so as to contribute to the advance publicity being created of its significance. The fact that it coincides with the commencement of work on India’s own world-class planetarium in my home town, with my own ‘pre-launch’ association with it in a small way as a member of the Education and Public Outreach Committee, is a pleasant coincidence. The two events together merit this broad review of a century of innovations aimed at recreating the night sky in all its glory, sweeping away all bounds of space and time.

Tailpiece

Remarkably, almost everybody, including ministers, vice chancellors and high-profile professors, some even professing physics, twist the word ‘planetarium’ to pronounce and spell it as ‘planetorium’, rhyming with ‘auditorium’.  I plead for a moratorium on this if not the crematorium!  Incidentally, there is no such word in any English language dictionary, a fact cheekily ignored or overlooked, even by those who use auto-correcting features of the word processers they use regularly.  I am at a loss to understand how this can happen. Some linguist or ethnologist may have the answer.

 

Sri Lanka - Pearl of the Indian Ocean

Travelogue 29

“Sri Lanka has it all – a balmy tropical climate, dramatic sandy beaches backed by lush deep green forests that sway to the sound of bird song, high-altitude hill-top hideaways, a diverse array of wildlife and traditional working tea plantations.”

 - Anon

 

Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage,
largest herd of captive elephants in the world

Bestowed with nature’s bounty in a tropical setting, with lush green tea gardens in inviting mountainous terrain, and golden beaches dotting its coastline, the island nation of Sri Lanka, India’s southern neighbor, has been a tourist’s delight until recently.  Tourism has contributed significantly to the country’s economy after the long civil war (1983 - 2009).  But Sri Lanka has seen a huge setback to international tourism since 2019 due to terrorist attacks that year, followed by the Covid 19 crisis and, more recently, political disturbances within the country triggered by an economic crisis.  Since then, there appears to be a slow revival.

Gaining independence in 1948, soon after India's, with a population of 22 million and a diverse cultural history, Sri Lanka is often described as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean.

Having teamed up previously in visits to Dubai and Abu Dabhi, two jewels in the Arabian Desert, and Ancient Egypt, home to the greatest wonder of the world, my good friend and colleague Dr C Seshadri (referred to as CS in the rest of this article) and I decided to add the pearl of the Indian Ocean to our collection to complete a hat-trick.  As before with the Egypt tour, we joined a small group of tourists from Bangalore on a leisurely five-day trip organized by the same tourist agency.

Our travel itinerary included a number of tourist attractions in central and western coastal regions of the island as marked out in the map below: 

Our flight reached Colombo on the night of 23 Feb 18.  After airport formalities we were driven to a seaside resort north of the airport.  The de facto leader of our group was a very talented and easy-going ex-cricketer who had the rare distinction of having played for both Karnataka and Tamil Nādu at the state level as an opening batsman, and spoke both the languages fluently. As a bit of an ex-cricketer myself, having once played for my school as a twelfth man, I easily formed a bond with him, the big difference in age and ability notwithstanding! He was travelling with his wife and three other close relatives, forming a sub-group of their own. 

The places circled in the map above correspond successively to: (1) Arrival at Colombo Airport, (2) Negombo tourist resort, (3) Pinnawala Elephant Sanctuary, (4) Medicinal plant farm near Kurunegala, (5) Buddha’s Tooth Relic at Kandy, and stay at Grand Mountain Hotel at Matale, (6) Royal Botanical Gardens at Peradenia, (7) Nuwara Eliya, (8) Waskaduwa Citrus Resort, (9) Madu River Safari, (10) Induruwa Turtle Hatchery, and (11) Colombo city.

Negombo Resort

Negombo is a city on the west coast of Sri Lanka and north of the only international airport near Colombo. It is generally where tourists are headed upon arrival in the country, and for this reason, boasts of a large number of coastal resorts and hotels.  We stayed overnight in one such resort.  When I woke up early next morning here is a picture of what I saw of the resort in early morning light:

Before going for breakfast, I took a picture of the entrance to the resort and the greenery around it in the early morning sunlight, and unwittingly I had captured my own shadow (see below) in the very process of clicking, with CS standing by my side and looking at me, perhaps perplexed if not annoyed. 

We all spent some time relaxing and roaming around at the dense sandy beach close to the resort before heading for breakfast. We then boarded our bus for one of the major attractions of the tour, about two hours journey eastward.

Pinnewala Elephant Sanctuary

Pinnewala Elephant Sanctuary is a captive breeding and conservation facility for wild orphaned elephants located at Pinnawala village, about 15 km away from Kegalle town in central Sri Lanka. It has the largest herd of captive elephants in the world, with 71 from three generations at the time of our visit.  In 2021, there was the rare instance of a 25-year-old elephant giving birth to twin male baby elephants at the orphanage.

The main residential care area is on the east side of a highway. The elephant bathing and visitors’ viewing area is along the Oya River directly opposite on the west side of the highway.

Here is a group of elephants moving around freely in the residential area: 

Every morning, coinciding with peak tourist arrivals at the spot, most of the elephants are ceremonially escorted across the road by mahouts (elephant handlers) to the river area, which has an impressive observation facility-cum-restaurant for visitors. We were shown this fairly long-drawn-out ceremony and then taken to our vantage points in the building to witness the elephants play merrily even as they would be cleaned up in the river.

Here is a close-up picture of a big elephant led across by two mahouts, one riding it on top and the other guiding it from the side:

The most precious picture of my collection at the orphanage show, a large herd of elephants in the river waters, is displayed as the curtain raiser for this article.

People from the state of Karnataka, to which we all belonged, are very familiar with the sight of elephants, especially in the famous elephant reserves of Bandipur and Kakankote forests. The elephant herds there are bigger and scattered over much larger areas as well. To see them in their truly natural habitat, one has to go on elephant safaris on tough four-wheel drive vehicles in rough forest terrain, violently bounced around constantly. In one such safari at Kakankote some years ago, I saw far away a herd of around a hundred by a rough estimate. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take a picture of it.

After the visit to the elephant sanctuary, we were taken northward about an hour’s journey away, to a beautiful state-run medicinal plants farm near the city of Kurunegala.  What followed was of little relevance to the tour and indeed a waste of time. We were received by a self-proclaimed ‘doctor’ who looked more like a prize fighter, with two of his assistants, claiming to be an expert in medicinal plants.  He proceeded to hold a long drawn out ‘class’ to educate us in appalling English on their benefits, and then the trio must have made a nice profit selling assorted ‘ayurvedic’ products of questionable value to the few unwary and gullible in the group. CS and I chose to skip the ‘class’, spending the time a great deal more fruitfully in exploring what was effectively a mini botanical garden.  After this onslaught on our time and tolerance, the bus left southeastward for the holy city of Kandy, in central Sri Lanka.   

Kandy and Buddha’s Tooth Relic

Kandy is the second largest city in Sri Lanka. Surrounded by mountains, which are home to the country’s famed tea plantations, and biodiverse rainforests, Kandy is also known for its Buddhist sites, including the Temple of the Tooth shrine (Sri Dalada Maligawa in Sinhalese). This is where our bus stopped after a little over two hours of journey.

The shrine is located in the royal palace complex of the former Kingdom of Kandy and houses the relic of the tooth of the Buddha. Since ancient times, the relic has played an important role in local politics because it is believed that whoever holds the relic holds the governance of the country. The relic was historically held by Sinhalese kings. The temple of the tooth is a World Heritage Site mainly because of its association with the relic. Below is a picture it in bright evening sunlight:

There was such a huge crowd of devotees and visitors inside the temple that I missed much of the details of whatever I could see inside, including the supposed location of the highly protected relic. However, some architectural features caught my attention. Here is one such feature, the ceiling of a long passage, apparently of recent times: 

I found the exterior of the temple complex more appealing than the busy noisy interior with its historic and symbolic artifacts, about which I thought I could try to understand later from a tourist literature package, including a DVD recording, provided thoughtfully by the local guide.

I left the place wondering if the great Gautama the Buddha ever imagined that the unostentatious movement he founded in ancient India, to address the trials and tribulations in the everyday world of the common man, would end up becoming a full-fledged religion as steeped in symbolism and ritualism as any, including the one he forsook!

Late that evening we were driven to the Grand Mountain Hotel over an hour’s drive north of Kandy in mountainous terrain near Matale, and the five-star hotel accommodation and environment was as good as its name.  After we had checked in and explored the interior, I was so speechless at the splendor and opulence radiated by the hotel that I wondered if we were really in Sri Lanka and not in any part of the world frequented only by the rich and the famous.  It was soon clear that the whole enterprise was run by the mainland Chinese, with no effort at playing it down.

As we were trying to settle down, our guide told us that our dinner had been prearranged in Kandy and therefore we had to go there.  Our bus duly drove us to a more ordinary looking hotel in Kandy and brought us back after dinner to the Grand Mountain Hotel late in the night.  When asked why we could not have been accommodated in some hotel in Kandy in the first place to avoid the faux pas of multiple trips and wasted time, our guide had a vague reply, which we couldn’t understand because of his poor English.

Here are two pictures of the interior of the Grand Mountain Hotel, but they do not really reflect the full extent of the splendor I observed:

Peradeniya Botanical Gardens

Spread over about 150 acres, the Royal Botanical Gardens of Peradeniya is located very close to Kandy.  An internationally famous botanical gardens, it attracts about 1.5 million visitors annually, about one-third of them from overseas. It is near the Mahaweli River, the longest river in Sri Lanka.  The garden hosts more than 4,000 species of plants, including orchids, spices, medicinal plants and palm trees. It is especially known for its orchids. Attached to it is the National Herbarium of Sri Lanka.

At the time of our visit the place was quite crowded, with just the ideal weather conditions prevailing. Here is a picture I took after some of us had entered through the main gate: 

The person in the foreground with a military gait is the highly talented ex-cricketer whom I mentioned earlier as the de facto leader of our group.  As such, I suppose he is summoning others also to get inside. Ahead of him is the long main road inside the large garden complex.

 Here is a pleasing picture of flora and rich greenery at one place with a few of our group members seen far in the rear: 

Below is another similarly pleasing view of the rich dense flora and greenery: 

The picture below shows a suspension bridge connecting the two parts of the gardens separated by the river:

One unusual feature of the gardens is the large number of bats seen clinging to the branches of trees, all heads down!  Here is one such view:

Established in 1843, the Royal Botanical Gardens has a large number of old trees with their branches and roots twisted into a bewildering variety of grotesque shapes and sizes.  Completing my mini photo album of these gardens at Peradeniya from my huge collection for the day, I am seen standing in front of one such specimen from a cluster of them in the picture below:

Our visit to these gardens was a very pleasant and highly satisfying experience, and certainly one of the highlights of our Sri Lanka trip.

Hills & Tea Plantations

After the visit to the botanical gardens, we set out on the road from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya, a slow journey of over three hours through the spectacular mountainous terrain that is part of the tallest such region in the country, and world-famous tea plantations.  It reminded me of the journey through the western ghats section in south India to reach Ooty from Mysore or Coimbatore.  With my camera clicking constantly, I added quite a few to my large collection of scenic pictures.  Below is a particularly attractive picture. Located in the small hill town of Ramboda, in a unique ecological zone of tropical montane forests and grasslands, the hotel building seen here, jutting out into the open from a cliff, is completely integrated into the terrain of the land. Ramboda also has a wonderful waterfall nearby.

At the nearby large Glenloch Tea Factory (see picture below), we were shown the whole process of manufacture of tea, starting from the most delicate stage of harvesting, all the way to drying and packaging the product.  We could also taste the tea prepared from it and purchase the packaged product, presumably at a discounted price.

On the way to Nuwara Eliya we saw several huge tea plantations owned by commercial enterprises, one of which is shown below:

 We reached the prominent tourist town of Nuwara Eliya late in the evening. Dubbed ‘Little England’ due to its cool climate and colonial-era bungalows, Nuwara Eliya is surrounded by mist-shrouded mountains, terraced tea plantations and numerous tourist hotels, in one of which we spent that night. Here is a night time view of the hotel facade: 

Next morning, we were on a long whole-day journey through the picturesque mountainous territory, dotted by large tea plantations, all the way to the western coast of the country.  Before that, a short distance away from Nuwara Eliya, we visited the legendary Seetha Amman temple, a revered place, especially for tourists from India, because of its great mythological association.  It is surrounded by beautiful scenery all around, providing a very tranquil atmosphere.  Here is a picture of the temple taken in misty conditions, with the huge depression at lower right signifying Hanuman’s footprint, quite literally! 

On our westward journey, just outside Nuwara Eliya, I captured the following sight of the idyllic Lake Gregory and its surroundings: 

Further outwards on the journey, we saw this enormous tea plantation in all its sunlit glory:

The mountainous terrain surrounding Nuwara Eliya is, not surprisingly, home to a large number of water falls, tall and short, large and small, single and split, many of which lined up alongside the land route we travelled.  Here is one such large water fall, most probably the one named Devon.

Here is another sublime roadside view of the hill terrain, with the ubiquitous tea plants: 

Here is my keepsake picture, taken by our group leader and cricketing hero, against the background of one of those numerous waterfalls on the way:

If my memory serves me right, this is the picturesque setting that marked our lunch at a hillside restaurant:

Waskaduwa – Citrus Resort

We arrived at the town of Waskaduwa on the western coast late in the evening after numerous stops along the way, absorbing the mostly sundrenched sights of the hills and the tea plantations. Our stay for that night was at the famed Citrus Resort with the sight of a beautiful blue sea close by.  Hear is a seaside view of the resort: 

And, here is an awesome view of the sea itself the next morning, accentuated by the dense cloudy sky: 

Madu River Safari

Later that morning, we drove down along the coastal road to the Madu river estuary, near the town of Balapitiya, where we spent an exciting hour and a half doing a river safari on rather overcrowded, but otherwise safe, boats. This was the southernmost part of western coastal Sri Lanka we visited. Seen below is the starting point of our river safari: 

Shown below is the only picture in my huge photographic collection from our three different overseas trips, featuring both CS and me, seen next to each other. We were fully geared up, ready to take off in the boat! 

We passed several islands during the ride, and got down in one, which was well known for processing cinnamon.  We spent some time seeing the several phases of the process. We also passed by some spectacular mangroves, which the estuary was famous for.  Here is one of several that I captured, very close up: 

But the most exciting experience of the safari came towards the end, for the more adventurous among our group. It was the ‘fish massage’, a sort of therapy where one dips one’s feet in a pond full of fish to be tickled by them constantly, and, apparently, the more the fish the merrier!  Here is our adventurous trio caught live with their feet down among the fish. I should have captured their faces too!  

Turtle Hatchery

Many places along the Sri Lankan coastline, including the southwest where we were traveling, are well known for their turtle hatcheries and turtle conservation projects.  We visited one such institution at Induruwa, north of the Madu river estuary, after our river safari.  We could see different stages of the whole process, from hatching of the eggs to full grown turtles, neatly differentiated.  Here is a picture of two of our group holding baby turtles in a pond reserved for them:

Here is a fully grown turtle at the end stage of the entire process:

Colombo

After the turtle hatchery visit, a two-hour drive northward along the coastal road took us to the last stop in our Sri Lanka tour, the nation’s capital city of Colombo.  We checked in at one of the best-known hotels of the city, the colonial Kingsbury Hotel near the city’s harbour. Here is a picture of its majestic façade and entrance:

Equally regal was its lobby pictured below:

That evening was spent on a long slow tour of the city highlights, without stopping at any particular place, except for a very long time at a large modern mall, giving the group a last chance to buy up whatever they fancied. CS and I were no more interested in this exercise there than in either of our two previous joint tours. So, we whiled away the time rather tediously, just window shopping and looking around in the neighborhood. We also had a long and useful conversation with a young Sri Lankan student who was particularly inquisitive about Indian mythology and asked us a lot of questions, only some of them fetching him satisfactory answers.  On our part, we gained some useful insight into life in his country, being able to compare it with the one we were accustomed to at home.

During the long tour of the city, I took quite a number of pictures without having to get down from the bus. They were representative of both its colonial past and a vibrant present, buoyed up by huge investments in the country by China, and soon to plunge into an unprecedented economic crisis.  One of the most impressive buildings in Colombo is the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall seen in the picture below:

One of the most beautiful buildings from Colombo’s colonial past is the City Hall pictured below:

At present the city also boasts of the Lotus Tower, a 350 m tall structure considered to be a symbolic landmark of Sri Lanka. Built after our visit to Sri Lanka, and with a huge investment from China, it is the tallest self-supported structure in South Asia.

The next day, before our scheduled departure from Colombo back home, we had a long period of spare time available for ourselves in the morning. CS and I had a long, leisurely and pleasant walk along the harbour road, quite close to the harbour itself, with great many ships berthed in what is one of the busiest, largest and deepest ports in the world. On the way we saw one of the oldest monuments of the city, the 29 m high Colombo Lighthouse, built in 1952.  Here is a picture I took after we had spent some time in its vicinity and up the platform:

To round up my photographic presentation of the Sri Lankan tour, below is a picture of one of the city’s iconic modern edifices, the imposing Sambodhi Chaithya Buddhist Stupa, also located along the harbour road. There was no indication that it was open to visitors, so we just went up to it, spent a few minutes under its shade and walked back all the way to the hotel.

Later that afternoon we returned to Bangalore by a direct flight from Colombo.

Summing up

The main takeaway from the tour for CS and me was the lasting memory of two magnificent stretches of tropical mountainous forest terrain, dotted with lush green plantations and sparse human activity, the first between Kandy and Nuwara Eliya, and the second, and much longer one, between the latter and the southwestern coast of the country.  It is this, the image of a beautiful and tranquil countryside of Sri Lanka that we liked to carry home with us, not of a strife torn country with its legacy of a long civil war, ethnic conflicts, natural disasters, terrorist onslaughts, covid aftermath and debilitating economic ills.  After all, we too have had our share of them at home!