The Cultural Triangle

The dry plains are where Sinhalese civilisation took shape. By tradition Anuradhapura was founded in the 5th century BC, and in the 3rd century BC the monk Mahinda, sent from the Mauryan court in India, converted King Devanampiya Tissa on the hill of Mihintale; a cutting from the Bodhi tree was then planted in the city. For more than a thousand years Anuradhapura was the island's capital, adorned with monasteries such as the Mahavihara, Abhayagiri and Jetavana and fed by vast tanks, or reservoirs, built by kings including Mahasena, whose Minneriya reservoir still holds water.

The period was also marked by conflict with South Indian rulers. King Dutugemunu defeated the Tamil king Elara in the 2nd century BC and raised the Ruwanwelisaya stupa, and in the late 5th century AD Kashyapa I, having killed his father, built his palace on Sigiriya before being defeated by his brother. In the late 10th century the Chola empire sacked Anuradhapura and ruled from Polonnaruwa; Vijayabahu I drove them out in 1070 and kept Polonnaruwa as the capital. Under Parakramabahu I in the 12th century it reached its height, with the Parakrama Samudra reservoir and the Gal Vihara carvings.

After Polonnaruwa fell to invasion in the 13th century, the kings moved south-west, ruling briefly from Dambadeniya, Yapahuwa and Kurunegala, and the jungle took the old cities. British surveyors and archaeologists uncovered them from the 19th century, and in the 20th century the tanks were restored and the dry zone was resettled with colonists and new irrigation schemes.

This is the heartland of Sinhalese Buddhist memory, and its ancient cities are active places of worship as well as ruins. White-clad pilgrims circle the Ruwanwelisaya and the Sri Maha Bodhi with flowers and oil lamps, especially on poya days, and Poson in June — marking Mahinda's arrival — sees Mihintale's stairways crowded by night and free food handed out along the roads. Village life is still organised around the temple and the wewa, the village tank, whose water is shared under old customs of cultivation.

The region is not solely Sinhalese and Buddhist. Matale has a significant Tamil and Muslim population, and Hindu temples such as the colourful Sri Muthumariamman Kovil in Matale town hold chariot festivals. Puttalam district, on the west coast, is strongly Catholic around Chilaw and home to a large Muslim community; many Muslim families expelled from the north by the LTTE in 1990 settled there. The Munneswaram temple near Chilaw is one of the island's ancient Hindu shrines.

Traditional crafts include brass and lacquer work, and the region's temples preserve Sinhalese mural painting, most famously at Dambulla.

The five districts hold several million people, most of them in villages. The main towns are Kurunegala, a busy commercial centre below its Elephant Rock, Anuradhapura, whose modern town lies beside the sacred city, Puttalam, Chilaw, Matale, Dambulla and Polonnaruwa.

Farming dominates. Paddy is grown in two seasons under the tank and Mahaweli irrigation systems, and Kurunegala and Puttalam form most of the "coconut triangle" with Gampaha. Dambulla, at a major road junction, is a national centre of vegetable distribution. Puttalam has salt pans, prawn farms, fishing on its lagoon and the coal-fired plant at Norochcholai, the country's largest power station, and tourism supports Sigiriya, Habarana and the Kalpitiya coast.

Life follows the heat and the harvest: early starts in the fields, tractors and bullock carts on the roads, and evenings when elephants cross towards the tanks. Two problems weigh on the region. Human–elephant conflict kills people and elephants each year as farms push into forest, and a chronic kidney disease of uncertain cause, concentrated among farmers in the north-central dry zone, has been a major health issue since the 1990s.

Dry-zone cooking is simple and seasonal. Rice is the base, but village cooks also use kurakkan, finger millet, made into roti and porridge, and green gram and cowpeas from the chena, the slash-and-burn plots cultivated in the rains. Freshwater fish from the tanks is fried or curried, and lotus root and the young leaves of dry-zone plants go into mallung, a shredded green stir-fried with coconut.

Buffalo curd, set in clay pots and eaten with kithul treacle or jaggery, is sold along the roads in many parts of the dry zone, and wood-apple juice is a common roadside drink. Kurunegala's coconut palms supply fresh thambili, toddy and the base of every curry.

Matale is spice country, with gardens growing pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom and cinnamon that appear in its kitchens and in countless tourist spice-garden tours. On the Puttalam coast the food turns to the sea: prawns from the Puttalam lagoon, dried fish, and the salt of the Puttalam pans. Temples and roadside dansal serve rice, curries and sweet drinks free at Poson.

The four UNESCO World Heritage Sites lie close together. Sigiriya's rock fortress rises about 180 metres from the plain, reached through water gardens, past the frescoed maidens and the mirror wall to the lion's paws and the palace ruins on top; neighbouring Pidurangala gives the classic view of it. The Dambulla cave temple, also called the Golden Temple, holds five painted caves of Buddha images above the town.

Anuradhapura's sacred city spreads across miles of parkland: the Sri Maha Bodhi, the white Ruwanwelisaya, the huge brick Jetavanaramaya and Abhayagiri stupas, the Isurumuniya rock temple and the twin ponds, with Mihintale's stairways and summit stupa to the east. Polonnaruwa, more compact and best cycled, has the royal palace, the Vatadage and Quadrangle, the Lankatilaka image house and the Gal Vihara's rock-cut Buddhas, beside the Parakrama Samudra.

Wildlife completes the triangle. Minneriya National Park and nearby Kaudulla host the elephant gathering on their reservoir shores, and Wilpattu, spread across Anuradhapura and Puttalam districts, is a quieter park of forest and villus, natural lakes, known for leopards. The forest monastery of Ritigala, the Aukana standing Buddha, the Aluvihare cave temple near Matale and the rock fortress of Yapahuwa in Kurunegala district add older layers, and on the west coast the Kalpitiya peninsula offers dolphin trips and kitesurfing.