It begins to rain again as I remove my shoes. The open courtyard is strewn with huge puddles from an earlier downpour, and the thought of having to slosh through them to get to the cave complex fills me with despair. Footwear, unfortunately, is not allowed on the sacred site.
'Do you want a guide?' asks a little man, coming up to me.
'No, what I want is my shoes,' I say, plaintively.
He nods and leaves me standing there like a crestfallen child.
A monkey eyes me up indifferently from the shelter of a little shrine, and I am starting to get wet. I hope the caves are worth a pair of soggy feet…
Inside the Maharaja Lena – the Cave of the Great Kings – the ground is surprisingly warm and dry. My eyes take a while to adjust to the dimness of the interior. When they do, I find myself in a large painted grotto surrounded by Buddha statues in a multitude of poses and an intriguing mix of facial features. The pair pictured above (from the Pachima Viharaya or Western Monastery) are particularly charming, with their slightly bemused looks and the playful flicker of a smile on their lips.
Perhaps if all our deities smiled more, the world would be a better place...!
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