Ruhunu Maha Kataragama Devalaya & Kiri Vehera

The most genuinely shared sacred site in Sri Lanka. Buddhists come for the god Kataragama, Hindus for Murugan, Muslims to the adjoining mosque and shrine of a Sufi saint, and the Vedda people have their own claim older than all of them. At the evening puja the drums start, the crowd carries fruit platters across the Menik Ganga, and the atmosphere is unlike anything else on the island. A white dagoba said to date from the 6th century BCE, a few hundred metres beyond the main devalaya and much quieter. Most pilgrims walk here after the puja; the contrast in atmosphere is the point.