Anuradhapura is a well-known city in Sri Lanka. There are many reasons for both foreigners and locals love to visit Anuradhapura because there are lots of archeological places, Buddhist temples specially Atamasthanaya, tanks and paddy fields and many more interesting places. So everyone has a reason to visit and spend time in here.
Anuradhapura getting a busy place in Poya days because lots of pilgrims come to this city. Many pilgrims facing a big problem to find a good places to stay. I searched Google Maps to make a list of pilgrims houses in Anuradhapura Secret City but few is on the map. As I know here are many pilgrims rest in my area but people don’t know about them. So I thought to add this missing places to the Google Maps. I planned a map editing meet up. After discussing with my friend @vijaih we scheduled the date and time as 2019.03.10 at 10.00 a.m. and our meeting place was Maha Viharaya entrance gate. I published a post on this meet up in Local Guides Connect.
On that day morning Vijai called me and told that she’s unable to come at 10.00 a.m. due to unavoidable reason, but she can come 01.00 p.m. Then I went to the meeting place by my scooter on time and waiting for other attendees. There wasn’t other attendees so I start the map editing alone until Vijai’s arrival but in a few mutinies I was fed up because I missed my best buddy Vijai. So I planned to go home. At 01.00 I went to Vijai’s place. and we started our map editing meet up.
Kudos to Vijai for the travel sponsoring to my meet up. Kudos to @AnuradhaP for helping me by giving nice ideas and encouraging on this.
First we went to Rathnamali Pilgrims Rest and ask permission to take photos inside the rooms and more information about their place and facilities. As well as we explain about the Google Maps and Google Local Guide program to them. They understood how this information helps to people find out their place so they were happy and agree to give information. This was a good opportunity to them because it was a free advertising about their pilgrims rest. They showed us each and every room, halls and other facilities they are providing. Finally they treat us with tasty coffee and invited to write a comment of their visitor’s comments book.
Then we visited following places and collected information and took featured photos of the places. We explained about the Goolge Maps, Google Local Guides Programa to the managers and staff. As well as we showed the reviews and ratings of Local Guides who writes about the places. I hope they could get an idea how these reviews and ratings effect for them and what should they implement. I added several missing places to Google Maps but they are still pending approval.
- Pushpadana Pilgrims Rest
- Baudda Mandalaya Pilgrims Rest
- Maha Viharaya Pilgrims Rest
- Sunatha Vishrama Shalawa
- Sri Sarananda Vishrama Shalawa
- Sirisangabo Vishrama Shalawa
- A.K. Premadasa Vishrama Shalawa
- Siri Abhaya viharaya Nidahas Vishrama Shalawa
- Dutugamunu Vishrama Shalawa
Specially we focused to collect information about the prices, amount of rooms, open and closing times, facilities they are providing, contact details, security, closes places to visit ect. These are the photos we took during the meetup.
In two places we couldn’t get any information and photos because they thought that we were journalists who finding about the negative points about their place. They gave many reason to avoid to giving information. But I got a hint, there would be problems about the wastewater disposal and toilet drainage system in those places. That’s why they didn’t like to give information to us.
End of the meet up we had some snacks and enjoyed the sunset at the bank of Basawakkulama Tank.
We spent a great time on that day. I hope the information I updated and added to the Google map will help thousands people.