Sri Lanka - The cultural triangle

We arrived in Sigiria feeling weary from jet lag and a 4 hour bus ride from Colombo to Dambulla in cramped space-saving aisle seats. To top it off the bus nearly goes off before we can get one of our bags out of the back! Arriving at the cooler tree-shaded Sigiri Lion Lodge is a relief, made more enjoyable by a lovely host called Ajith.


Nothing like a refreshing shower to cool off...


Sri Lanka life lesson #1 - shower with the toilet seat down as you may lose your entire bottle of travel shampoo round the u-bend if you drop into the toilet!

It is not an exaggeration to say that every meal is a yummy curry. They come from little roadside places and are served in multiple small bowls with vegetarian dishes including pumpkin, ocra, banana flower, aubergine to name a few with rice and a chicken or fish curry. We’ve realised we can’t keep up the multi-course curries for every meal, despite the high step count, so have decided to stick with breakfast and dinner only. This is taking some getting used to with Alex’s tummy rumbling and some true Babajee-style hanger tantrums about 3pm. 

We start our tour of the cultural triangle of Sri Lanka with a sunset climb of Pidurangala Rock. It’s adjacent to and much cheaper than the more famous Sigiriya Rock. It’s a bit of a scramble near the top but there were no tearful breakdowns this time, unlike when we climbed Le Morne in Mauritius last year. The views from the top were incredible, looking over Sigiriya, water tanks, forest and mountains. We will soon realise that all the sites in this area involve climbing up LOTS of steps. Good thing we’ve got strong glutes and plenty of will power between us!

We woke up early the next day to beat the crowds and heat to climb Sigiriya Rock. The whole area is stunning. It’s a UNESCO heritage site and was where a king from the 12th century built his palace on the top of this giant rock. Alex climbed the equivalent of 76 floors all in his flip flops.



There are frescoes with naked ladies painted on the rock face. The lion’s paws were found during an archeological excavation. Queen Elizabeth II visited in the 50s don’t you know. The whole area is huge and has beautiful gardens, smaller rocks, ponds and also a moat with crocodiles in!

Adding our artistic skills to the other UK contributions

We took a local bus to Dambulla where they have ancient caves with intricate paintings and different Buddha statues. We recognise a fellow traveller from passing on the steps earlier in the day share a moan about the heat and constant sense of being shaken down for money and discuss the finer points of avoiding paying a shoe minder. There were lots of steps here too. Alex had to decline his first selfie request.

                             

Step count for today was 24,337 nearly at our all time best of 28000+ in Lisbon.



The next day we travelled to Polonaruwa which is the site of an ancient kingdom. Cycling around the ruins felt like exploring on the set of an Indiana Jones movie! We got a taste of the Sri Lankan bicycle maintenance standards when Rach’s front brakes fell off half way around and was left with suboptimal back brakes.



You also have to remove your shoes a lot in temples...


Sri Lanka life lesson #2 - don’t visit temples in converses unless you want them full of sand by the end of the day.



The ruins were very interesting to see. At the entrance of most of the buildings was a moonstone that was used to clean feet before entering. The different animals are meant to represent different stages of life - birth, disease, old age and death. Not sure about all the other bits in between though! There was also lots of wildlife around, mostly LOTS of monkeys trying to steal everyones food.

An example of a Moonstone

We stayed in a very cute guesthouse Thisara Guesthouse where the host Shamila cooked a generous spread for dinner and breakfast. We sat eating this looking out on the rice fields. Magic.

Another day another bus journey. We arrive at Anuradhapura and first visited Mihintale the birthplace of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. It is a very beautiful and peaceful place; again with lots of things on top of very high rocks which makes for gorgeous views but not kind on the legs especially in the heat.

In Anuradhapura we saw yet more ruins and huge dagobas. We tried to get through without having to pay the extortionate tourist fee but it was impossible! The museum had pieces that were 2000+ years old. Most interesting were intricate urinals that went through an ancient filtering system to give fresh water. Allegedly.

It’s an important Tamil festival celebrating a harvest festival while we’re here and a national holiday. It’s traditional to eat sweet rice and our guesthouse gave us some for breakfast. It was delicious.

By this point we had been travelling for a week and the clothes were running out...


Sri Lanka life lesson #3 - don’t try get laundry done the day before a Sri Lankan holiday as they wont be able to do before we have to leave again.

So instead we spent a couple of hours handwashing our clothes. Not fun but now we have clean pants.


Phew. We’ve done a lot of stuff the last week! Looking forward to sitting on a beach with our friends Hana and Usman in couple of weeks. Next we’re off to Kandy.


Rach & Alex