Sigiriya (Sri Lanka)

...we arrived at the obscure Sigiriya Rock, shaped a bit like a giant Wrekin with the sides chopped off for those who know Shropshire.

It was seven hours since we'd left our hotel but we did stop briefly on the way for a walk through some ruins and a museum of the best bits of the ruin, but I got distracted by the scores of monkeys that were running around everywhere and the street peddlers trying persistently to sell me rubbish souvenirs ...
...than it was very hot and they were rediscovered amongst overgrown jungle in the late 19th century by a British explorer who must have been really quite surprised.

The final 3 miles or so were pretty much dirt roads leading to Sigiriya, a World Heritage site and the position of a palace fortress that can be reached by climbing the 1202 steps to the top. I opted to do 2 at a time.
It was a daunting prospect that was seized upon ... more

Did you ever wonder if there was a scale of importance when it comes to where you keep your history? With 'Overheard History' somewhere near the bottom, those hearts carved in trees by 70's teenage lovers somewhere around the middle and 'Written History' way up top, I knew from the fourth time I was told of Sri Lanka's 2300 unbroken years of 'Written History' that when I got home the first thing I'd be doing is getting all my history together and writing it down.

We'd had three full days of lying down and sitting up and turning over and lying down again so we were ready to explore some of the sights that 2300 years of written history can offer, and at 5am we were loaded along with another couple and a packed lunch into the back of a minibus that was to be our home for a hitherto vague amount of hours being rumoured at anywhere between four and six amongst everyone, including the driver, to get to our hotel near Polonnaruwa in the middle of the country, the first stop of our 3 day sensory packed tour of this Island formerly known as Ceylon in some history written fairly recently.

We left from Wadduwa in the south and passed through the outer zones of Colombo as the hours in the back of the bus racked up and the city and towns quickly became the odd village amongst farmland and rainforest, and just after midday we arrived at the obscure Sigiriya Rock, shaped a bit like a giant Wrekin with the sides chopped off for those who know Shropshire.

It was seven hours since we'd left our hotel but we did stop briefly on the way for a walk through some ruins and a museum of the best bits of the ruin, but I got distracted by the scores of monkeys that were running around everywhere and the street peddlers trying persistently to sell me rubbish souvenirs so I can't really tell you much about them, other than it was very hot and they were rediscovered amongst overgrown jungle in the late 19th century by a British explorer who must have been really quite surprised.

The final 3 miles or so were pretty much dirt roads leading to Sigiriya, a World Heritage site and the position of a palace fortress that can be reached by climbing the 1202 steps to the top. I opted to do 2 at a time.
It was a daunting prospect that was seized upon by yet more peddlers, people this time who will join you on your trip to 'help' you on your way up those many many steps, even if you're only 30 years old and a full 2 feet taller than them, and really you don't need any help, they'll support your elbow caringly until you make it clear that you're not going to tip them and they return to await the next fresh arrivals doing the walk through the gardens that surround the base of the rock.

Around a quarter of the way up, when there are some nice places to sit and wait, the girls made excuses and my new dad and I went on full of manliness to conquer the beast. Halfway up, there are some tall and narrow spiral staircases leading to where some frescos from years ago are, and a man who leads you to show you all the old graffiti, and asks for a tip. Because this man's job was to sit on an a chair halfway up a cliff, and although he spoke virtually no English and I no Sri Lankan, he pointed and nodded enthusiastically enough for me to want to reward him, but quickly realised I had no money on me, only biscuits and tissues. I wanted the tissues, so I offered the biscuits and although slightly confused, he seemed pretty chuffed and politely only took one, so I went all extravagant, handed over four more, and descended the spiral stairs to carry on up the normal stairs to the top of the rock. The views of the surrounding area during the climb are outstanding, with the occasional giant golden Buddha statue standing out amongst otherwise unbroken greenery, and right at the very top, there's another man, who accompanies you up the final few metal fire escape-type steps to the top and assures you he isn't in it for tips and shows me some photo ID, possibly Blockbuster, before pointing at some small walls where a king once had a palace, and a swimming pool. Not the most accessible of party venues, but amazing all the same. He eventually asked for a tip, and didn't want biscuits, so I think he felt a little cheated and my biscuits were slightly offended.

Panoramic videos and photos taken, we descended triumphantly and rejoined our other halves, who had genuinely thought that buying souvenirs would make the vendors leave them be, but it didn't, and after a curry and rice lunch we moved on to our next stop, an elephant Safari - 45 minutes on the back of an elephant walking through a swamp, whilst a man appears from nowhere, offers to take your photo, and then joins you on the walk, taking videos and pictures before asking for a tip, whilst another man, the 'Mahout', makes sure the elephant goes the right way and makes you a hat out of a lily pad, before asking for a tip. There were a lot of tips proffered already, and we were only on day one of three.
We stayed overnight at the amazing Heritance Kandalama Hotel near Dambulla, which is a 3 story building built into a rock face, overlooking a lake.

We arrived after sunset, so we couldn't immediately enjoy the views, but we did notice the flashes of brown dashing around our heads as bats whizzed through the lobby and corridors of the hotel, and clusters of geckos congregated in the corners feeding off the hundreds of mosquitoes that were on the large and brightly lit white painted walls. Must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

The sticker on the balcony window in the room warning that the monkeys have learned how to open unlocked doors and the mongoose lazing on the cut grass beneath us, added to the monitor lizards that we saw on the morning road trip, made me wonder if we'd accidentally been booked into a zoo.

Day two, no overnight monkey burglary had occurred, and breakfast was as good as anywhere, we hit our morning with more steps, "not more than 200" (if you don't count the first 200) to see the Dambulla Cave Temples, 2 natural and 2 manmade caves decorated over hundreds of years with painted statues of Buddha in various postures, teaching and blessing amongst others.

Later in the day we would see an enormous statue of the Dead Buddha, which looked a lot like the sleeping Buddha, but nothing like resplendent Buddha, and at least he didn't ask for a tip.
After a curry and rice lunch and a tour of a carpentry and a gem factory, we headed to the Temple of the Tooth - a relic that holds the Buddhist equivalent of the Holy Grail, being one of the Buddhas' own gnashers, kept in seven Russian doll inspired gold boxes and as it's only shown on very special occasions, we had to make do with looking at the curtain, but there was a huge taxidermy of a tusked elephant that died in the 80's to look at, before being taken to one of the highlights of my day, the Cultural Show. It was brilliant in all the wrong ways, the Evening Standard would probably have given it 2 stars, but I loved it. 45 minutes to showcase 11 dances with up to 6 drummers or dancers on stage at once, all slightly out of time with one another, and one on the end who I think had forgotten his kit, finishing with a fire-walking and dancing display outside, before asking for a tip. It was a golden moment.
The night in Kandy had far fewer animals to dodge, and the food was again a really high standard, although I was starting to dream of sausage and mash.

The final destination for our third day was the one I was looking forward to the most, the elephant Sanctuary, but first there were the Royal Botanical gardens at Peradeniya and a Tea Factory in the midst of a power cut to look at, and a tip to give to the man in the gardens who came over waving a broom with a scorpion on it, and a tip for the lady in the tea factory who was hiding behind some boxes.

The sanctuary itself cares for over 50 Elephants who were either sick or injured in the wild, and would otherwise not survive, including a "tusker" who is blind, and a 3 legged elephant who doesn't like wearing the prosthetic leg that the vets went to great trouble to create after he stepped on a landmine, a casualty of the war between the Tamils and the Government. When we arrived at the sanctuary, the herd were returning to their field after a morning spent in the river, which also happens to be right through the middle of the town, with the odd elephant disappearing off down side roads followed by more 'Mahouts', the elephant handlers who will, for a tip, let you stand next to an elephant for a photo in relative safety. Without the tip, you're on your own and they don't fancy your chances much.

The heat of midday was broken by going to feed one of the baby elephants who have been bred in captivity, or orphaned in the wild - only 7 places per session to feed the youngsters are available, so you either have to be lucky, or tip someone early doors. We were lucky and a mini elephant drank 6 litres of hot milk in about 3 seconds flat straight out of my hands, then we were hustled out of the way to Nelly could get her next creamy fix.

For lunch, we walked down a postcard-painted roadside to a simple restaurant on the banks of the river to eat chicken in a basket and watch the herd return for a 3 hour long afternoon splashing about. The elephants seemed as happy as you could expect, and we couldn't help feeling a little sorry for Monica, the Elephant at the temple close by to our hotel who visited once a week, she suddenly didn't seem so chirpy in comparison.

Eventually, the time came when we had to pour ourselves back into the back of the minibus, and stare at the plastic Buddha on the dashboard that lit up in red every time the driver used his brakes for the return journey into the darkness and back to our hotel in Wadduwa, via a spice garden where we received an unexpected but welcomed massage, from a man who asked for a tip.

3 days of utter madness to see some amazing spectacles of an Island that I'm sure has much more to offer, should we ever return.

 

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