Sri Lanka 8. the organised tour ends, then it's back to The Hill Country

 

 

Sigiriya

Every travel book you see about Sri Lanka will feature Sigiriya which is in the middle of the Ancient Cities area.  This flat-topped monolith is a spectacular and dramatic sight even from some distance away and is the remains of an unimaginably old volcano, most of which has eroded away leaving just the central magma plug of extra hard rock behind.  With nearly vertical sides, overhanging in places and rising about 600 feet from the surrounding land it would make an excellent fortified location.  Which is just what it was unless it was really a monastery, the alternative suggestion for the site.  The commonly accepted belief

is that it was the location of a short lived kingdom ruled by King Kasyapa.  The story is that he overthrew and murdered his father then grabbed the throne, actions which you can imagine would lead to a rather frosty family Christmas.   He took refuge on Sigiriya and ruled for 18 years until overthrown by his half-brother.  Looking at the remains and seeing how much work must have been undertaken it does look unlikely that it could all have been achieved in a mere 18 years.

 

part way up Sigiriya, The Lion Paws staircase

the formal gardens
from about half way up

The climb to the top is mostly on steps cut into the rock or on metal staircases fixed to sheer rock surfaces and is best begun as early as possible in the morning before it gets too hot.  In a normal year it would be filled with tourists but tourist numbers are still woefully low and it was relatively quiet.  The view from the top is spectacular with a full 360 degree view over a highly wooded landscape with directly below on the northern side a set of formal gardens with water, set out as rectangles and looking like a formal French Chateau garden from a couple of centuries ago.  On the flattish terraced top there’s a large water filled pool which is cut out of the rock, said to be the King and Queen’s bathing pool but it does seem more likely to be for water storage.  Some of the overhanging rock faces protect ancient frescoes accessed by almost equally ancient spiral staircases which I admit I wasn’t ecstatic about.  The frescoes are on a sheltered north-western rockface and have therefore been saved from being bleached by direct sunshine.  The women featured on the frescoes have those tiny waists and large impossibly gravity defying breasts, not to be seen again until plastic surgeons discovered silicone.   

 

the mandatory shot on the top

the King's Pool

the gallery with the frescoes 

and the centre of the
previous photo enlarged

Garages here often have a flock of tuktuks clustered around the pumps and they’ll buy a litre or two of fuel at a time.  The drivers do throw caution to the wind when in traffic and although he took longer to say it, Niroshan’s advice was to choose an older driver because they’ve survived.  Many of the drivers seem to carry a spare supply of petrol stored in an old lemonade bottle which is stored under his seat (we’ve yet to see a women tuktuk driver).   Health and Safety gone mad but in the other direction.

 

the caves at Dambulla - the change from dark to light rock is the drip line

The very last visit on our organised tours was to Dambulla where there is a set of caves containing many buddha statues and some beautiful murals.  All the walls and ceilings are decorated.  I think these were probably the most impressive set of buddhist artefacts we saw in our whole Sri Lankan experience.  The caves are huge rock overhangs with walls at the front which make the inside seem more like a building.  On many of the overhanging rock faces above murals, paintings and writing or even just where monks lived there’s a drip line cut in the rock.  This ridge prevents water running onto the murals etc. and destroying them.  Very simple and very effective.   The whole lot were spectacular and well worth a visit although it was a stiff twenty minute climb up a long flight of steps only a couple of hours after Sigiriya.  What I imagine is unusual and certainly interesting is that recently two rival groups of monks have claimed control of the caves.   Ironic when you know that a central tenet of Buddhism is to try to eliminate craving.   Lawyers got involved.

 

inside the Dambulla caves

our track around Sri Lanka

Our second two week organised tour had now ended and if any reader wanted to visit Sri Lanka for a bespoke visit I have no hesitation in recommending Tikalanka Tours.  They did a grand job.

 

two photos of Hill Country landscape

the view at dawn from our bed at Roseland Cottages

and about lunchtime - although we weren't still in bed 

if you've ever wondered
what cinnamon is
like when it's growing
it looks like this.
If you haven't, it
still looks like this

We had a few days winding down before being flown home and headed back into the hill country near Ella for a quiet time.  We stayed in two places, Amba where we stayed earlier in the trip and Roseland Cottages which had the most fantastic views from high on a hillside looking along a valley with hills climbing to either side.  Magnificent.   We were the only guests, they’d had none before we arrived and none booked in when we left, another illustration of the lack of tourists.   The owner certainly had plans though, building new cabins with timber being cut with chainsaws while we were there (unfortunate), coffee production, a sandalwood
plantation and an open sided building under construction on top of a hill with open views in every direction as a yoga retreat.  Laudably he wanted to employ locals as much as he could and told us that he didn’t want to bring in an outsider to run the yoga sessions.  However, there was some internal wincing on our part when he said he wanted to “get a local to learn a few yoga moves”.  Neither of us can understand why it’s necessary to go to some exotic locations for yoga anyway but I guess the people who do will want a yoga instructor with a bit more than a few moves.  Perhaps they might try the old “well this is how we do a downward dog here“ line.

 

last breakfast at Amba before heading to the airport

While we’ve been here in Sri Lanka I’ve noticed some interesting use of old imperial measures.  In the museum at Polonnawura, one of the models had a scale shown of 1 chain to the inch (for those who don’t know, a chain is 22 yards, the length of a cricket pitch).   In Galle, an estate agent had a property described as having land measured in perches, an archaic Imperial measurement of 5.5 yards, so they probably mean square perches which are about 30.25 sq yards.  I like the simplicity and logic of metric but there is something about those old Imperial names although rods, poles, perches and roods are all bizarrely the same measurement.  My favourite has always been the old Imperial paper size of Double Elephant which I think has to be an appropriate ending to a blog about Sri Lanka.

 

FINALLY – A REQUEST

Some readers of these blogs do send me comments which are always welcome and I know of others who read it and never do but I have no idea who gets a link sent to them and who don’t read the blog at all.   That makes it junk mail for them although I believe that according to the Royal Mail there is no such thing.  They call it “poorly targeted direct mail”.   My request is that if you’ve read this to here, congratulations on your stamina and please send me an email saying so.  An email that just says Yes will suffice.  Then I can remove the addresses of people who are on my distribution list who are clearly not interested in my ramblings.  Thanks to all you readers.

 

 

Covers 15 Feb 2022 – 21 Feb 2022