From the Colombo train we arrived in Dambulla and tuktuked it to Sigirya – a town built around a rock and geared towards backpackers. We stayed in an amazing home stay with the most wonderful host Sithi who drove us around in his many vehicles, his wife cooked the best breakfasts and his son was Sophie’s playmate. Sigiriya was full of backpacker restaurants and we enjoyed the Lion lagers after a bit of a beer drought in Indian and Egypt but much of the food was overpriced and disappointing compared to Colombo – the Sri Lankan food was too Western and the Western food too Sri Lankan!
Our time in Siguriya was action packed, photo overload below! We visited in rainy season (there was a gap in my research here so we had not planned for this!) but luckily the so far unused matching family pacamacs came in handy, as did Sithi’s umbrellas.
We started at Dambulla Cave Temple, a UNESCO site which is the largest, best-preserved cave-temple complex in Sri Lanka. The walls are covered in Buddhist mural paintings and there are 157 statues. The added excitement for the girls was the many monkeys present and splashing barefoot in the puddles.
Our next adventure was an elephant safari in Hurulu Eco Park. The rains cleared and we were able to ride the vehicle topless which was great fun and a trip highlight for all of us. The elephants proved to be elusive to begin with but after a couple of hours we came round a corner to come in close proximity with a mother and baby. To see them up close was amazing. We also spotted many peacocks, eagles and junglefowl, the Sri Lankan national bird.
Pidurangala Rock came next which is an ancient Buddhist temple situated in Pidurangala village of Matale District.
Hiking Pigurangula was an adventure we all enjoyed. It begins with a climb of around 500 steep and uneven steps then an exhilarating scramble over rocks and boulders and with stunning views of the countryside. On the way up we passed a cave temple and a massive reclining buddha. Most people hike the rock to see the sunrise behind Sigiriya Rock but due to it being rainy season the view was cloudy so we luckily didn’t feel the need to rise before dawn!
Having escaped the rain on the rock it came back with a vengeance for a local village tour. We were not so impressed with this experience. It started with a ride on a bullock and cart, which we instantly regretted agreeing to as we felt that it was not so great for the bulls. We aim to avoid any tourist activities that involve a negative impact on animals, so this was not something we were happy with.
A boat ride in the rain followed where we were made hats from lily pads and necklaces from lotus flowers and turned us into a strange goblin-like family.
We then learnt how food was prepared and cooked in the traditional Sri Lankan way. We grated coconuts, pounded rice to remove the husks and witnessed the food cooking on a wood fire.
From action packed Sigiriya it was time to head further inland to Kandy for a much needed chill.
3 responses
Experience overload. How will you cope with a humdrum life back in UK.
A published photo book must surely follow!!
This looks amazing. Loving the photos guys.
Also, I think we’ve still had more rain in Seaford 🙂
Thanks Kev! Yes, I suspect you have!