Sigiriya

I travelled on from Ella using a number of buses to my next destination – Sigiriya, and an ancient Buddhist Temple and Palace around and on top of a huge rock.

The buses here never shut their doors and for part of the first bus ride, the bus was so full when I got on that I had to stand in the open doorway, which was a bit tricky with my bags and the bus braking and accelerating sharply whilst going at top speeds around the tight bends. Still I managed not to fall out and got a safer position as people began to get off. The next bus ride took me through beautiful green gorges and then after the forth bus ride of the day I arrived in Sigiriya.

Sinhalese is a very tricky language to learn, for me anyway. I just can’t seem to be able to say the words correctly and so consequently people don’t understand me. This is the same when I’m trying to pronounce place names. A lot of the buses only have the places they’re going to written on them in Sinhalese, which is very pretty writing but by now way resembles our letters at all. Generally when I ask someone where the bus to a certain place is, for example Sigiriya, they ask me 'where?' a number of times and then finally will say ‘oh, Sigiriya’ in exactly the way I thought I’d said it in the first place. Another thing I struggle to find quickly is a room to stay in, as the conversation generally goes like this:

"Do you have a single room?"

"What?"

"A single room?"

"What?"

"A room?"

"What?"

"Room"

"What?"

"Room"

etc...

..."Oh, room!"

And this exchange of words happens between me and the owner of a guesthouse in the reception area of their guesthouse.

Anyway, back to Sigiriya...

I have been very fortunate in meeting friendly people - either locals or tourists - everywhere I've been so far in Sri Lanka, and here was no exception. So the following day I set off with a new friend from Canada to climb the Sigiriya Rock. We set off early and after buying the rather expensive one time only entry ticket we crossed the first of two moats, passing fish and kingfishers, and found ourselves in the 'water garden'. I have to say I was slightly disappointed as perhaps foolishly after reading in a guide book that said we'd pass through two water gardens, I was looking forward to seeing water. Only this was an ancient water garden and there was no water. As we walked on to the next one though, I was pleased to discover that here at least in some places there was still water.

There was a boulder garden with the hugest boulders that you could climb up onto, walk under into little caves and walk through as if walking through a massive bottom crack. Then there were no end of stairs and a cave with frescoes on the walls. Then more stairs and we arrived at the Lion's Paws. Apparently there was once a lion's head too, which must have been gigantic if you think about it in relation to the paws. Then there were plenty more steps and finally we were on the top. Here there were the ruins of the palace which was perhaps built (along with the moats and water gardens) between AD 477-485. There were also magnificent views across the jungle below.

On the way down we found a guy with two snakes. One was a big python and the other a cobra. Although very pretty, the cobra was also a little scary as continually hist and looked angry. Not surprising really though, what with being stared at by lots of people and being confined to a little basket which the guy kept tapping to make it go for him.