It’s Wednesday morning and I’ve had yet another night of broken sleep thanks to ‘the snorer’ in the room! It didn’t help that the alarm went off at 6:45am in order for us to set off early for Sigirya Rock, (Lion Rock), before the sun gets too hot for us to climb the 1,200 steps - 200 meters - to the top.
Jay picked us up after breakfast and we started the short drive to the ancient capital, (yep another one), avoiding, as ever, the numerous dogs languishing in the road. (Equivalent to all the cows on the roads in India). According to Jay, the dogs are neither wild nor strays, in fact he insists they all have loving owners. I find it hard to believe as a lot of them look pretty mangy or even half starved. Either way, they generally don’t bother to move and seem completely fearless of any cars whilst staring back at the oncoming driver who eventually manoeuvre around them.
Ok, so, Sigirya in a nut shell (possibly more the size of a coconut shell): it was declared a world heritage site in 1982. Originally a place where Buddhist monks sought refuge as far back as the third century BC. Then a few centuries after, Dhatusena of Anuradhapura declared he would leave his throne to his son Mogallana. His other son Kassapa was furious and drove Mogallana into exile in India then eventually murdered their father.
On hearing that Mogallana was to return, Kassapa built a new residence on top of Sigirya rock to be a pleasure Palace and an impenetrable fortress with a whole new city around its base.
A few years later, Mogallana invaded. Kassapa, for some reason, decided to ride out on an elephant at the head of his army and face their invading enemy below. However, at the height of the battle, the elephant got frightened, turned round and started to flee. Kassapa’s troops thought that he was retreating and fled back, leaving Kassapa out on his own, who through fear of being captured, killed himself. (I think that’s what you’d call Karma.)
After his win, Mogallana gave Sigirya back to the Buddhist Monks who returned to solitude and prayer within the caves and the rest of the site was left to wrack and ruin.
Anyway, suffice it to say, once I’d managed to get my breath back after climbing the 1,200 steps - which is a huge feat for someone like myself who generally walks as far as the front door to the car. I managed to take in the splendour of it all Yet again, The Tootster was very patient with me, being very supportive as I struggled to lift my legs up the last few hundred steps! Or maybe that was because he was feeling guilty that my lack of energy came from my lack of sleep the night before due to his snoring!!
I have to say the site itself was fascinating and the views from up there were stunning. It was most definitely worth the climb - a must if you are ever in Sri Lanka.
We managed to make it back down in one piece, even though my legs were starting to shake from the exercise I had put them through. And so I treated myself to an ice cream - I figured I’d burnt a justifiable amount of calories.
Our next part of the day was much more relaxing, we took a short Bullock and cart ride (again I’m a bit concerned about the treatment of the animals. Though the Bullocks did seem to be in a better state than the elephants we’d seen earlier that week). We were taken over to a lake, then hopped into a wooden canoe and taken across the beautiful clear water to a villagers home where we helped the lady of the house prepare lunch. This entailed being shown how to break down the fresh rice then sieve out the husk from the grain; my attempt was not that great considering I managed to scatter most of the rice over the floor! We then watched the lady make a sambal (ground coconut based dish) and various others without the use of any electrical equipment, just grinding the ingredients on a stone slab with another piece of stone and finally serving our lunch on a large banana leaf. The food was delicious and I am expecting Tootster to re-make it all back home in the UK, thought I won’t involve grinding any rice, a pack of Uncle Bens will have to do!
I did have to laugh to myself though, thinking how TC would’ve reacted if she were with us. She’d probably have thrown a fit and refused to eat any lunch for fear of catching some deadly disease off the stone slabs or leaves. I remembered back in Kerala, six years ago when we had lunch served in traditional style on a banana leaf but TC made sure she’d cleaned it thoroughly with hand sanitiser first!
After lunch, we were shown a quick demo of how to thatch a roof with palm leaves, then I got upset watching a Monitor lizard swallow a live mouse whole and so we climbed into our waiting Tuk-Tuk and left. While the lunch was delicious, we did feel slightly conned having been under the impression that it was a village tour we’d paid to go on when all we’d seen was one typical village house and how to cook in it, then found out after, that the house had been specially built for the tourists and the lady didn’t even live there!
Nevertheless it had been a busy and fulfilling day and with the few hours we had left, a deserved afternoon by the swimming pool back at our hotel was the perfect reward before repacking our cases, for the following morning we were leaving the Nice Place Hotel and heading off to Kandy via Matale for another fun packed day ...
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