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Published: October 7th 2011
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We got onto another bus, fighting our way through obnoxious droves of tuk-tuk-driver/tour guides/guest house operators, and arrived in Sigiriya, where there is a fortress/monastery built on a giant magma plug. (Magma plus happen when a volcano has eroded away, leaving only the hardened column of magma that filled its core.) We found the Flower Hotel, which was decent and had a very pretty yard (with lots of flowers), though we kept finding frogs in out bathroom. We turned out 5 frogs in our first evening, then eventually gave up. Maybe they would help keep the mosquitoes in check. One annoying thing about mosquitoes (aside from the fact that they exist) is that they really like me, but they don't seem to even notice Ashley. I have been bitten even while sleeping under a mosquito net, while Ashley has slept in the open and not had a single bite.
We headed out to the rock late the next afternoon to avoid the heat. Sigiriya has by far the largest rock garden I have ever seen. The whole site has an inner and outer moat, various ponds were built, and at the base of the rock there are winding paths around
Photo 3
Sigiriya
large boulders, various caves, and gathering places. There are some spectacularly well-preserved paintings about half way up the rock, depicting busty, slim-waisted women. The paintings look surprisingly modern in style for their 1500 years of age (more three-dimensional than anything I've seen painted on a rock). They look like sketches for a good manga. There is also a wall which was once polished to a mirror shine where visitors hundreds of years ago scratched in poetry about the paintings, the view, etc. It is quite useful to people studying the evolution on Sinhalese. But the wall has also been defaced by a lot of idiots as well.
There are also huge paws you pass between before you scale the final steps. It is thought that there was once a huge lion head into whose mouth you had to enter before going up top. One theory is that this was to remind people that the Buddha came from a lion clan. Now, only the paws remain. Paws, and a bunch of hornets.
There are various hornet nests you can see on the way up to the top. The hornets hang on the outside of the nests and you can
see the entire surface ripple like water (the hornets shifting) every time one lands or there is a gust of wind. It's the most amazing thing I've personally seen insects do.We got a couple of videos, and then got the heck out because the Sri Lankan guy on the landing above us started gesturing at the hornets and at us and waving us away. These hornets are huge, about the size of baby carrots, and we did not want to piss them off.
On the terraced top, there are only small walls remaining, and in one place a throne, but there are great views in 360 degrees. Aside from a few monkeys, there are no permanent inhabitants, but there are little lean-to shelters from the sun, presumably for those who are still reconstructing bits of wall around the periphery.
At the top, we met an Israeli couple, Omer and Or, who have been traveling in Sri Lanka for a few weeks now. They were very cool, and we spent the next couple of days with them. They are sort of Israeli clones of us, even down to the same age difference between them. We talked with them a
while, enjoyed a sunset and headed back down through the rock garden in the twilight.
We made an early start the next day, trying to get to Polonnaruwa, (a few hours away) see the ruins there, and go on a jungle safari all in one day. Naturally, we didn't do all this, because like so many other places we've been to, Polonnaruwa is hot as balls. We didn't see the ruins, but went on safari in the afternoon to Minneriya national park, only a 30 min drive or so away. We hired a jeep, whose driver drank water out of a bottle of Ballantyne's Whisky (yes, it was actually water) and also seemed like the biggest badass of all the jeep drivers. We went for the elephants, and got very close to many of them. One female also got pissed off because some of the jeeps (yes, there were many, many jeeps) got too close to her. Supposedly the females are more ornery and protective when they are pregnant, and according to some people we met a few days later (who had been on safari at the same place) this female in particular had had a baby run over
by a truck and never got over it. Apparently before she got pregnant it was so bad that the jeep drivers would skip any herd she was a part of. She is credited with having written off about 40 jeeps. Anyway, she charged a couple of jeeps, and we beat a hasty retreat. We watched the elephants grazing, throwing dust on their backs to get rid of insects, and scratching their massive hides against trees. One smaller elephant also lay down and rolled a bit in the dust, but according to our guide, the bigger ones don't do this.
We also saw a buffalo herd, many birds, and a few deer which raced across the road in front of our jeep. As far as seeing elephants in the wild (although they are somewhat accustomed to human observers) I was very satisfied.
We headed back, asking our jeep driver to stop at a liquor store on the way back. We bought some strong 8.8% beers, (gross-tasting and coffee-colored) headed back to the hotel, tipped our driver, and grabbed some dinner. Unable to find ice or a freezer, we had warm beers and watched a bad movie. Omer fell asleep
about 15 minutes into the film. Not surprising; we watched The Green Hornet. It was pretty close to godawful.
The next day we woke early and had a very long breakfast, which somewhat threw a wrench in our plans to see most of the ruins before it heated up. As usual, though I had socks the others didn't and they got burned. I think it's deliberate; Buddha wants you to detach yourself from worldly pain and suffering as you contemplate the sacred sites.
Anyway, we saw some fantastic ruins, and at the end, the most beautiful buddha carvings I have ever seen. They are quite sizable, carved into the living rock, are extremely well-preserved, and are really aesthetically spectacular. It's enough to make you want to convert...
After that, we had a last meal with Omer and Or, and headed on to Kandy.
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