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Published: November 7th 2012
We spent 2 nights at the Lion Rock Guest House – close to Lion Rock and just a little way out of Sigiriya.
Another surprising little guest house in the middle of nowhere – only 8 rooms – each building was painted aqua green with white trim and our room was painted lime green and the bathroom was peachy/orange….but the only thing I really wanted when I arrived there was to peel myself out of my clinging wet clothes and get into a nice hot shower….which we did and then followed that up with a nice cold beer.
It was still raining heavily and we were getting a bit concerned about climbing up Lion Rock – this is the place that I really wanted to see on this trip and I was a little worried….but…thank goodness it cleared to just light showers the next morning so we headed off early……and we were not disappointed.
The rock rises 200m straight up and is actually the hardened magma plug of an extinct volcano that long ago eroded away. There are many myths surrounding the rock and its uses over the years – but I didn’t care –
I just wanted to get up there……
You pass through landscaped gardens to make you way to the rock….there is a water garden, boulder gardens and terraced gardens…..the right side of the area has been excavated but the left side has been left for the time being undisturbed. Looking back over the gardens from a vantage point on the rock the gardens are beautifully laid out and slightly resemble the gardens, fountains, etc that you would expect to see in any European castle.
The boulder garden is closest to the actual rock and a series of steps at the base lead you steeply upwards.
It is not a hard climb – especially in the weather we were experiencing – umbrellas up and down most of the time. Just had to take care on the slippery rock steps.
About halfway up the rock you climb up using a spiral stairway that leads up from the main route to a long, sheltered gallery in the sheer rock face….after much deep breathing and no looking down – only straight out – I had finally arrived…and the frescoes were amazing. There was a bit of a cue to
get in and I had to wait out on that spiral staircase a bit longer than I felt comfortable with…but…I had been wanting to see these paintings ever since my girls and my brother bought back photos of them from their trips to Sri Lanka.
The frescoes are a series of paintings of buxom, thin-waisted women believed to represent either nymphs or the King’s concubines. The paintings are protected from the sun in the sheltered gallery and the paintings are in good condition.
No one knows the exact dates of the frescoes but they suspect that there may have been as many as 500 portraits at one time in the area – but today only 18 remain. Several were vandalized in 1967 and security is very tight around the whole area now.
We had plenty of time to take photos and have a good look around before moving on to the Mirror Wall. This 3m high wall was coated with a smooth glaze and visitors of 1000 years ago wrote their impressions of the women in the gallery on it – so the story goes. Of course, this wall now has inscriptions like “I was here”
Right side of garden area
this side has been excavated....scratched over the top of the ancient writings, but it you look very hard you can see some of the old Sinhala script there. As people pass by the wall you can easily see their reflections in the wall.
We continued to climb up to the northern end of the rock to the area known as the Lion’s Paw. The 5th century carved lion’s paws were discovered in 1898 and now form the entrance of steps up to the summit of the rock.
We did not continue up to the summit as it was raining and the summit was covered with fog – so there would be no view to see once up there. But apparently the top of the rock covers 1.6 hectares and there are various stories about this area – was it a residence, meditation area, there is a large pool-type structure that indicates it could just have been water storage….who knows…
Coming down we visited a series of caves and open areas along the way…..but in Cobra Hood Cave there are the remains of a plastered interior area where you can see some indication that there were once paintings here
Left side of the garden area
This side has not been excavated and is just left natural. as well.
It was a little sad to leave that area except for the hordes of tour buses that were coming in……and on our way back to the guest house we visited a batik factory and shop front…….seeing the production line of a piece of cloth…the six stages that they go through to get the final print and all done my hand…..and elephant images of course.
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Linese
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Love the frescos (and the batiks). Looking forward to catching up soon.