Sigiriya and Dambulla

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This weekend we went on our last visit to the interior of Sri Lanka, traveling to some of the sites within what is known as the cultural triangle. One of the most famous is Sigiriya rock, a United Nations Heritage site, that stands 200 meters above its base and that once was the fortress of a king who lived there from 477 to 495 AD. We learned about the bloody end to this amazing king’s reign and the engineering feats that brought water to the beautiful pools and irrigated gardens at the top of the rock and the moats, catapults, and walls that kept his enemies away. David and I climbed the rickety steps (1202 of them) along with many others who huffed and puffed their way to the top in the early morning heat. It was certainly worth the exertion. The 360 degree view was awesome.

We also saw the caves at Dambulla and more Buddhas than we could count.

But the best part of the trip was the safari that we took at Minneriya National Park --- a park who’s mission is the conservation of the plants and animals of Sri Lanka. While the experience in no way compared to the safari my brother David and his wife Holly experienced in Uganda this weekend (isn’t the internet great!!!) where they saw herds of giraffes, lions, antelopes, and warthogs, we were totally alone with our guide and driver in a 34 square mile park with only the beautifully colored birds and monitors (large lizard) and amazing foliage. We spent lots of time near the only lake in the park hoping to see some of the larger game. Towards the end of our time near the lake we were lucky enough to come upon a herd of 10 elephants --- according to our guide two grandmas, three moms and babies (about 7 months old) and even a teenager who we watched get corralled back to the pack by his dad. At one point the dad paced back and forth very close
(less than 10 feet) to our jeep, uncertain as to our intentions. We moved away slightly and he trudged off. We took that opportunity to move closer to the rest of the herd and watched two of the babies nursing after their baths in the lake. It was a beautiful and wonderfully intimate experience.

We stayed at the Kandalama Hotel, a beautifully designed hotel set into the woods and huge rocks of its park-like setting. The views from the hotel were breathtaking and we include two here.

Our work is going well. There’s simply too much to describe in our travel log. Let us know if you are interested in that aspect of our visit to SL and we can email you some of the reports we are sending to the organization that placed us here.

We’ll update our travelog again after our trip to Cochin, India (March 9-14). Much love from both of us.

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Comments

[Geoffrey]

Amazing!
Doesn't it drive you crazy yhat no one posts comments? Well, now you've got one. Among all our other topics to discuss, you'll have to give us a blog tutorial because yours looks exactly the way we envisioned ours looking.