After all this traveling through Sri Lanka, almost half a day in a bus and exploring Kandy we got not tired of exploring. But also were thinking about our next stop and maybe relax for some days.
So we checked for some flights and our possibilities, after finding one we kept to the plan in Sri Lanka and decided to go to Sigiriya ( -> wonna know
more ?). If the others would have joined us earlier coming with the idea of going back into the highlands and walk up Adams peak and see the sunrise from up there we would have joined the. Bad luck this time.
So we took the bus to Dambulla, where we wanted to visit the golden temple, but before the temple we wanted to get to Sigiriya.
It took not long to get from Dambulla to Sigiriya and the rock looked already from far away very impressive.
From the bus stop we had to walk for a few minutes along the moat, this moat was also protected by crocodiles, we did not see any, but there were a lot of warning signs, so for sure no bathing time.
Finally we entered the old ruins and could walk around there, fist looking at the rests of some bathing houses and many different buildings.
We walked up some stairs and reached the councils chamber. It was a lot different from the council champers you can usually see. Build on a bigger rock next to some trees under the open sky. What a nice place to stay, not like small champers with stifling air.
Back at the main stairs leading up we got to the place were the guards had to stay during their duty. A place were you only fall one time asleep. They were forced to stay at a small path with enough space for staying and not able to lean on something. For sure they would be able to sit or day down, but I think then everyone would be sure that they were not following their duty and get some punishment.
Next we had to get up a staircase at the mountain and got to see some paintings, we were wondering how the people got here in the past, the metal staircase is to modern for being used several centuries ago. But there must have been a path leading up here otherwise nobody would have been able to see the paintings.
Again we walked down the stair case to get to the mirror wall. The reflection is not as good as a real mirror, but it looked pretty interesting having a wall made of clay or something looking like that and having such a good reflecting surface.
We passed by at the wall and got to a place were the first building on the way up was, whatever it was used for, we made there a short break and we could also see a big rock lying only on smaller ones looking like it will fall down the next minute. A sign there was telling us that behind that rock used to be the prison. So the rock might be there to pretend the prisoners from breaking out. Hmm how would they put there a new one, when they were forced to use it ?
Another stair lead us to a plateau, were the main entrance to the palace was. The lions gate, with the huge lions claws does still exist, the old stairs up the rock were all gone after a few metres so you only can imagine how the path up there would have looked like.
Bernd was exhausted when we got to the plateau, so we took a longer break before climbing up the last stairs. It did not take long to arrive at the top of the rock. From there we got a great view above the country. The next mountains are far away so the rock is the highest peak in the is area.
Up there we enjoyed our lunch and also took a closer look at the ruins. Too bad that it is almost everything destroyed what was up here. Must have been amazing living on the rock.
Getting down was much easier then getting up, so we could as often as we wanted stop to enjoy the view instead of taking a breath and not able of looking around for felt like hours. On the day down we saw some lizards taking a bath in the sun, still small ones. But Bernd wanted to have a picture with them. I could only take one with the lizard before it ran away.
Last thing we wanted to see around here was the museum, so we followed the sign leading us the way, on the path there we had a conversation with a Sri Lankan guy who told us about his religion and wanted to give us a flyer, because we already knew a lot about the Christian religion we told him to give the flyer to someone else.
At the end of the path surprisingly we not got to the museum, instead of the museum we arrived at a small temple.
We were not in the mood to go back so we decided to walk along the street to get to the main road to get the bus to Dambula, we still wanted to visit the temple there.
On our way to the main road it started raining and we stopped for some minutes at an old house, that was the first time on our explorations we got rain, arriving at Kandy two days ago at night and only getting to the hostel does not count.
Fortunately a different bus came by and stopped next to us. There was loud kind of reggae music coming out, it seemed more like a party bus. We took the chance and got on the bus. Not as usually there was no one on the bus selling tickets. And we started to have some conversations with the people on the bus, they were all Christians from Colombo on a day trip to Sigiriya, so more of them. Unbelievable how many Christians are around here.
In Dambula they invited us to have lunch with them, we did not say no to this invitation, they were all so friendly and they also planned to go to the golden temple. So why not joining them.
After lunch it was already to late for the temple, lunch was more like an very early dinner, so we left them at the main road and got at the bus station the next bus back to Kandy.
Late at night we arrived at our hostel and the old lady there was already worried that something did happen to us, many other travellers arrived and she seemed to expect us to be back a bit earlier. That was so nice from her. We did not think that she might take care of her guests so much.
Next morning we left Kandy and got to Negombo to be closer to the airport to take our flight the next day. We stayed there at the hostel ran by the same company like in Kandy offering the same prices and hospitality. There we spent some time at the beach and night together with two girls from the Netherlands before we left.
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