It was time to leave our luxury penthouse suite (balcony included) in the hills of Kandy, and we were finally getting some bad weather for the first time. Our next stop is one of the most famous places in Sri Lanka and a Unesco world heritage site - the Ancient City of Sigirya. After another delicious breakfast at our favourite place in Kandy (Hela Bojun Hala), we jumped on a local bus to Dambulla (a town near Sigiriya home to some incredible cave temples which we would visit the next day). After a tuk tuk ride from Dambulla we arrived in Sigiriya that afternoon in the pouring rain at some cheap accommodation for about $20NZD per night. 

That evening I was randomly looking for places to eat on Google Maps, and found a place with 4.9 out of 5 stars so we headed there to eat. Little did we know we would spend the evening having a home cooking experience with a lovely local lady called Ramya. As we sat and sipped tea we chatted to her about her life in Sri Lanka, while she cooked a huge selection of local curries for us and 3 other couples who joined for the evening. The food was incredible and it was so interesting to watch the entire process from preparing the produce to cooking everything on her home built clay oven.

The next day was an exciting day as it was Alice's birthday! Unfortunately, the timing wasn’t the best as it was raining and we would be spending most of the day travelling from Sigiriya to our next location, Anuradhapura. But first things first, we had a rock to climb. So for a rather extortionate price of $35USD each we went to check out the world famous Sigiriya. It is a site of historical and archaeological significance that is dominated by a massive column of granite approximately 180 m (590 ft) high. Buddhist monks lived in the area from around 300 BC and in the 4th century AD it was developed into a complex city and impenetrable fortress which even included a crocodile infested moat. The gardens surrounding the fortress are among the oldest landscaped gardens in the world! The king at the time had much of the western face of the rock covered by incredible fresco style paintings (Fresco is a mural painting technique that involves painting with water-based paint directly onto wet plaster so that the paint becomes an integral part of the plaster). Unfortunately, once the city was deserted by the kingdom many of these paintings were lost forever. These days a small collection still remains in a cave situated halfway up the side of the rock, and they are some of the oldest fresco paintings in the world and also some of the most intricate and beautiful paintings I have ever seen. It was humbling and inspiring to see the incredible artistry of the people living there over 1600 years ago. We climbed to the top of the rock and were greeted by heavy rain and mist obscuring most of the view. Nevertheless, we were happy to have come and seen this ancient place, and the frescoes had really made it all worth it for me.

After Sigiriya it was a quick local bus ride back to Dambulla where we wanted to see another world heritage site - the Dambulla cave temples. We had heard good things about this place, but didn’t know much going into it. It is fair to say that we were really blown away. The temple is composed of five caves of varying sizes and magnificence dating back to around 100 AD. The caves are incredible, every part of the floor, walls, and roof are painted with colourful buddhist patterns, and countless statues of the Buddha himself are hewn out of the rock. I struggle to find the words to describe it, so check out the pictures for a bit more of an idea! 

 

Every religion has beautiful monuments and temples, but I have personally found the Buddhist temples of Sri Lanka take the cake. The colourful patterns and sculptures of the Buddha are enveloped by hanging branches of sacred Bodhi Trees. The temples are often at the top of hills, tucked away in caves, or hidden in forests, and this makes them such beautiful and peaceful places. I have also resonated with many Buddhist teachings so far on this trip, in particular the idea that desire is the root cause of suffering. Also how mindfulness, the practice of being fully present in the moment, is crucial for understanding and accepting reality as it is, rather than clinging to our expectations.

We finished off this busy day of temples with another bus ride to our next destination, Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of Sri Lanka. Here we found a nice Biryani place for Alice’s birthday dinner and then turned in for an early night dreaming of temples and ancient civilizations.