Travel Day 1116 – Sigiriya, SRI LANKA
After three days in the sacred city of Kandy, I was off to the next UNESCO Site of Sri Lanka’s Cultural Triangle, the amazing rock city of Sigiriya…
Me by UNESCO Ancient Rock City of Sigiriya, Sri Lanka
Initially I was debating to visit the UNESCO Cave Temples of Dambulla first, but since there was a direct bus service to Sigiriya and since I had to pass through Dambulla on my way back anyway, starting with the Ancient Rock City of Sigiriya seemed to be my best bet. Actually nobody seemed to really know if Sigiriya once used to be a city, a fortress, a monastery or a palace. But whatever it used to be, the photos I had seen of this sheer rock cliff rising for no apparent reason out of the jungle, were simply stunning and I couldn’t wait to see Sigiriya for myself…
So I arrived from Kandy around mid-day, settled-in, had some local lunch and explored the place a little bit on foot. Overall the area around Sigiriya seemed very pleasant, even if there wasn’t much of a village. This place simply seemed to exist because of the historical site and so Sigiriya village appeared rather as a handful of simple guesthouses and a few places to eat along the main street. There were not even many tourists around and it seemed that mostly busloads of local people came as a pilgrimage to visit the ancient rock city of Sigiriya…
Atop Pidurangala Rock by Sigiriya, Sri Lanka
The walk then along the inner moat towards the main entrance, the ticket office and museum was quite nice, but what wasn’t nice at all was the following awareness of the extremely high ticket prices. They were actually charging 3900 rupees meaning 30 USD for a one-day-only ticket to visit the UNESCO Site of Sigiriya. I was really shocked since this equaled about 30 meals in a local restaurant in Sri Lanka and it seemed by far the highest ticket price I ever paid to visit some ruins in a developing country…
Since it was already afternoon and the gate was closing at 5pm, I decided that it wasn’t worth spending the money today, even if the lady at the ticket office promised that I could stay inside the compound until the sunset time at about 6.30pm. I rather made the resolution to be back at 7am in the morning when the ticket office opened and then I took-off for the museum. The Sigiriya museum with all its models, drawings and explanations turned out to be well worth a visit, especially prior to seeing the actual ruins. It only took me about 15 minutes of endlessly annoying the guards to let me in without the 30 USD ticket which was normally required…
Ancient Rock City of Sigiriya in Sri Lanka from the Distance
After that, I luckily listened to my host family’s mom, got a bike and made my way out to Pidurangala Rock. This rock looked rather like a little hill, but it was close enough to the rock fortress of Sigiriya so that I could have some beautiful views over the jungle when the sun was slowly setting. It was really only a short bike ride with a quick uphill walk along a cave temple and a half-ruined reclining Buddha. Just the last bit of the trail required some really creative climbing which made me think that I certainly hadn’t found the official way to the top of Pidurangala Rock…
But it didn’t really matter and once I saw the breathtaking views of the jungle and Sigiriya Rock rising up straight in the middle of it, I didn’t even worry about how to ever get down again from Pidurangala. All I could do was run around like a kid in a toy shop while taking a photo here and there or chatting with the few other treavellers who made it to the top. This had already been an exciting day and I couldn’t wait for tomorrow morning to see the actual Sigiriya ruins on the steep summit…
Find all Sigiriya Photos here.
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