sasri2016 - Feelings in Sigiriya by the pool

Made tea with a tea cooker in my room. From my own tea leaves. Had to borrow a tea pot from hotel's restaurant. Weather  is not that hot as it normally is. And it's really nice, to just be here, without any hurry or worry.
Monkeys just walked from hotel reception's roof to the trees opposite of me. They are actually quite funny to watch. People are swimming in the pool and some guys are playing dice on the other table. I think it's time for me to go to the pool also.

sasri2016 – Going up to Lion's rock in Sigiriya

You need to go there very early. I had breakfast at the hotel (Hotel Sigiriya) 06:30 and was ready to go there about 07:00. Executed as scheduled. But even this was a bit late for me. I did sweat so unbelievably when going up all those stairs. If I had been there during the sunrise, it would have been much easier. Though some of my extraordinary sweating might have been caused by yesterday's Ayurvedic treatments. Because I did sweat already yesterday evening an oddly lot. Okay, it was 30C heat during the night, when I had dinner. If I would have had strength, I should have waited to later night time to go eating and it might have been easier. Food is really great in this hotel, so it was sad to not be able to enjoy it as much as I should have.

Lion's rock palace's legend is, that there were two kings fighting (or something like this) and the prince of another king was sent (or left) hiding to that rock. This would have been somewhere 500 - 650 AD. Temple/palace is said to have been built during that time.

Climb to the top is quite hard. There are a lot of stairs and if the heat is already there, then you need to be in good shape and have a body that doesn't sweat easily. There were a lot of Chinese people coming up, when I was already going down. Most of them were already in senior age. So even as they are smaller and lighter than I am, also them were sweating and very tired, like I was. I could see the agony in their eyes, when I passed them (I probably looked quite same, when I was going up). I was glad that I had already been there before them, because the hordes of Chinese always keep a lot of noise.

This rock also has big wasps/bees and there are (at least two) warnings saying, that you should be silent and still, if hornets attack. When I saw how big they are – and I was breathing heavily like an ass – I got bit worried about them. When I was like half way up, there was a big bee trying to get hold of that chrome handrail – gladly I didn't have my hand there and interrupt its business. ;)

Sadly couldn't take a picture of it.

There are awesome views at the top and I also found one cooler place, where wind was little bit helping from the heat and there was a shadow of a tree, under which you could lay down in safe from sun's worst rays.

Price for tuk-tuk from Hotel Sigiriya's road to Lion's rock is 200 rupies. Paid same price to come back. There are couple touts in the Lion's rock area. One guy told me he is help-boy, which I didn't laugh, because I was little bit irritated by sweating already. Though I did saw two helpers aiding an older french lady to get up stairs. And stairs are not easy, as some are really small for my feet and then coming down is a bit dangerous. But as I am not a light man, going up is much harder for me.

sasri2016 – Travelling from Kandy to Sigiriya and visiting hot Dambulla

I hired a driver from my hotel (Sunny Hill Residence) in Kandy, to take me to Sigiriya. I could easily have taken the bus (not enough easy way to get here by train) here, but was kinda hoping to see things in between those cities and specially Dambulla. And it was a good choice. I paid 8000 rupies to the tour manager for the car, driver and tour manager (“Nihal”) for the trip. I wasn't actually first so happy about the tour manager to come with me on the trip, but he insisted on it and it was a good choice in the end. Driver wasn't so good in english and tour manager was. He also helped me to do some things, which was good.

First we got to the post office, I wanted to send souvenirs to Finland by parcel service. This wasn't easy and cheap task (cost was like 7000 rupies, so prices of souvenirs got much higher than they originally were). Even finding the door to the actual post office was hard, and arranging the sending even harder. ;) Well I didn't even have to try it, because tour manager did arrangements for me.

Then we tried to find an open Photo Studio, but none were open (even as it was saturday, but probably because (once more) for the New Year holiday).

Next thing was to travel to Matale. There we went to a Hindu temple, which was actually quite interesting to see.

Then we went to a spice garden in Matale. I got a presentation of their plants and what they use them for. A lot of natural cures by these oils or syrups or similar things. I was much more looking for spices, than oils or those things. But I did end up buying a bunch of spice bags to make curry back home. Also I got an advise, that I should use Cardemom (I am not sure it was this spice) by just braking it. And using the shell of the seed also inside curry. Just crunching it and leaving the shell behind, doesn't give same flavor. That place was quite pricey, if you ask me. Oil bottles were mostly from 3000 rupies to 8000 rupies. And most would have been too big for me to take home. It was nice that they had a lot of explanations in paper for the oils and their uses, because I had already forgot so much from the presentation. ;)

After that, we went all the way to the Dambulla. Tour manager's plan failed here, because it was planned that we eat after and near the temple, but actually we ate after the Buddhist temple in Dambulla. Which was too late for me. Though all that heat and everything didn't me much hungry.

Dambulla was SO HOT! It was only 36C according to my cell phone's internet weathercast, but it felt like 39C or 40C. You need to climb also in Dambulla's temple. But the worst part was, when they asked you to take your shoes off at the top of the temple and I didn't have socks with me. I have a very thin skin in feet and damn those tiles were burning hot in the temple. They had been in sun for whole day (it was like 15:35, when we were at Dambulla) and gathered all heat to be just one burning stepping stone. Not everybody liked my cursing, when running in the shadows (where I could find one), trying to avoid the burning tiles.

After this we drove a little bit and ended up eating a buffet in a very popular place. There were a lot of bigger groups (seemed mostly Indians) and couple westerners too. Paid 650 rupies for buffet (now I really got at least four pieces of chicken, because there's always too little chicken pieces in rice & curry with chicken dishes.

I have heard that Anuradhapura is at least as hot as Dambulla, or maybe even more hot, so I doubt if I really can and want to go there. Currently I'm avoiding that option and still thinking about going to Trincomalee as my final destination in this trip.