Sigyria

Hard  to believe that I have been in Sri Lanka for over a week now. The time has been flying by, but when I look back and think of all the amazing things I have already done it feels like I have been here much longer!

During the week I stay on the Elephant Conservation (which I will do a whole other blog post on later), but on the weekends I am free to go off and explore this amazing country. This past weekend myself and three other volunteer decided to go and conquer the great Sigiriya.

Bus ride to Dam bulla

Our day started off with a four hour bus ride to a city called Dambulla followed by a 30 min tuktuk drive to our hostel. Riding a local Sri Lankan bus is quite the experience – think packed, hot, and lots and LOTS of honking. If the roads were actually paved and straight we probably could have easily made it to the city in under an hour as it was only 100 km away. However, I enjoy traveling like a local and getting to experience their lifestlyes, not to mention that the bus ride cost me a whopping $1 and the tuk tuk was a jar dropping $2.

Once we arrived at quite possibly the cutest hostel ever called the Flower Inn we dumped our bags before racing out to go find some food. Eager to have something other than rice and curry for the first time in over a week. We walked down the straight and came across a restaurant that offered free wifi – so naturally being the electronically deprived teenagers that we are we walked right in. The food was amazing, we feasted on koththu and even had some Sri Lankan ice cream for dessert.

After we had eaten enough to fuel a small army we waddled back to the hostel to relax and play some cards before going to bed.

Selfie on Sigryia

The next morning we took off for Sigiriya at promptly six am so we could be the first ones there and beat the extreme heat. The climb itself was not too bad – just lots and lots of stairs! The sore muscles were a small price to pay, you just cannot put a price on a view like this.

On top of Sigryia

On our way up we passed through the famous Lions Paws.

Want to read more on what the heck this giant rock is all about? Click here.

Once we finished out hike we dragged ourselves down and headed out to find breakfast and get some much needed calories into our bodies.

Our typical Sri Lankan breakfast we got after our long hike to the summit

To finish our day we went to the Ancient rock temples. There are 5 caves that are filled with paintings and sculptures over 2000 years old. There were incredible to see, but unfortunately I did not take any pictures as it is considered very rude and disrespectful to turn your back to a Buddha.

The rock temple in Dam bulla

The next day we decided that our legs were just not sore enough so we decided to climb Knuckles Mountain Range. Some of the local volunteers took us up on motorcycles and it was so much fun. We were so high up we literally were above the clouds.

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Now I am back at the camp and thoroughly exhausted. I will use this week to recover and relax and then next weekend we are off to Kitugala to do some white water rafting!