Intrigued by a country of cultural contrasts

6-2-2 Sunday 26th February

We set off early from Jim's Farm on Sunday morning bound for Sigiriya. The trusty Sumith was keen to add to our knowledge of Sri Lankan history and culture, whilst trying to beat both the crowds and the morning sun so the plan for the day was to drive north to Sigiriya and climb "The Lion's Rock", however our early start was not early enough we later discovered!

The rock at Sigiriya houses a fortress built by King Kasyapa in 5th century as castle refuge. He needed a refuge against his older brother whose throne Kasyapa had usurped. However in the meanwhile Kasyapa had also murdered his father, who he had deposed a little earlier. After all this plotting and subversion Kasyapa ruled for eighteen years, however when his brother returned from exile in India, oddly Kasyaba left the fortress went into battle against him, and was killed. His brother then succeeded him to the throne, ruling the country, giving the fortress the to Buddhist monks.

Unfortunately despite leaving the oasis of Jim's Farm early, it wasn't early enough as the site was extremely busy with tourists by the time we arrived. As we stood at the bottom of the staircase you use to ascend the Rock we could see the stationary queues of tourists ahead of us paused on the 1200 steps you must to ascend stairs to climb up to the top.

Disappointed by the turn of events, we decided not to make the climb (we learnt that you really need to stay at a very local hotel and be starting your climb at 7.30am to avoid the crowds and the delays) however whilst discussing our disappointment Sumith started to explain the significance of the prominent warning notices against hornets. Apparently the area suffers from a significant problem with hornets and loud groups of noisy tourists make them agitated and liable to attack - so there is a first aid station higher up that you pass on the climb up the rock.

So we distracted ourselves by walking around the stony base of the rock, watching the monkeys play in the trees, whilst we absorbed the wisdom behind Sumith's words when he explained to us the significance of the "Quiet please - Wasps" signs - apparently high pitched voices cause the hornets to swarm.

A short drive from Sigiriya is the UNESCO World Heritage site of The Golden Buddha and the Cave Temples of Dambulla. The Golden Buddha, a magnificent seated buddha, is situated in a (almost) road side shrine. Up a short flight of steps behind the Golden Buddha, is a series of caves which has been developed over the centuries into a temple complex. The temple complex consisting of five caverns with painted ceilings and walls, decorated in the ornate Kandy style.

The temples are filled with 73 buddhas - bigger than real size - 63 are gilded, most are in the mediative pose. There are also two giant recumbent buddhas lying beneath the cave roofs.

Below you can see Buddha with a dramatic three headed cobra guard shield around his head, the cobra is considered to be a protector in the Buddhist religion.

The massed presence of so many Buddha statues was overwhelming as was the quality of the painted decoration of the caves.

Meanwhile devotees of Buddha leave cut lily flowers as signs of their veneration for Buddha on offertory tables positioned in front of the statues.

All in all we were taken aback by the cumulative collection of the massed buddhas and the quality of the paintings. However perhaps because of the heritage value of the site,  the volume of visitors to the caves may have driven the monks to new private temples. It seemed to us that the monks had left the temples allowing the playing cheeky monkeys to run riot on the rampart balustrades, and so this image became our the final lasting memory of our trip to Dambulla!

After watching the monkeys antics awhile, we drove back to Jim's Farm and enjoyed chatting over another delicious dinner to other guests about the day's discoveries!

During the day we saw many birds and quite a number of little monkeys. Whilst nothing to the huge range of birds we saw later on Sri Lanka trip, we enjoyed seeing the white and red paradise fly catchers and the storkbilled kingfisher - this is the biggest kingfisher and is very handsome with an orange breast.