Exploring Sigiriya Rock Fortress

Travelling to Sigiriya

We left Kandy for Sigiriya. With stops at 3 temples, with an increasing number of steps at each. The last one was a cave temple at the top of a hill and definitely the most interesting. With a large number of statues in the caves depicting different Buddhas. Another temple w estopped at nearly in the exact centre of Sri Lanka

The guides car lost power on the way up so we went to the car park in a tuktuk and looked round whilst the car was repaired. The guide had said earlier he needed some time for some business he had on, so we aren't sure if the car problems were real or to give him time for his other stuff!

Our hotel is the countryside and one the way in a lot of electric fences to keep the elephants out. It's a lovely setting with a nice pool.

Rock Fortress

An early start the next day saw us leave the hotel at 4.30am for Sigiriya Fortress. This is the remains of a huge fortress from the 5th century at the top of massive rock. We were like the odd couple going up 1200 steps with Karen's dislike of heights and then coming down my lack of balance! We made it up and down, seeing the sunrise and fantastic views at the top. Apparently on really clear days you can see the coast form the top. On the way up my head torch got its first use of the trip!

On the way down the monkeys were really interested in us and about 15 followed us for 30 yards. At one point I turned round and was face to face with one, another time I had to move my hand to stop one walking on it. Luckily they soon got bored with us and scared other people trying to open backpacks. This didn't help our walk down as these are macaque monkeys and we see a lot of warning signs saying how they can be vicious. Monkey poo is also not a good combination on the metal steps. We were surprised by the number of people heading up as we came down still early, 6.30am, but after the sunrise.

New Hotel

We then drove onto Sigiriya, the hotel is a mixed bag lovely pool and facing onto the Indian Ocean but the room isn't great and the bathroom at bit murky! Our first hotel in Sri Lanka was a bit yuk but had been lovely since then.