2017 Sri Lanka – Sigiriya
In Sigiriya, we turned off the main road and drove around five kilometres along a dirt track before reaching our hotel in the middle of nowhere. It was on the edge of a lake and we had a lovely little balcony facing it. The hotel claimed that the famous Sigiriya rock could be seen from our balcony which was probably true if I could have detached my head and put it on a selfie stick. Ablutions the next morning were fun when after a 20 wait for the hot water to come through, the room became flooded due to bad drainage. It was a shame because the bathroom looked good, it was just that the plumbing was bad which I suppose is not ideal in a bathroom.
First stop was the Golden Rock Temple in Dambulla where there were some famous caves. The approach to the Temple was very impressive with a huge Golden Buddha. Up more steps, were the caves. The first cave was quite small and very hot with a giant Buddha lying down but the next cave was much bigger and quite something with a lot of statues around the place. Most of the walls were covered with ornate original paintings. We had a guide but he was stuck in fourth gear and rushed through the tour as quickly as possible so he could get to his next gig. We would have been much better off with an audio guide. The third cave was also big and impressive but it was more Buddhas and more paintings so the attraction was wearing thin. The most interesting thing the guide told us was that a few years earlier a young German couple was visiting and the girl sat on a Buddha to have a photo taken and accidentally broke three of its fingers. Considering you are not even supposed to turn your back on a Buddha, dismemberment is about as bad as it gets. The German couple were deported and banned from Sri Lanka for 15 years and the guide was jailed for three years. The reason for the difference in penalties was the Germans were tourists and didn’t know any better but the guide knew how serious it was and should have prevented it.
In Thailand when we entered a Temple we had to take our shoes off but in Sri Lanka, we had to do it when entering the entire temple area. The trouble with that was that some parts of the site had smooth stone which became very hot in the sun. Maybe that was where Sri Lankan firewalkers got their training. The soles of my feet were sensitive at the best of times so I had to sprint across the stones on tiptoes.
We planned to walk around the shops in Dambulla but they were not very inviting so after changing some money we went back to the hotel. We had an excellent meal of swordfish and a dessert that sounded horrible but tasted lovely, Curd and Treacle. To me that brings to mind workhouses and Oliver Twist. I am not a big drinker but I enjoy a glass of wine or beer with my meal which is why I found it irritating how restaurants kept finding excuses for not serving any. One place said it was because of Poja Day, a religious festival that lasted for four days. Somewhere else, it was because it was too near a temple. Our hotel was more honest and said it was simply because they couldn’t afford a licence. The government didn’t want people to drink so they made licences prohibitively expensive for most modest enterprises.
Having eaten far too much we thought it would be nice to take a walk around the area surrounding the hotel but when we mentioned it to the waiter he laughed as if we were crazy. He said at nighttime there was a danger of being attacked by wild elephants as they often roamed around that area. I thought he was joking but it was such a big problem for farmers that some of them slept in trees and set off fireworks to scare them away. It sounded a bit drastic but considering that one elephant can eat up to 400 kilos of food a day it would get through a farmer’s crops in no time. I was surprised to read that up to 500 people a year are killed by elephants.
We spent a lot of time sitting on our balcony which was magical. There were a lot of crows in Sri Lanka which always seemed an aloof bird to me but one landed on the balcony railing next to where I was sitting. At first, it was on the other end of the balcony but it slowly made its way towards me until it was only a few inches away. It was very nervous and flew off a couple of times when it heard even the slightest noise but it soon came back. It kept looking at me and I felt sure it was trying to communicate. 
The next day we had a little walk by the hotel which was pleasant but very hot. One thing I noticed and found amusing was that wherever there was a cow, there was always a small heron following. It looked like some kind of mating ritual but even the most optimistic of herons must know that a romantic liaison with a cow would be highly unlikely. I discovered that it was because cows had some kind of bugs crawling around on them which the herons were very partial to so they jumped on and helped themselves whenever they felt a bit peckish.
Everyone was so friendly. We were often stopped in the street and asked where we came from and when we said England (Croatia just confused things) their eyes lit up. I had assumed they would hate the English colonialists but that was not the case and we were often told how good it was that the English built the railways and general infrastructure. Since the English left in 1948 there was not a single metre of railway built. The trouble was that half the people who approached us were friendly and the other half wanted to sell us something it happened so I became a bit suspicious of people’s motives.
We had lunch in Sigiriya town which was tiny and apart from an absurdly expensive gift shop there was not much to do. It was our day for climbing the famous Sigiriya Rock which you are advised to do early in the morning to avoid the heat but both of us hate getting up early so we thought we would take a chance and go around 3.30 pm when the worst of the heat was over. When we reached the site and looked up at the rock it was breathtaking. A massive lone rock stuck in the middle of nowhere. 
As we looked up at it, neither of us thought we could possibly make it to the top but we would be happy to make it halfway. During the ascent, we had to climb a long staircase. 
At the top of the staircase was a cave with some wall paintings that were over 2000 years old and the entrance to the cave was on a sheer rock face so how on earth they managed to paint there was astonishing. House painters in England were not allowed to go up a ladder without six people holding it, a hard hat, a high visibility jacket and a parachute. We stood on a nice solid structure to look at the paintings but even that was scary. We continued to climb until we reached a plateau close to the summit. There was a first aid station which caught my interest and having once been addicted to the TV program Casualty, I thought I would go and check out what equipment they had. All I saw was a broom like the kind witches use to get around on.
After a well-earned rest, we started to climb the metal staircase to the summit at which point Federika got cold feet. I had a strange relationship with vertigo. I had no problem with those steps or sitting on a ski lift in windy conditions hundreds of feet above the ground but halfway up the Eiffel Tower I couldn’t get anywhere near the edge to look down. I was behind Federika telling her to look straight ahead and we got to the top with no problem which we felt was quite an achievement. The top covered a large expanse and had flower gardens, swimming pools and other various ruins. Going down was much easier but by the time we reached the bottom, our legs were shaking like jelly.
For our last day in Sigiriya, we had a dilemma. The official tourist thing to do was go and visit an elephant park. Having spent a day at an Elephant refuge in Thailand a couple of years earlier neither of us had a big desire to go. On the other hand, there was a five-star hotel in the area where we could have a nice lunch and sit by the pool. That’s what we wanted to but we felt guilty about not being good tourists. Problem solving was one of my strengths so I came up with the perfect solution. We would sit in the five-star swimming pool and look at elephants on our mobiles.
Wanting to maintain a little of our tourist dignity we cycled to the hotel. We were dropped off in town where they rented bikes. We agreed on a price with the shack owner but I noticed all the bikes on offer were for women. The owner told me she did have a man’s bike out the back and went to get it. She returned with a large piece of rust with a wheel at each end. The good news was the brakes were made of chrome so they had escaped the rust but the bad news was there was no brake cable attached to them. I decided on the woman’s bike. I was surprised she didn’t want a deposit but then realised that the £3.50 hire charge would probably cover the replacement cost of both bikes so there was no risk to her.
On the way to the hotel, we stopped at an arts and crafts market. It was government-controlled which meant the prices were fixed which I much preferred. Federika found lots of things to buy and for the first time in my life, I bought a painting. I rarely saw paintings that I liked and when I did it was usually hundreds if not thousands of pounds. So it was a pleasant surprise to find a painting of an old man making a mat from reeds painted by an award-winning artist for only £70. It would make the ideal cover for one of my CDs and I already had the title in my head, Weave. It was batik, so the shop was able to take the frame off and roll it up so it would fit into my suitcase. 
The road leading to the hotel was very hilly so it was a struggle cycling to the five-star hotel Elephants Corridor. On arrival we were more than ready for a nice curry but were disappointed to be told that the hotel only served Western food because the majority of their customers were Chinese and they didn’t like curry. When I told them we had come all that way just to eat curry he managed to talk the chef into knocking one up for us. As always, the choice was chicken, fish or mutton, or occasionally, mutton dressed up as lamb. It was a good curry but a little hot for me. Federika likes them really hot so I was trying to train myself to get through the pain barrier and improve my curry threshold. My plan was working as I got through that curry without crying once.
After the meal, we were honoured to have the manager of the hotel come out for a chat. He was well-educated, spoke perfect English and was very interesting. He told us that when the British ruled Sri Lanka everyone had to learn English at school and everyone got on well together. When the British left, Sri Lankan governments insisted that English was no longer taught. It was an understandable reaction to being occupied for so long but it turned out that speaking English was the one thing that had kept everyone together. When the common language was taken away, different sections of society were no longer able to communicate with each other which caused separatism to develop and led to civil war. They went back to teaching English in schools and everyone we spoke to said how happy they were that the war had finished and tourists were returning with much-needed foreign currency. The evidence of all this was apparent because unlike most countries it was the elderly and very young who spoke English well while those in between spoke it badly, if at all.
We were very impressed with the hotel and had considered staying there but although we didn’t mind splashing out a bit, their prices were well over the top. We were glad we didn’t stay there as descriptions of some of the facilities for which we would have paid so much extra were laughable. They advertised that every room had its own private plunge pool but it was nothing more than a bath. They boasted a swimming pool but that was one kilometre from the hotel which was no problem for us because we had our trusty bikes.
The pool was a lovely little oasis with the most noticeable thing being a concrete lion standing by the edge. Every now and then water came gushing out of the lion’s mouth. As often happens when turning a tap on, there was a lot of spluttering until the water started to flow so it looked like the lion was projectile vomiting. 
After an excellent day sitting by the pool, we cycled back to town before making our way to the hotel. It might not have been our most adventurous activity so far but it was certainly one of the most enjoyable.
2017 Sri Lanka
