Sigiriya Rock – Ancient Heritage Site of Sri Lanka
Hey Guys, back with another blog article about an awesome place I visited in Sri Lanka. Towards, Dambulla so let’s get started with that.
Left Hotel at 4 AM towards Dambulla
I started my day early at around 4 AM, as I had to take a bus from Kandy towards Dambulla. And had lots of places to visit, before I return to Kandy as I had my hotel room booked for that day. But, I would suggest you stay at Dambulla instead to visit all the places you can there.
It was still dark, with no locals or tourists out in Kandy town. But, it was quite peaceful the walk with some of the places being lit. I had to reach the Good Shepherd Bus Stop for the bus towards Dambulla. I was sleepy, but the music on the bus kept me up with some tunes I was familiar with like a song from Ek Villain, exact music but different lyrics. Maybe in their local language, Sinhala but it could be Tamil as well, which is also a widely spoken language in Sri Lanka.
Another Bus towards Sigiriya Rock Entrance
My bus actually dropped me at Sigiriya so, I had to just reach the entrance which was around 10kms. With some locals standing at the bus stand, I enquired and took another bus as the tuk-tuk would have cost me more. After the bus, I still had a morning walk of 3 km to reach the ticket counter. And with just 150 LKR, I was there at my first spot of the day Sigiriya Rock.
The Museum and Ticket Counter
There were actually two ticket counters, one for the locals and the other one inside the Sigiriya Museum for the tourists. The ticket is priced at 2500 LKR for tourists from SAARC countries, including me, and for others almost double of this. I don’t know if it was decently priced, but this being my first foreign country visit. As I won’t be a good judge of this but would advise you that if you are there to see the beautiful places and monuments of a country. It’s worth as they have to maintain these places for everyone coming there.
You are charged with the price to the museum included in the ticket to Sigiriya Rock. So at first I headed over to the Museum and was amazed by the ancient history of this Rock. And would suggest you guys to also have a visit if are there planning the trek to the top of the Rock.
Caves and Much More
As you walk around the many viewpoints arranged for you to have a look at the rock. There is much more like the caves and the lakes/water bodies for you to see. One of the brick caves, near the Octagonal Pond, which I didn’t enter, had many bats and you can get the foul smell from a distance.
The Sigiriya Rock or The Lion Rock
It is a world heritage site named as the Lion Rock by UNESCO, because of the lion paws carved out of a huge rock. Which also had the head of a lion, which was collapsed years back.The Lion Rock is a huge column of rock with a height of 200m.
Before you reach the fortress you will see the amazing creativity of the ancient constructors. With the beautifully decorated frescoes still there, which were destroyed once by the vandals. And the mirror wall, I wasn’t able to see another Avinash in there, but they say that it was a highly polished rock for the king to see his image as he walked through it.
But there is more to the rock, as it was chosen by King Kasyapa for his new capital. Where he built his palace on top of this rock. You will see a video at the Museum, on how the palace used to look before and now. And as you take the stairs to the top you can still see the structure on how everything was laid on top of the rock. Stairs all around to walk access the different sections of the palace.
It was abandoned after the death of the King but later was used as a Monastery by the Buddhist Monks. And later converted to a tourist spot with so many people coming here every year.
Reaching the Top
It wasn’t that tiring to reach the top of the rock, but to settle on top of that will really be a task. I wonder why the King chose this as his site for the kingdom, but the view from the top totally changed my mind. With the crowd still walking around the sections of the palace, I took my time to stand at one edge of the rock to just stare at the never-ending sea of trees in front of me. And saw one more rock which you can climb on the same day.
The Pidurangala Rock, about which I will talk next week. So yeah, don’t forget to subscribe my blog’s newsletter to be the first one to read what happened on the next half of the day. Till then, see you guys.