My first days in SL I spent exploring ancient cities and temples – Pollonnaruwa, Sigiriya and Pidurangala, Anuradhapura, Dambulla.After spending a night near Kandy, at a couchsurfer’s place (thank you J. for hosting me!) I decided to visit ancient cities – “a must see” I was told. And in fact, it is a must see when you are in Sri Lanka.
I arrived at Sigiriya (an ancient palace caved in rocks, UNESCO World Heritage Site) early in the morning. There were not many tourists, many, many tour guides though ;) The rock fortress with its surroundings – gardens, pools was amazing, I had to climb two thousand steps, but it was worth it! On the way up I saw on the walls frescos – cave paintings portraying half naked women. My guide explained that the king who built the palace had a harem of 500 beautiful women from all over the world (hm… male chauvinist pig ;). The frescos were partly destroyed though when Sigiriya became a monastery – not to distract monks ;)
Do you remember the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Well, there was that boy Shorty. And my guide in Sigiriya was exactly like him – young, smart, kind of sly. After he had taken me to the rock palace he looked at me (and I was already pretty exhausted) and spoke out his judgment: “well, you can make it. I can show you something else, another rock, with a Buddha statue”. “Usually tourists don’t go there after Sigiriya, they’re too tired” - he laughed. Well, I was tired! But I decided to continue of course. It turned out to be true, on our way to the other rock we didn’t meet a single person, the same on the way up the rock and at the Buddha statue.
We walked through the woods, and then arrived at that other rock. We started to climb. It was about 30 degrees Celsius and I started to feel weird. I guess it was too much for one day… I was sweating and at the same time shaking from cold. Strange sensation. Somehow I felt that it was warm but I couldn’t stop my body from reacting in this awkward way. Never happened to me before. I was sooo tired – two rocks plus quite a walk in few hours in that heat. Plus jetlag, plus no breakfast... I guess my body burned all the spare calories and went on strike ;) Let’s face it – I was exhausted.
Anyways, after that trip I was trying to explain to some people where I’ve been and no one knew that place. Then I’ve found on the Internet that it’s called Piduranhgala and dates back to 5 AD (same as Sigiriya), but “not even 10% of people who visit Sigiriya spare a glance at this ancient shrine.” It’s not even mentioned in the Wikipedia ;) or the Lonely Planet. And I LOVE seeing such things, it’s like finding a hidden treasure. Of course I know lots of tourists have been there before, nevertheless, it was an amazing experience to take a walk through the jungle and climb the rock - being there alone. Awesome!
In the afternoon I drove to the ancient city of Polonnaruwa (also World Heritage Site, no climbing this time ;). The ruins, tombs, temples reminded me once again of Indiana Jones ;) Oh, why am I not an archaeologist? There is a rock temple of Buddha in Polonnaruwa with three few meters large monuments. A sacred place for the Buddhists. People were praying and I... was taking pictures... Guys, it felt sooo wrong, you know what I mean? For those people it was a spiritual experience and for me just another interesting place on my way. I really did feel like a tourist not a traveler...I went back to the car where my driver was already waiting. He was completely clueless. He didn’t speak English, and what was worse he didn’t know any hotel/ hostel in the ‘neighborhood’. I picked up some names of hotels from my Lonely Planet, but unfortunately no vacancies...
I was there namely in a very particular time of the year – ‘marriages time’ and hotels (near to those ancient cities/ temples) were fully booked by wedding guests. I don’t think I have seen so many marriages in such a short time period. The about-to-be-married couples were everywhere! I must say, I don’t think very highly of the institution of marriage, it doesn’t bother me though as long as it does not interfere with my plans and does not deprive me of my sleeping place! ;)Finally, I found a place to stay in one of the hotels in Anuradhapura (different city, where I was actually supposed to go the following day). Lucky me, in that particular hotel there was a wedding the following day and although the hotel was empty and already prepared for the arrival of wedding guests, they let me stay that one night and didn’t even charge me much. It was a long day, all I needed was a place to sleep and a cold beer...
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