sri lanka: polonnarua, sigiriya, dambulla

Before I booked my flights to/from Sri Lanka I heard so much about how cheap the country is, how great the food is, how beautiful the country is, and how amazing the culture is. The last three of those were true, but how cheap the country is depends on quite a few things.

The first being where you are in the country. On the beach, I spent very little money. In the mountain towns I spent very little money. But in cultural capitals, with ancient historical sights, it was not cheap, or at least not nearly as cheap as I had been led to believe.

The main reason for this was the price of entry tickets to the ancient sights. There was always a much much higher price for foreigners to visit a place, than for locals. This post is about the next three places I visited in Sri Lanka, which all have ancient historical sights. The price for foreigners was usually arond ten times as high for foreigners, if not more.

Polonnarua was another city that was formerly the seat of royalty. It was built by the second big dynasty of Sri Lanka, the Chola dynasty. They built their city after invading and conquering Anuradhapura, waaaay back in the 10^th century.

It wasn't hard to get from Anuradhapura to Polonnarua, it was just a (surprisingly cheap) bus ride. I'd seen all sorts of posts about hiring personal drivers, but that seemed unnecessary, as there were plenty of direct buses between the cities.

I was the only foreigner on my bus, which would normally make me crazy; this time it was nice because locals made sure I had a seat, and made sure I got off at the right place. Polonnarua isn't a big city, so no one else was getting off the bus there.

Since most of the people arriving in Polonnarua are foreigners, there are usually a few people waiting at the bus stop to grab the foreigners and find them places to stay. This is what happened to me, and it worked out well. I got a single room (with two big beds,) for a more than reasonable price.

After unpacking I went out for the day. It wasn't immediately obvious where to buy the entrance ticket to the ancient ruins, as it was not at the biggest section of the ruins. The price was just as high as in Anuradhapura, I was just as (un)happy about paying so much.

The ancient ruins of Polonnarua are extensive. I think I visited most of the ruins, and I enjoyed what I saw, but by the end I was exhausted. Much of what I saw was similar to what I'd seen in Anuradhapura so I was a bit mentally exhausted by the end of the day as well.

It was another beautiful sunny day, with plenty of heat and humidity. I again wore a scarf on my neck to prevent more sun being soaked up by the very sunburnt skin on my neck. This time I was ready for the heat and humidity, I carried enough water in my snack bag and bought snacks as I went along.

Throughout the day I saw the remains of a few royal palaces, stupas, living quarters, monasteries, etc.... To be honest, by the end of the day it all looked the same. Some of the areas were busy with tourists, others were completely empty. I assume the busy sections were those on tour itineraries, the empty sections not so much. I don't know if that reflects on the 'importance' of each area.

Some of the religious areas are still considered holy, so I had to take off my shoes to see them. Other areas are not holy, so I kept my shoes on.

Since the on and off game with my shoes had started a couple days earlier, my feet were already raw, but I knew that wasn't going to get any better for the next few days. I probably looked like an old lady at times, hobbling around on burned feet while stepping on hot stone.

One particularly memorable section of the ruins at Polonnarua had the remains of a really really big Buddha on the back wall of a temple. This one stuck with me more than others, though I don't know why.

I loved the day of 'seeing' history, but it was a very long day, with a lot of walking. I had dinner at a random cafe, then walked home. When I got back to my accomodation I discovered that the wifi didn't reach into my room, so I sat out on a balcony of sorts. The mozzies ate me alive, but oh well.

The next morning I was up quite early in order to get a ride to the bus station in order to catch a bus to my next ancient cultural capital: Sigiriya.

The bus didn't actually stopped at Sigiriya, which isn't really a town. It stopped at the next town, where there were a few tuk tuk riders waiting for passengers like me. I was ready to walk to Sigiriya when the first driver proposed his price. 

I still overpaid when I ended up paying less than half of what he suggested, but he did drive me straight to a place to stay, so I chose not to care too much.

The place I stayed included breakfast in the price, but I knew I'd be leaving early the next morning, before breakfast was service. I was able to have breakfast on the day I arrived, instead of the next morning. Yay. Like most included breakfasts, it wasn't necessarily local food, because I'm pretty sure Sri Lankans don't eat sweet rolls for breakfast. 

Sigiriya is sometimes called the Lion Rock, it is on top of a 200 meter high rock that sticks up out of the landscape. The 'current' sight was made by King Kashyapa, who chose the location to build a fortress/palace to use as the capital of his kingdom. The building for this fortress palace took place in the 5^th century. I don't know Sri Lankan history well enough to know where this king fits in the whole chronology.

The actual history of the area goes back a lot further, probably back to at least 300 BC. And that's just for documented or proved history. Legends go back even further.

Sigiriya is a small enough area that most visitors come for just half a day. This one had an even higher price than the previous two places I'd been, with an even bigger difference between the local and foreigner price. I was so mad.

Since the ruins are on top of this huge rock, you have to climb a whole lot of stairs to get up there. There are a couple wider sections of stairs, but most of it is single file, which means major traffic jams of people. NOT FUN.

There was one section where being a foreigner was a benefit: we were shown to go up a section of stairs that was basically a shortcut up to a higher section. Locals were not allowed to go up this section. In the wider sections of the stairs there were a lot of locals jumping the queue, much to the frustration of every foreigner.

The most memorable section of these ruins were the giant lion's paws midway up the rock. This is where the name of the rock comes from, as they were the official gateway to the sight back in the day.

The top of the rock was nothing different from what I'd already seen. I still walked around all of it, but didn't stress about taking as many photos. From my point of view the best part of these ruins were the views over the entire area from the top of the rock.

After coming back down to ground level (more skinny stairs, yippee,) I walked around the less interesting ruins at that level. I liked the ponds, because I could see pretty reflections :)

Since Sigiriya is a village built up around a tourist sight, everything there is support for the sight. I had a late lunch/early dinner at a small cafe, the price was higher than I'd paid previously because it was not a place locals would eat. (The food was pretty good though, and I was left alone, woo hoo!)

By the time I got back to my room I was suffering from heat exhaustion, and I had heat rash. Ugh. There wasn't anything else to do in the area, so I was okay with laying in my room, drinking water and enjoying the breeze made by the ceiling fan.

The next morning I was up early again, and caught a local bus to my next stop, the city of Dambulla. The modern city of Dambulla isn't very interesting, at least not what I saw of it. It is mostly stretched out along one road, and nothing is all that pretty. When I got off the bus a tout saw me and brought me to a place to stay. My room was nothing special, but I'm never in the budget range for my accomodation to be particularly noteworthy.

Historians say there has been human life in the area of Dambulla possibly as far back as the 7^th century BC. I think they are able to carbon date things they've found in various cave homes in the area?

The only reason any visitors come to Dambulla is to see one of the best preserved cave temples of the country. Getting to the temple area was quite easy, the walk wasn't all that long from where I was staying. What wasn't fun were all the steps I had to climb. I guess I hadn't eaten or drunk enough, as I was feeling really weak while going up the stairs even though I was moving slowly.

Not surprisingly, there was a ticket office, and I think it was just for foreigners. Though the price was far lower than it had been during Anuradhapura, Polonnarua, and Sigirita, it was still heaps higher than for locals, who had to pay nothing. Argh.

These temples are still considered an active religious sight, so when I got to the top of all the steps I had to take off my shoes in order to enter the temple grounds. The whole thing is made of stone, so stepping on the bare stone without shoes wasn't fun, as it had been sitting in the hot sun for who knows how long.

This cave temple is actually a series of caves, most of them have a bunch of Buddha statues inside, and many of them are painted inside as well. None of them have amazing ventilation, they were all rather smelly.

A covered hallway/walkway has been built outside the caves, so visitors are able to go between the caves quite easily. It didn't take me all that long to see everything, and take all the photos, (never with any of the Buddhas behind me, as one should never turn their back to Buddha,) so I walked back down the hill and went out another entrance to the complex.

I also visited a very modern Buddhist temple, which was only a few meters down the street from the cave temple complex. This one was called the Golden Buddhist Temple, because there was a GIANT gold Buddha. Nifty, and again didn't take all that long to visit.

As both of these sights were on one end of town, and I felt as if I hadn't seen much, I walked toward the city center. At least, that's what I intended to do. After a while I realized there really wasn't a specific city center, so I just turned around. Dinner that night was just snacks from one of the markets I passed.

The next morning it was easy to get back to the bus stop and catch a ride to my next city.

As Anuradhapura and Polonnarua are basically visited for their ancient ruins, I don't need to see those again. Sigiriya is nothing but a tourist sight, and Dambulla is nothing in particular, so I'm not going back to either one of those cities either.