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Sunday, March 15, 2015

Journey to the Lion Rock – Sigiriya

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Sigiriya is the premier site and the most important place of the Cultural Triangle in Sri Lanka. We had heard about this Sigiriya throughout our whole trip around Sri Lanka, and all the taxi drivers asked us if we wanted to go to Sigiriya. So we were a bit fed up with this rock even before we had seen it, thinking “how fab can a huge rock be?!”. We actually didn`t plan to go to Sigiriya at all, but on our way to the Ancient City Polonnaruwa, our driver kind of pushed us to stop at Sigiriya to climb the Lion Rock. And we don`t regret it; WOW! What a rock! And what a great climb and amazing view from the top!

The Lion Rock – Sigiriya has a really special shape, is nearly 200 meter high, and rises mysterious from the jungle. The rock satisfies both adrenaline freaks, the history buffs, art people and those who are looking for a great view. Whatever attitude you bring to the rock, you won`t be disappointed! Sigiriya was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1982. All the natural cave shelters and rock overhangs throughout the rock were inhabited in prehistoric times. A myth says that King Kassapa (AD 477-495) choose Sigiriya to be the capital of Sri Lanka, and built a garden and an unassailable palace on top of the rock, after killing his father King Dhatusena. The capital and the royal palace were abandoned after the king’s death, and was used as a Buddhist monastery until the 14th century.

Surrounding the Lion Rock is the beautiful royal gardens, including water gardens, boulder gardens and terraced gardens. It`s a lovely place to sit and listen to the songs of birds and gentle gurgle of water.

Funny signs on the way up. I doubt that I will be able to keep still and quiet if a swarm of hornets attack me! Help!

Great view all the way up, and the path is pretty airy some places.

Halfway up the rock is a cave full of beautiful and impressive paintings of naked women, believed to be either Apsaras (celestial nymphs) or King Kassapa`s concubines. Hmm…..

The modern theory is though that the female forms represent Tara – one of the most important figures in Tantric Buddhism. The archeologists dont`t know the exact date of the impressive paintings, but they claim it is unlikely that they date as far back as to King Kassapa`s time, the 5th century. So it`s probably not his concubines after all….though he still probably had plenty of them…..

What is so remarkable about the paintings, is their colour and brightness. It`s incredible that they are in such a good condition. It`s as their colour is glowing!

We met quite a few tourist on our way up, but it was never too crowded, and the mood was great. Everybody wanted to photograph the paintings of course, but flash is not allowed inside the cave.

Pretty steep and a little scary on the way up.

Buddhist monks on their way down.

Towards the top, after passing the paintings, the pathway leads to a large platform from which the rock got its name – Lion Rock. These two huge lion`s paws were at one time connected to a gigantic brick lion, with the stairs to the final ascent to the top leading between the lion`s paws and into its mouth. Pretty cool! The lion was supposed to remind people who Buddha was Sakya-Simha – Lion of the Sakya Clan, and what he spoke of was as powerful as the sound of a lion`s roar.

Unfortunately the lion itself is gone, only the first steps and the paws are left, but the stairs are still pretty impressive to climb!

And finally we were at the top of the Lion Rock! And what a view!! Yiihaaaa!

The terrace at the top covers 16 km², and at one time it was covered with buildings of which sadly only the foundations remain today.

It is easy to imagine that King Kassapa had his big palace up here once, as the legend says, even though the archeologists say that it is no evidence of a palace-like structure anywhere on the summit. They say it`s more likely that the place was used for meditation. But it`s so much cooler to picture an enormous palace with gold and jewels being up here once upon a time!

The kings swimming pool? Or maybe these ponds were just for water storage as the archeologists claim? Ah, but that theory is really boring!

On top there is even a smooth stone slab that looks just like a king`s throne, although it was probably just another meditation spot. Even though it is the perfect spot to sit and gaze far away over the jungle and breathe in the fresh jungle air, just as King Kassapa (or Buddhist monks) probably did 1500 years ago!

We met this cutie on the top of the Lion Rock. The monkeys were everywhere, so maybe they should rename the rock Monkey Rock now that the lion is gone?!

On our way from the Lion Rock we even met a wild elephant in the jungle! It looks so relaxed hanging around, eating with the cows. Love it, and what a great ending of our journey to the Lion Rock!

Would you like to go Sigiriya Tour? Please mail your comment in the my mail box below, ( basuratravels@gmail.com ) I can help you it. Thank you! If you like this blog post, or find it useful, please share it on social media!

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Thursday, March 12, 2015

Into the Wild at Yala National Park

I have always wanted to go on a safari and see exotic wild animals. In my dreams I pictured going to Safari in Africa, but after reading about the safari opportunities in Sri Lanka I was sold – Safari in Yala National Park here we come!

We were only on our fourth day in Sri Lanka, staying outside of Unawatuna, and it was a loooong way from Unawatuna to Yala National Park (basically on the other coast side of the island). As we sat in our rental car with our Sri Lankan driver and he told us that the trip to the Park would take 3 hours, it occurred to us that we had done sloppy research and should probably have waited with the safari until we got a bit closer to Yala. Well, well, it was a really nice car trip to the Park, most of it along the beautiful southern coast of the island.

There are two times each day for entrance into the Yala National Park; 6 am in the morning or 2 pm in the afternoon. As the non-earlybirds we are, we chose the 2 pm time. Once we got to the small town Tissa, we joined the organised safari which our hotel in Unawatuna had pre booked. The only way to visit the Park is as part of a Safari in one of their Jeeps. We got a Jeep all to ourselves, and had a really nice driver who managed to spot animals that was impossible to see, at least for us non-trained-animal-spotters. The entrance to the Park is some 21 km from Tissa town.

Once inside, the landscape opened up into a beautiful scenery of lakes, open patches of grasslands, jungle and complete silence and peacefulness!

We saw a lot of different animals:

1. Deer

The animals we saw most of were deers, heaps of deers. Really beautiful white spotter deers. Some of them were even together with monkeys.

2. Crocodiles

3. Buffaloes

4. Wild pigs

5. Elephants

It is apparently around 300 elephants in Yala National Park. They tend to be a bit shy, and keep away from the most visited parts of the park, but luckily we saw some.

6. Birds and bird nets

Around 215 species of birds have been recorded at Yala, many of them are visitors here escaping the cold winters in the north part of the world. Maybe some of these have flown all the way from Norway?

The roads around the park were pretty bumpy and dusty.

Towards the end of the of the safari trip, we stopped at a breathtaking deserted beach where we were allowed to walk around. Really nice after a couple of hours in the Jeep vehicles on the bumpy roads.

After a lovely day in the park, we drove back to Tissa town in the sunset.

One animal we did not see, even though this is one of the world`s best parks for spotting it, was the leopard. There are apparently around 25 leopards in this park, but we saw.

We really enjoyed our day at Yala! A safari trip to Yala National Park is well worth a visit!

Where is it:
   Yala National Park – 305 km from Colombo (7 hours), on the east coast of Sri Lanka.

Area:
   979 km²
   Yala National Park is the most visited and second larges national park in Sri Lanka.

When to go:
   The end of dry season (March to April). We were there in February.

Do you dream of going on Safari? Would you like to go on Safari in Sri Lanka? Which of these 6 animals would you like to see the most? Please mail your comment in the my mail box below, ( basuratravels@gmail.com ) I can help you it. Thank you! If you like this blog post, or find it useful, please share it on social media!

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Kushtarajagala Statue
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Secret Beach
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