Sri Lanka: Sigiriya, the crown jewel! Spring Festival 2019

Crowds as I was leaving

I went from Ella to Kandy only to be very disappointed with Sri Lanka's second largest city. It's a huge transport hub roughly parallel with Colombo but a few hours inland. Every train, bus, tour group and flight makes a stop in Kandy. Its an exciting place but at such a cost. I was very glad to only be spending two days in this mini metropolis.

From Kandy I had a hefty 3 hour drive to Sigiriya which is an area of religious and historical significance. It's an incredible strange place in that it is completely flat except for a huge boulder on the top of which is a temple.

Its a site of pilgrimage for many people and from what I can tell, can get very busy. I was lucky in that it wasn't too bad when I was there, especially as I got to the entrance of the rock park for opening time. A lovely 7 am!

I was staying in a small house only a ten minute walk from the park so the horrible hours weren't too taxing on me, especially as I had roughly kept to China time. It meant that I was naturally waking up early and could go places before it got too hot and too busy. It did mean that by 9 o'clock I was making plans for my bed but you can't have everything.

From the entrance of the park you walk towards the base of this weird rock and the scale of it becomes quite intimidating. (Also the though that I am about to climb this thing, what the hell am I thinking.)

It's just a lot of stairs, A LOT of stairs. Again, I don't remember how many but I felt it the next day. The stairs themselves are rickety, rusted and it looks like blue tacked onto the side of a rock. I climbed very quickly just to minimise my time on them. Others were not so lucky, I encountered 3 people having meltdowns at different points of the climb.

As I am just one of the luckiest people on the planet, the second I get to the top of the exposed flat view point, it starts to rain. It didn't come too much but it was enough to make things slippery and damp. Regardless, it was stunning.

The way down was terrifying but smooth, I was very thankful I had arrived early.