Sigiriya

I had a great time in Sigiriya.  Actually, I liked it so much I just sort of hung around for a week.  (OK, I had enough problems that I kept pushing things back and wound up staying there for a week just trying to resolve shit).

I'll note some of the points of interest within this and several following entries.

First of all, Sigiriya isn't really a city, or a town, it's more like a small village in the middle of the jungle.  It centers around this giant rock.

 

This one:

 

I took pictures of it multiple times, because it's REALLY COOL.

From the side:

AND UP CLOSE:

COOL RIGHT?

One hundred billion years ago, it used to be a volcano (I don't actually know how old it is).  The rock is the magma core; the rest of the volcano was slowly eroded by the elements over several billion years.

It's like the one super-awesome thing that I felt overwhelmingly compelled to go look at when I first came to Sri Lanka.

A king once realized it would make a hella awesome fortress and personal residence and built some stuff up there.  That was a millenium or two ago, and not much is left but the ancient ruins.  So, it's like two things I totally love combined into one--archaeology, plus geology.

It also costs $30 to go climb it, if you're not Sri Lankan.

Here's a brief pictoral recap of everything I saw.  Alas, I can no longer remember what everything is about, so the comments and captions will be at a minimum.

1.  Crossing the Moat.  Yes, there's a moat.

2. You have to climb a bunch of stairs, and in doing so, you get a view.
This is a giant Buddha, which I will talk about again in another entry.

3.  Lovely wall paintings from an ancient era.  

I can't remember, but I was under the impression that they were lovers of the king.

Worth noting that you do have to climb up scary steps suspending over the edge of the rock in order to get to this cave.

4.  Then you follow the path around, look over some archaelogical ruins...

5.  And then you have to climb more scary steps.

Yes, they are scary steps; catwalk steps where you can see the ground 100 meters below through the gaps.

And you're stuck standing on them till the people ahead of you decide to continue.

Be warned.

6.  Observe the lions paws below:

7.  After you cross the scary steps, you're at the top, free to explore the archaeological ruins, with a paucity of security guards to yell at you.

Also, not much is labelled, and it's very windy.

Cool view of the pathway you walk to get to the top of Sigiriya Rock:

God's nose.  LOL:

7.  At the risk of catching parasites, you can soak your feet in this awesomely cool pool.

8.  See, even the ground is interesting to look at.

9.  You can hang out there for a couple hours, but when you're done, you still have to walk back down.
Have fun with all those downward views.

 9.  After you are finished on the rock, you can explore the surround environment, which has lots of cool rock formations and some archaeological treasures.

Below are some shots I took, the significance of which I forget.

These sticks hold up Sigiriya rock.

Cobra's head rock

There's also a museum you can visit.  It's actually really good, although short.  I actually went back to the beginning because I was sure I had missed something.

You're also not allowed to take photos inside the museum--I know because I tried to snap a shot of a model of Sigiriya rock, and suddenly a security guard jumped down my throat so hard it was almost painful.  He even stood there over my shoulder and forced me to run through hundreds of pictures on my camera, just to "prove" I hadn't taken a picture yet.

It almost turned into a physical altercation, because I almost threw the camera at his head.

So I don't have pictures of the museum.  It's a cool museum, though, if you can ignore overbearing security guards.