Dambulla was not the nicest town we
had been to in Sri Lanka. It was basically a one road town. And it
followed the one road for quite the distance. We were fortunate that
we had gotten off when we did because the actual bus station was
still a few km away. But the guesthouse was cool, if not
particularly quiet with its proximity to the road and the owners knew
where everything could be gotten (such as lunch).
We explored part of the town that we
had access to fairly quickly. We had rice and curry for lunch at a
place where the waitress told us that they only had short eats
available. When Nancy asked what everyone within the restaurant was
eating (there were a large number of men eating rice and curry at the
tables in there), they relented and let us have some rice and curry
too. It was quite good, though we found it a bit strange that they
did not want to serve us. I think it was probably because they were
just about to close up, nothing to do with us being foreigners. We
spent the rest of the day in our room doing some laundry and learning
what we could about Sigiriya.
Sigiriya was the fortress of the 4th
century patricidal Sinhala king Kayapasa, who moved from the capital
of the time, Anuraradhpura, and built it on top of what was
concernedly, to us, called a volcanic plug. It is a massive column
of rock rising about 200 meters from the surrounding ground. Its
thought to have some of the first gravity fed working fountains,
powerful enough to shoot water 10 feet into the air. It also had
about 200 frescoes painted of the kings concubines and possibly
goddesses, all of whom were rather well endowed. There are only 30
or less left though.
Kayapasa is who Clarke based his
character Kalidasa off of in the Fountains of Paradise. Kalidasa,
though, lived a few centuries earlier (he was a contemporary of the
Emperor Hadrian, (Clarke tells us) than Kayapasa and named his
fortress demon rock (Yakkagala), not lion rock (Sigiriya).
Kayapasa's motives in building Sigiriya and having the frescoes
painted are still unknown, in fact, they will probably never be
known. Kalidasa's motives were to build a paradise on earth, with
all its fountains and beautiful women. Hence the name of Clarke's
book. We found most of this out in the Lonely Planet and the next
day in the Sigiriya museum.
That night we ordered some fried rice
from a place near our guesthouse that was (apparently) run by some
young men, who were watching cartoons when they were not serving up
some rice or noodles. We got it to go and borrowed some utensils
from the guesthouse. The portions were huge and neither of us could
finish. And so we had our lunch for Sigiriya.
We attempted to go to bed early that
night, but we were not easily allowed this. The noise from the road
outside did not subside all night, though it lessened later in the
night. So we slept somewhat poorly. We were still us for our 7 AM
breakfast that lady of the guesthouse provided for us.
It was a standard good Sri Lankan
guesthouse breakfast of toast, eggs, fruit and tea. We ate as
quickly as we could and rushed out the door around 7:30 to catch the
bus to Sigiriya at 8. Tea sloshed around in our full bellies as we
jogged to the bus station, which we found out in irritation was an
extra 2 KM from where we thought it was. Still we caught the bus
that supposedly was leaving at 8 and waited while it filled itself.
It seemed like a pretty small bus for the purpose of bringing people
to the top tourist destination in Sri Lanka, but as it was we were
the only tourists aboard. Most others, I suppose, were spending more
money and staying closer to the site (there were plenty of hotels
right beside Sigiriya) or taking private transport. The ride was
still crowded, but with Sri Lankas on their way to work or school.
The ticket collector let us know when we arrived at Sigiriya.
Even from the bus stop we could see
the rock that it was perched on rising above the trees around it,
with its odd colour scheme. We thought we could even make out some
old walls up there. We had arrived indeed.
We walked through the parking lot and
were dismayed to see some large air conditioned tour buses vomiting
out tourists as well as several older buses vomiting out school
children. We had arrived as early as we possibly could and we had
not beaten the packaged tour groups and the school kids. We rushed
to buy our tickets and get inside. We also rushed through the old
walled gateways into the fountain area and past all the vendors and
“tour guides” (we had read that there were a lot of fake tour
guides there) and arrived at the stairs that led up to the actual
fortress. We decided to look at the fountains later.
From where we stood we could look
straight up to the heights of the palace; we could also see a lot of
stairs. What we could not see were the frescoes, but we soon found
they were in a covered and protected area. We walked up a few sets
of stair cases and then we walked along the place known as the
“mirror wall” (because the wall was so smooth). At one point
along the mirror wall were two long spiral staircases that went up to
the covered area that held the Frescoes, but we decided that we would
look at them when we came back down. We moved along the mirror wall
to a ledge that I shiver to think of in its original form, when it
was just bamboo poles keeping you from empty air for a good 50 foot
drop. I did not really like how thin the iron that supported us
appeared at these vertigo inducing heights either. We moved rather
quickly through this area and up some nice and solid stone steps.
We arrived at the plateau in front of
what are called the “Lion Steps”. The giant lion paws on either
side of the steps gave away why they were called that. The full
height of the Lion Steps are lost to history. And if they were made
of bamboo, as the holes and channels carved and chiseled in the side
of the rocks suggested they were, then its for the best.
Unfortunately, they were replaced with, what seemed to me, rather
rickety iron ones, that did not really seem to be capable of
supporting the weight of all people mounting them. I really did my
best to rush up those, but we ended up behind a school group about
half way to the top, with a breath taking and dizzying arial view of
the land surrounding the South face of the fortress. We counted in
Chinese to get our minds off of it. Even Nancy said that these
stairs made her a little dizzy. When we got to the top though, it
all felt worth it.
The palace and bath areas at the top
were immense, though all ruins now, the size of the walls (wall bases
anyway) that surrounded made up the buildings at the top suggested a
majesty and grandeur that would have been impossible to miss when it
was in its prime. There were two huge bath areas in the lower part,
I guess it would be the courtyard, while further, easier, stairs lead
to where the palace once stood. There were large school groups
circling the baths as we looked down on them, so we took our time
around it. From the palace heights we could see the world
surrounding us in an uninterrupted 360 degree panoramic. It seemed
like it would have a been a good strategic way of seeing who was
approaching your citadel.
We picked a good spot that looked out
towards the mountains and ate our lunch. Joining us for our lunch
was a hopeful monkey, who watched our every movement with great
interest, raising his eyebrows expectantly every time food appeared
in our hand. We ate a guava too and then, more or to get rid of him,
as he was coming rather close, we tossed the guava over the edge and
he followed enthusiastically, crashing down the trees that hung off
the ledge. He was surprisingly quick in returning to us, when we
pulled out and ate, as quickly as possible, our cookies. He was
suddenly uninterested in us when the last piece of cookie
disappeared.
We climbed the last bit of the way to
the palace throne room. All that was left of it was the very base of
the wall, of what was probably a two story structure. We were
relieved to find (well at least I was) that there was no elephant
throne that sat at the edge of the rock. In the Fountains of
Paradise, Morgan, unafraid of heights, sits on the throne and looks
out at Taprobane, and also at his goal, Sri Kanda. Sri Pada is not
nearly that close to Sigiriya though.
We sat in the foundations of the
palace and tried to imagine what it would have looked like in its
prime. Where the king would have sat and what he would have seen if
looked out over his kingdom. We saw jungle now, but when it was
build it was likely a lot more developed. Or at least became more
developed. Kayapasa after all, had many enemies and probably wanted
to keep as much power as possible close at hand.
The view of the land also, if one was
not already suitably arrogant, would likely make the ruler of it more
so looking over his domain. From within the palace “walls” we
had a panoramic view of the world around it. And a superior view as
well.
We spent a long time enjoying the view
and the wind, but we did not enjoy the heat so much and we were
forced to head back down by this. We found ourselves enjoying the
view a lot less on the downward journey and I think I pretty much ran
(cautiously) the last little bit.
My vertigo was still further apparent
when we went up the spiral staircase to see the frescoes. We were
followed closely by a noisy school group which did not help. Even
though the frescoes did look pretty cool, I could not get my mind off
all the empty air that was behind us while we were looking at them,
how cramped the space was for all of the people coming through and
how thin the mesh was that separated us from the previously mentioned
empty air was. I stood it as long as possible, but I had to retreat.
It was only when we got back down that
we both thought about how different they were from what we had
expected. As our expectations had largely come from the Fountains of
Paradise, I suppose we should have lowered those expectations. They
were a lot smaller than in the book (or at least that we had imagined
them) and there were fewer of them. Apparently some had been
destroyed by vandals in the 50s and a lot had disappeared due to
time. There were only about 30 left of an estimated 300. This was
largely the case in the book, but with them seeming smaller, we were
slightly disappointed. Rajasignhe had looked at them through his
small telescope in the book, after he becomes to old to climb to
them. The images that he sees through his eye piece seemed far
removed from the ones that we saw.
I suppose I should say that the
frescoes are of women believed to be of Kayapasa's court. His
concubines most likely and possibly their servants. They all have a
few things in common, the most obvious of which is their large
exposed breasts (though they are apparently wearing see through
shirts). They also tend to have their hands in positions similar to
that of a meditating monk or a representation of a hindu god. Their
hair is all done in a certain style too, I think.
We returned to a more reasonable
height (the ground below Sigiriya) and explored the grounds for a
while, looking at the fountains, the caves where monks used to
meditate (before and after Kayapasa) and the large(ish) audience
chambers, which we wondered about. If Kayapasa wanted to impress
people, would it have been more impressive for them to see, but not
enter Sigiriya, or to have to climb to its heights to see the king.
Perhaps it was only for large audiences.
We had to leave the grounds for water
as we were very thirsty. We went to the very modest cafe that was
outside Sigiriya and got some water. It cost us 3 times what it was
worth anywhere else in Sri Lanka and we left wondering whether we had
been scammed ever so slightly. There was no price listed anywhere
and we simply had to take the very unfriendly counterman's word for
it that it was in fact 250 rupee that we should have been paying.
We entered the museum in a sour mood,
but it slowly lifted as we saw Sigiriya in its former glory (at least
what was reckoned to be its former glory). There was a really neat
model of what it probably would have looked like, as well as all of
the ground around it. It would have been quite something. We
wandered the museum, which was build in a way that let natural air
flows through it, for about an hour and a half.
As we took the bus back, we looked
through The Lonely Planet to find out where we should go next. That
is, we wanted to find out where to go, while not taking too much in
the way of buses. We would eventually chose, over dinner,
Pollonuwera, and that would lead us to the end of our travelling and
more into a vacation.
