katherine's community challenge

Travels Around Sri Lanka

Wednesday 12 April

Today we visited Sigiriya. Our guide, Priyatha, was very good but said that tourism was still affected by the tsunami - although there were a fair few people at Sigiriya, he said there were far fewer than used to be and he was only doing about 4 tours per week.

Sigiriya is a 200m high outcrop of rock with caves honeycombing its base - as far back as the third century BC it was used as a place of retreat by Buddhist monks. In the fifth century AD it briefly became one of Sri Lanka's capitals. After the reign of Dhatusena, there was a power struggle between his two sons, Kassapa and Mogallana. Kassapa, expecting an invasion from India by his brother, built a combination of pleasure palace and fortress on top of the rock and a new city at its base - tradition has it that this took only seven years, from 477 to 485. Our guide told us that Kassapa had 500 wives and was guarded by 15,000 soldiers. The expected invasion happened in 491, Kassapa was defeated and Sigiriya was handed back to the Buddhist monks. The site was finally abandoned in 1155 and was rediscovered by the British in 1828.

Sigiriya - Lion Rock

Notches for keying in brick walls

Start of the ascent

The horrible spiral staircase!

Lion platform and the next set of steps

More steps up to the top

The huge water tank on top of the rock

View from the top - our hotel is the spot of blue

Looking down on the gardens

Another view from the top

Four gardens were laid out below the rock - as you approach the rock they are the water garden, fountain garden, rock garden and the terraced garden. There are 2400 steps up to the top of the rock and three gates, the lion, cobra and elephant - we saw the lion and cobra gates. We climbed to the top of the rock - this was really hard for me as there were open treads on the spiral staircase up to the gallery with the frescoes of the Sigiriya Damsels (not to mention the large dog at the top of the spiral stairs!) and a vertiginous drop to the side of the very narrow iron steps leading up to the top of the rock from the Lion platform.

It is thought that the water supply to the top of the rock was channelled up there by a hydraulic system - a huge 'swimming pool' is still to be seen there.

One of the residents

Looking down to the Lion Platform

Cobra Hood Cave

Elephant shaped rock

prev   :   1   2   3   4   5   :   next

The Build   :::   Project Visit   :::   More info   :::   Links   :::