August 26, 2010
We left Camelot early on Thursday morning with a packed breakfast of fruit and bread (Unfortunately, that’s the only option at all the hotels in Lanka for us veggies except for the places like Kandy and Nuwera Eliya which have good tamilian restaurants).
By this time Henry had discovered the fact that we were honeymooning and had made the effort to book a really good room and to alert the staff at the Sigiriya hotel. This really made Sigiriya the highlight of our trip.
 |
| Beautifully made-up bed @ Sigiriya |
 |
| Simha Giri (Sigiriya) |
My first sighting of the 500ft high monolith- Sigiriya (Simha Giri or Lion Rock) was a beautiful lake filled with lily blooms and the great rock rising like a sun in the background; it was awe inspiring.
Sigiriya was a fortress of the exiled king Kashyap in the 5th century B.C. He had committed patricide for the throne and was in ill favor with his people and the Buddhist religious leaders. He required many safeguards against his numerous enemies, so he built his palace on top of this rock and further protected it by building walls around it. The outer wall is 16ft high with a crocodile filled moat in the middle and an equally high inner wall. Only the foundations of these can be seen today.
 |
| Outer wall, moat, Inner wall. |
There are intricate and extensive pleasure gardens with water fountains and swimming pools on either side of the main pathway leading to the steps up the monolith.
The unique feature of this place was the hydraulic pressure system which was used for the fountains and also to pump water 500ft high to the king’s palace. An engineering marvel, the working and design of the pressure stations remain a mystery to the best minds in UNESCO even today.
 |
| Drip Ledges |
As we were trying to digest this fact, we came across another interesting feature. A niche meant for a statue of the Buddha in the rock face at the foothill. This niche has two successive drip ledges which are nothing but abrupt breaks in the rock’s slope.; the function of which is to protect the statue by preventing rain water from dripping into the area below the overhang and marring the beautiful frescoes on the walls behind the statue
 |
Babylonian concubines of King Kashyap
|
We began the backbreaking climb and were totally out of breath halfway up the extremely steep steps, where a wall full of amazingly lifelike life size paintings of Kashyap’s many concubines was a welcome break. Distinctive features of face like the eyes and the color show that they were of many different races- Sri Lankan, Mongolian, Babylonian, African etc.
 |
| Lion's Paw Staircase |
Further up, there is a Lion’s paw shaped entryway. The face of the lion too was carved into the rock but it is not easily visible due to erosion over the centuries.
The palace on the top used to be an impregnable wonder. The king did not carve any steps up to it; instead, he used to order his underlings to pull him up by ropes; which was one of the many defensive techniques employed for his safety. BUT, we are no kings, so no underlings to pull us up. We still went up. Wonder how? No big mystery here- we just used the modern steel staircase courtesy the Sri Lankan Archeological Department.
The two notable features of the palace are: a beautifully carved stone throne and a natural swimming pool for the King.
 |
| The view from the top! |
The amazing sea of green 360° around the rock made the punishing climb worth our while. The breathtaking view from the top is the best thing about Sigiriya.
Feeling completely wiped out, we relaxed a little by spending some time splashing about in the king’s pool.
On our way down, we came across the king’s audience hall. A huge rock was cut in half and laid down so that the flat edge forms the upper platform for the king and his ministers. Those who sought an audience with the kind could approach from the lower level. As we were checking out this neat little piece of work, out of the blue a hawker approached us; holding a jewelry box and proposing a deal- if we could figure out how to open the box we could have it for free. Very much interested, but short on cash since we weren’t planning on doing any shopping that day, we agreed to give it a try.
On pushing, prodding and prying the box umpteen times in n different directions, we gave up. The guy then demonstrated the trick, showing us the cleverly hidden groove that unlocks the box’s mechanism and quoted SLR 4000 as the price. Vashu haggled the price down to 2500, expecting him to refuse. Wonder of wonders- he snapped it up! We thus became the proud owners of a wooden elephant who had a secret chamber in his belly.
For more pics visit :
Srilanka Sigiriya
To be Contd...
