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- Mar 4, 2025, 5:56 AM
- ☁️ 23 °C
- Altitude: 646 ft
Sri LankaSigiriya Wewa7°57’27” N 80°45’7” E
Sigiriya (Lion) Rock then Arugam Bay

We had a very early start with an alarm at 5:00 a.m. and meeting the group at 5.40am. Onto the bus and we were at Sigiriya Rock by 6 am. After collecting our tickets we started the long walk up to the 180m high rock which had a royal palace built in top of it in the 5th century.
We started walking through the outer gardens and then to the terraces before starting to climb steeply up some original marble stairs. The stairs weren't very wide and were quite steep so it was pretty hard work even at that time of the morning, with the humidity.
About halfway up, the stairs turned into more modern ones but the going didn't get him easier. The stairs were still narrow and uneven.
About 2/3 of the way up we got to what used to be a magnificent entrance carved like a lion with its paws outstretched. Much of the lion has disappeared but at least one paw remained.
Fortunately we had now rounded the rock and there was a cool breeze blowing which helped to take the heat off.
Final third of the climb was again man-made and this time on metal stairs that clung to the side of the rock face. For the first part, the hand rail was quite low and I was glad that I don't get vertigo that badly! On we went up with a steady stream of people coming the other way. After about 10 minutes we turned the corner and went up some final original steps to the top of the rock and to the remains of the royal palace.
We spent about 15 minutes exploring the top including the throne and a large bathing pool. They believe that even as far back as it was built they had running water although no one knows how they got the water up there.
The journey down followed a similar route to about halfway down and then we turned left along the rock face, descending before going up some spiral stairs into a cave where there were remains of elaborate cave paintings. Our guide told us that the whole of the rock face would have originally been covered in frescoes. I don't envy the person who had to paint those originally.
We carried on down to eventually get to the car park where our bus was waiting and we drove the short journey back to the hotel. By now it was still only 8:30 a.m. we had about an hour and a half before we needed to leave so after breakfast we had a shower and got our stuff ready.
The journey today we knew was going to be long and so it turned out to be. After about 2 1/2 hours we stopped at a beautiful hotel on the banks of a lake where we had a delicious lunch of Sri Lankan curry.
We continued the drive through miles and miles of Paddy Fields interspersed with small settlements and larger towns. After another brief stop and we continued on and eventually arrived in Arugam Bay at 6:00 p.m. where we checked into our hotel the Blue Wave.
After a freshen up we wandered down thinking about going out but bumped into one of our group and ended up having a couple of beers in the hotel bar with them.
After that we thought we might explore the town... It's out of season at the moment and so pretty quiet everywhere. The Thai hotel with a beerkeller was getting refurbished so we ended up just waking along the main road there, having a pizza in a place opposite and we were back in our room by 9.30pm.
No early start tomorrow so it'll be a leisurely start!Read more
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Looking good👍
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Beautiful colors
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And again