Asia 2023

Hard to explain what Sigirya is about, as there is so much more, than "only" some ancient ruins ❤️🌳🌱⛰️🏛️

So it's basically some huge rocks deep in the jungle, on and around some ancient ruins.
Looking from above, it looks like "few houses in the jungle", are around the ruins, hardly can spot out the villages.
That jungle-vibe dominated my stay here, permanently feeling living in the jungle, making 2 km to the next shop (not by foot during the dark, there are animals out there! About half day dozen dead humans per year, people say). Any ride to anywhere started with a ride through the jungle, permanently monkeys around (dogs keeping the housings free of them), obviously cows, lizards, squirrels...

Further around some villages for touristic purposes have established and in between and around every 50-250 meters, you'll find a dirt road to a homestay in the jungle or so. Few luxury accommodations there, lot of local and/or indian tourists, as it seems.

All the usual european countries already met here, some rare travellers, like from Slovakia, Turkey, Israel and Japan. In total I only have met 3 travellers from Asia here, so far, but its obvious that Asian mass-tourists are just going in their own groups by bus to the Sigirya site and directly leave to somewhere else. 🤷

Villages are packed with family- and agency-tourists, so social life only in the Hostels. Stayed in two different ones, have to make a separate footprint for that 😬

As I arrived at my room late, my first day was for catching some sleep, relaxing, chilling and socializing 😎
Restarted to play chess, as some challenging and motivated players were around.♟️⛰️s

Evening time we climbed up the "little P-rock" originally named "little" asides to the original Pindurangala rock. Went on a short, well walked path upon a plateau, giving an impressive view onto Lion's Rock and a nice and chilled sunset 🥰
Had nice talks and some Chess and Billard matches into the night. 🍻

Next morning getting up at 4:40 wasn't easy, but climbing alone on my own pace and being nicely on time on the Lion's Rock, for seeing the sunrise, was great.
Even found time to recover from climbing, before I was enjoying the view for a nice while, up there.
Sitting inside the ruins, watching the sun polishing, climbing up behind jungle mountains - and imagine how it must have been, standing on the balcony of a huge and crowded palace in ancient times - was impressive.

So Sirigiya ancient city - UNESCO World Heritage site, I highly recommend.
Especially for sunrise, but sunset probably is very nice, too, having 360° view.
After entering through the lions door, it's a long run and probably millions of steps on sometimes overhanging stairs several dozens of meters above the site,
but the payoff is worth it twice.

While walking here and there on the quite big site, more and more explanation boards showed up. Still needed some online information, but great basic information is provided. A security guided walk inside the images cave, update about that will follow later (STAY TUNED).
Ruins of the gardens, pagodas, fortresses and the huge palace on top of them, were awesome, if you're more deep into archeological stuff, you probably could stay for a while there, but after 5 hours I left for breakfast at the hostel 😁
Not very fair, but a comparison with Angkor Wat for my personal subsumption was like: Obviously it's much smaller, there are no buildings but "only" ground-ruins to see (despite the unique view from the top), but for me it had kind of similar vibes, but in a very different, Sri Lankan, style. It was absolutely worth the trip, 3 days at my amazing accommodations, gave me some nice safari opportunities, relaxation in the jungle and several sunsets/-rises on the top of enthroned rocks over the jungle. Few great places to meet travellers already established, lots of nice private A/C-rooms are available, too, what I've heard.

UPDATE HERE & FOLLOW-UP planned.Read more