Picking up where we left off...
The next morning, we got an early start on our first
adventure, before the sun got too strong.
This is a vital piece of planning when trekking or tripping through a
place like Sri Lanka – the sun is incredibly strong here, so the longer you are
out and the closer you are to midday, the quicker you are going to
get sunbaked and wiped out. We met up with the Jones
Family right as the breakfast buffet opened, around 8 AM. There was a nice Sri Lankan spread of rice, curry, dhal and hoppers again.
There was also a lot of fresh fruit, juice, hard boiled eggs, some fresh
cut cucumbers and tomatoes and toast. A
little something for everyone.
We met Kuruna at 9, turned on “Holiday Road” and drove toward
our main stop for the day: Sigiriya, which is probably Sri Lanka’s most
dramatic and iconic
sight. Otherwise
known as “Lion Rock,” it is a 660 foot high rock monolith that is the site of one of Sri
Lanka’s ancient kingdoms. The rock
reaches straight up out of a verdant jungle, creating quite
an immense and breathtaking presence.
King Kashyapa I had his winter palace built on the top of the flat rock in the 5th century.
It is said that he kept his harem of 500
women on the top of this rock and lived there with them for about 20 years,
before his empire was destroyed by his half-brother. The ascent is interrupted by caves along the
front wall, complete with beautiful frescos inside and reached by a
series of vertiginous staircases that are the only way to ascend to the top. 1,202 stairs to be exact. And we were prepared to climb every single
one before it got too hot!
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| It was hard to understand exactly what the rules were here... |
Walking in, we first got to see the famous water gardens
that surround the base of Sigiriya. Unfortunately,
we were visiting at a time when the water level was too low for the water
gardens to be at their full operating status.
Neil informed us that the gardens are fully operational when the water
is higher during the rainy season. There
are fountains built into the gardens connected to underground water conduits,
which power the fountains naturally.
When it rains and the water levels are higher, the force of the water in
these conduits pushes the water up and out making the fountains work without
any additional power. The idea of this kind of planning and technology existing here in the 5th century was astounding to me. I could barely conceive of it now in the 21st century! Proceeding through
these water gardens, we then came to some boulder gardens and terraced green
gardens that surrounded the initial sets of steps up to the rock face. Coming through these gardens, the immensity of Sigiriya rising before us was truly breathtaking!
Now feels like a good time to remind you that making this ascent were the 4 of us adults
along with our almost 5 year old, 3 ½ year old, 2 ½ year old and 1 year old in
tow. Kiddo insisted on walking by
herself, while Ryan carried Little Boy in our hiking pack. Zac and Cassidy each carried one of their
kiddos. All. The. Way. To. The.
Top. We were earning our hoppers and
happy hour cocktails that day.
We began our ascent up the first sets of stairs, which were
no joke. These stairs were steep!Savannah proudly made every
single step on her own. I was mildly
concerned that she would get scared once we got up toward the top (she
sometimes gets a spontaneous and random fear of heights). It doesn’t happen all the time and we never
know when it will strike – some days she wants to jump off anything she can
climb and other days she says she’s afraid to climb certain playground ladders
that are too high. I can’t explain it –
but I thought this would be a problem. I
was pleasantly surprised by how awesome she was, all the way to the top! She held Neil’s hand most of the way, which
he was happy to oblige as he pointed out frescos and ancient guard spots along
the way.
It took us about an hour and a half or so to get from the
front gate to the top of Sigiriya. It was
such a beautiful vista.
Looking out, there was green forest as far as the eye could see and
giant Buddha statues in all directions.
The top of the rock was impressive in and of itself. There were staircases all around the very top, leading to what was an amazing and
detailed palace and citadel. My first question
was, “Who in the world was in charge of hauling all of the food up all these
damn stairs every day for all of the people living up here?” Oh yeah, that and, “Did people have to carry
the royals down any time they needed to leave the kingdom? Or did they walk? Who drew that short straw and how unsafe did
that feel – being carried down 100 flights of steep rock steps on a palanquin?” No thanks.
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| A salute to Keeeenny on top of Sigiriya |
After we took a short rest, had some snacks and let the kids
run around a bit, we made our way back down to the van. It was definitely much quicker going down,
although the steep stairs coupled with the view straight down had Kiddo a
little nervous at times. Neil faithfully
held her hand and helped her stay calm all the way down. There were vendors on the backside waiting
for us tourist types to walk by so they could sell us their wooden Buddhas,
jewelry and elephants. We did end up
buying a wooden Buddha, but the whole salesman experience took a little of the
shine off our Sigiriya experience. These guys are after the hard sell and they have a hard time taking no for an
answer. They even appealed to the wanton nature of our
children in order to get an edge on persuading us to buy. I was still in my reverie about how
incredible the whole place was when I had to start scolding Kiddo for making
puppy dog faces at the salesman because she wanted her own elephant so
badly. 
Eventually we made it back to the van, where we all crashed into our seats chugging water and cranking the A/C. It was about 12:30 at this point and we were all ready for a break from the sun. We stopped for lunch on the way back to the hotel, then returned for a much needed nap. Afterwards, we took a refreshing dip in the pool where we may or may not have also enjoyed some in-pool cocktails while planning the evening’s events.
Just a short walk from our hotel were the Dambulla Buddhist
Cave Temples, which we all wanted to check out.
Cassidy encountered some 3.5-year-old resistance at the idea of this
journey, so she opted to stay back for this round and check out the caves on
her morning run the next day. The rest
of us changed out of our suits, strapped our kids into their Ergos and charted
our course. Along the way, we
encountered our very first Sri Lankan monkeys!
I had been told by lots of people prior to our trip (including Ryan and
Cassidy) to steer clear of any monkeys – they can be mean and they will bite, especially
if they think you have food. We had to
walk right through a large group of them crowding the stairs up to the caves and
hanging from the trees overhead. I won’t
lie, it was a bit nerve wracking, especially with the kiddos. We had to be diligent about making sure Kiddo
didn’t get too close or stare at them too long, as that’s another thing that
can provoke them. 
Eventually we made it up the stairs (so many stairs!) to the cave temple right
around sunset. We checked our shoes in
at the front (as you must be barefoot inside all Buddhist temple areas) and I
borrowed a shawl to cover my shoulders as we proceeded inside. The mountain that the caves are built into
blocked our view of the actual sunset, but it was really beautiful to see it
shining over the valley below. The
temple itself was an impressive feature, established in the 1st
century BC and continuously retouched and added to over the centuries. It is comprised of 5 different caves all representing
different themes and home to about 150 different kinds of Buddha statues
as well as many ancient paintings and art pieces. One room 
We didn’t stay too long, as the monks were getting ready to
close down before their night time prayer, but we made it into each room before
heading back down the steps in the twilight to get our own dinner back at the
hotel. Once that was done, I took the
kids back to the room to shower and get to bed, while Ryan and Zac enjoyed some
mediocre beers and talked shop. It had
been a jam-packed day and I was wiped.
After breakfast the next morning, we said goodbye to the sweet staff of
Sundaras (who Kiddo and LB had gotten to know pretty well), turned on “Holiday
Road” and journeyed back south toward Kandy, our next stopping point.
After a much shorter, carsick free 2 ½ hours in the car, we
arrived at Cinnamon Citadel in the city of Kandy. We got there just in time for some lunch and
then a nap for the kiddos before heading back out. In the afternoon we started with a visit to
The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, a famous Buddhist shrine. This temple houses arguably the most
important Buddhist relic – one of his teeth, found on the pyre upon which he
was burned, having survived the fire. It
is said that the tooth was given by one of Buddha’s disciples to a king for
veneration. It was then understood that
whoever possessed the tooth was the rightful ruler of that area. Eventually, a war was fought over the relic
and it was ultimately brought to Sri Lanka.
It was enshrined in the country’s capital of the time and was moved each
time the capital city shifted, until finally coming to rest in its current
place in Kandy (which does not happen to be the capital of Sri Lanka). 
The temple grounds are quite large and include a lot of
different rooms and museums. When you
finally do make your way to the tooth itself, you don’t actually get to see
“It.” It is encased in a golden dagoba
or stupa behind a glass case. We
wandered through a sea of worshippers, saw the shrine and continued on
through. Ryan and Zach made their way into
a large museum at the back of the property, while Cassidy and I let the kids
run around in the Audience Hall, an open air pavilion in the middle of the
grounds. We got a bit of attention from
some school girls passing through who had all sorts of questions for Kiddo. She didn’t mind obliging them. Once the guys emerged from inside the museum
and kids had run around enough, we made our way back out. But not before stopping to view the stuffed remains of Raja, the Maligawa tusker (elephant), famous for having carried the tooth for over 50 years in the final parade of the annual celebration held in the Tooth Temple’s honor. It felt like
an odd thing to view, but was definitely meant to be part of the experience of
the place, so we did it. On the way out, the kids posed for more pictures before we continued on.
We asked Kuruna if he knew a good place to view the sunset
over Kandy, so he obliged us by driving us up some back streets over the town
where we caught it just at the last minute.
It was a pretty breathtaking view and we got there just in time. We made our way back down toward the hotel,
where we were ready for some cocktails, dinner and sleep. 
The next morning after breakfast and packing up, we headed
over to the Kandy Botanical Gardens. We
paid our entrance fee and decided to rent a large golf cart with a guide to shepherd
us around the grounds. This turned out
to be a genius idea, as we didn’t fully realize just how large the grounds
were. Because of this, we were able to
see just about everything in a reasonable amount of time. I have to say, I have never seen so many
different trees in one place. Having
grown up in the Adirondacks where beautiful trees abound, I am an avid tree lover. I find myself constantly taking pictures of
the amazing tree fauna that we find in our travels and this place was a
tree haven. I could probably post a blog's worth of just the tree photos I took. I had to restrain myself
from 
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One of the only shots of all 4 kiddos and you can't even
see the enormous tree roots they are standing in!
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We grabbed some snacks and tea for the road, then made our
way to our next stop: The Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage. We accidentally timed this stop
perfectly. We were all hungry and ready
for lunch and when we arrived the staff of the Orphanage were escorting the
herd of elephants across the road and down the street to the river for their
daily bath. Since we were inside the
Orphanage already, we grabbed some snacks and walked around to check things
out. Most of the elephants were down at
the river already, but we got to see some up close that had been left behind.
Perfect lunchtime scenery.
van after which the kids all promptly fell asleep and we made our way back to Colombo. We grabbed some fast food just outside of town once we realized we were all too tired to discuss dinner plans any further than that. We arrived back at our place around 8 pm and unloaded the van, thanking Kuruna for his kind service and care. We got the kids cleaned up and ready for bed, before we all hung out for one last night before the Jones family departed the following day.
