Sri Lanka Cultural Triangle Part 2 - Sigiriya & Anuradhapura

(by Chris!)

Otis takes in the view from the Sigiriya guardhouse

One of the biggest tourist draws in Sri Lanka, which (like everything else here apart from Colombo, I'd never heard of a year ago) is the Cultural Triangle. The points on the triangle are Kandy to the south, Polonnaruwa to the east and Anuradhapura to the west. Each of these three locations was a Sri Lankan capital at one point: Anuradhapura from about 400 BC to 993 AD, Polonnaruwa from 993 AD to 1284 and Kandy from 1473 to 1815. Each city housed (or houses!) the tooth relic and each is a UNESCO world heritage site. Inside the triangle are two more UNESCO cultural world heritage sites, Dambulla Cave Temple and Sigiriya Rock.

Sri Lanka is roughly the size of West Virginia, so that's a lot of culture in a relatively small space, and if you're a tourist looking for some Sri Lankan culture, its a hell of a triangle to visit. In our last post, Jen wrote about our visit to Dambulla and Polonnaruwa, and in the post before I had written about Kandy, so that leaves just Sigiriya and Anuradhapura before our long meander through Sri Lanka was finally over.

The Lion Rock looms in the mist

Sigiriya Rock

Jen needed a down day, so Otis and I headed to Sigiriya Rock, which to me is the ultimate expression of something I very much admire about ancient Sri Lanka. When these guys found an awesome place in the jungle to make a fort, the jumped in with both feet and made an AWESOME fort. I didn't know that when I was ten, I was an ancient Sri Lankan, but there you go.

A misty view of Sigiriya's outer moat

To beat the heat, you have to get to Sigiriya early, Otis walks past the sleepy resident dogs

I love the boulder garden

Sigiriya was a fortress city built in the late 5th century on top of a 650' rock. That's pretty impressive, since the sides of the rock range from sheer to overhanging, but that wasn't all - they also made a series of fountains down below, and a boulder garden in between. On the final approach to the top, they carved a massive gate where one must pass between two gargantuan lion's paws before reaching the citadel.

Otis and I pose at the Lion's Gate

Apparently, they also frescoed almost the entire face of the rock, and visitors now can view (but not photograph) paintings preserved by an overhang and behind the mirror wall, a wall that keeps you from falling off and which features graffiti from as along ago as the 8th century.

A picture of the frescoes I took from Wikipedia - you're not allowed to photograph them, even without flash

I recommend Sigiriya, or Lion Rock, highly - just the geology and the view of it are amazing, and the history of it is easy to understand and imagining what the city was like in its heyday is really not that hard. For evocativeness, its hard to beat seeing the holds carved into the rock and wondering just how anyone made it to the top alive before the advent of metal stairs.

Getting hot, Otis explores the citadel 

The views up here can be pretty vertiginous. I'm sure glad we went early, because it was already HOT!

Anuradhapura

Anuradhapura is probably the ancient site most prominently featured in guidebooks and airport posters, but I found it less easy to process and understand than Polonnaruwa or Sigiriya. At this point too, we were pretty burned out, and we had moved from our comfy niche at The Other Corner to a less pampering guesthouse in modern Anuradhapura.

Everywhere in Anuradhapura was very old. Our guide was always saying "This is the oldest X in Sri Lanka!"

This is part of the same temple complex as the reclining Buddha above, the Anuradhapurans also had an appreciation for using boulders to enhance their buildings

The first Dagoba in Sri Lanka! The Dagobas are not hollow. Inside are just millions of bricks

Crowds gather around the sacred bo tree, said to be over 2,000 years old

Another oldest dagga in Sri Lanka - this one was at one point the largest brick structure in the word.

The following pictures are from a complex near the brown dagoba where thousands of monks were housed

I believe another reliquary where Buddha's tooth once resided. A lot of Anuradhapura never really passed out of use, so some very ancient sites still seem new, because they never passed into disrepair

If I recall correctly, this sarcophageal looking thing was a bath where they'd pour oil on you.

Noting the moonstone

Jen and I pose above a particularly notable moonstone

One of the things the Anuradhapurans were very good at was hydrology, this reservoir was built 2,000 years ago

Even with a friendly and enthusiastic tuktuk driver, I, personally, didn't even know when it was we had entered inside the park. Overheated and tired, all I can really tell you is that a long time ago, a king and a LOT of monks lived on this site, and they built a sprawling city and some very big dagobas. I was happy to get on the fast(ish) bus back to Negombo and the flight to Thailand.

our patient and understanding tuktuk guide

Our lift back to Negombo

Sri Lanka has a lot to recommend it, but next time, I think I would try to do less and stay in one place more. Give me more of the beach, more of the mountains and maybe a bit less running around.