We left the hotel about 11 to make our way to climb Dambulla Rock stopping on the way at a spice garden. In the spice garden they grow all sorts like cardamom, cocoa, coffee, cinamon, cloves, pepper and more that I can't even remember. He took us round the garden showing us what they grew and all the herbal uses for each. He showed us a few uses like he put some cocoa butter on our arms and told us about the herbal remedies they make from the different spices. They also grow a plant that can be made into a hair removal cream, so I now have a very successful bald patch on my arm.
We got to the rock at about 3 I think. The climb was fairly steep and sweaty and there were monkeys everywhere. Kate opened a banana at one point and a monkey appeared from nowhere ready to grab it. It didn't win.
We got to the top and took off our shoes to go in. On the top is 5 caves, one with a massive lying down buddah and others filled with sitting and standing buddahs. One of the caves is a Hindu temple which we went in. The priest in there took each of our wrists and tied a string round it whilst speaking a chant. We aren't sure what it means, we hope its nothing bad.
I really liked it up there, there was painting on the ceilings and it was lovely and just so peaceful.
The hotel we're staying at is called the Grand Regent tourist resort. It's fairly nice and its got a spa attached - doubt we'll be using that though. Sadly we do only have three beds again though so not sure what we're doing. It's so annoying.
We couldn't get the shower to be anything but scalding hot on the first night so none of us showered which was pretty upsetting. We went and sat in the restaurant for dinner at around half 5 but they said we couldn't eat until 7. We hadn't really had lunch so by this point we were all absolutely starving and fuming. It finally came at half 7 and we all had veggie rice and curry. The portions were pretty small, it was only mediocre and the WiFi kept cutting out so it was pretty upsetting.
We went back to our room and watched some monkeys on natgeo for a couple of hours and hit the hay. We got up at about 6.45 ready for breakfast at 7.30. We had pancakes, rottis, pineapple, bananas, melon, toast and plain omelette but Ashan was waiting so we had to rush through it all.
We left for sigiriya rock about 8 and we're staying pretty near so we got there quite fast. It was 4200 rupees for entry (£21) which we were all quite surprised about but it did mean we all wanted to take our time and get the most from our money. We looked around the old village and then started the climb. It was stairs pretty much the whole way up with a separate spiral staircase to see the cloud maidens which I thought were pretty disappointing, especially compared with dambulla the day before. Having said that, the paintings at Dambulla aren't nearly as old so you can't really compare. We climbed up to the top which took forever because we were stuck behind this Chinese group who stopped every three steps to tske photos of each other. At one point an American lady shouted at them to hurry up which was pretty funny. It also meant that the climb up the stairs didn't feel so strenuous so its not all bad. When we got to the top it was fairly impressive and we wandered around there for quite a while before heading back down to the museum. By this point we were all pretty tired so the museum was a bit wasted on us - it also wasn't that great either - but we wanted to get our moneys worth. Generally the morning was good but it was just so busy and loud there that it spoilt it a bit, still glad we went and glad we climbed to the top though which we weren't planning to do. We'd heard it was really difficult and that there were hornets everywhere but I didn't think either of those things so it was a pleasant surprise.
After sigirya we drove into the village sigiri for a tour. It cost 2500 rupees (£12.50) for a tour with a cow-ish animal pulling us on a cart, a boat ride, a traditionally made lunch and a tuktuk ride back. Without the lunch I think it would have been a waste of money but the lunch more than made up for it. We can't figure out how much tip we're supposed to be giving everyone so we don't know how stingy we're being, we think fairly stingy because our driver looks a bit embarrassed at times, but he doesn't tell us to leave more so we aren't sure. Before the lunch they showed us all the old tools they used to make the different foods, like grinding the flour and rice and stuff which was interesting and then we ate off a banana leaf. I was kind of worried about sanitation stuff but didn't want to be rude so ate it anyway. It's the night now and we're all still fine so I think it was fine.
Because we're in a village there's no atm anywhere and the attractions today were more expensive than we thought so we don't really have much money. We are such idiots. We've managed to scrape enough together to pay for the hotel - we hope - but we didn't have enough to get anything to eat tonight really. We've all got some snacks though (bananas, nuts ans sweets mainly) and lunch was big (they kept piling the food on) so we aren't starving.
We're getting up at 7.30 tomorrow for breakfast at 8 (going to eat a lot) and leaving at 9 for Negombo. We thought we might leave sigiriya for Negombo today because Ashan found out his mother in law has 'expired' as he said and he lives in Negombo but he didn't seem like he wanted to leave. The drive tomorrow is 6 hours so he'll be there then anyway I suppose. He was really upset when he found out but through the day he seems to have cheered up.
