We left the highlands of central Sri Lanka and headed to Sigiriya, the jungly flat lands. Here a sweet family accommodated us in their home in the middle of the jungle. They helped us get around and organized everything for us and even made dinner. We now knew that this was normal hospitality combined with the locals wanting to earn some extra money. Having spend some time here already we knew that this was perfectly normal and the locals were trying to be as hospitable as possible. If you stay with a family definitely ask for some dinner. They will happily cook for you if they have time and it is always delicious and very affordable.

We all squeezed into his Tuk Tuk, because our host wanted to take us around to the local rice fields and a stunning lake. He explains that the rice fields must be protected. Otherwise the wild elephants would come and eat the rice plant. The whole premise has a small fence around it with a few empty cans. The cans make a sound when someone touches the fence. They also have a treehouse like lookout for a person. Once an elephant is heard or seen some fire crackers are shot to scare the elephant away. Some people have to abandon their families and have to live in the hut for month until the rice is ripe.

In the area of Sigiriya there are two rocks. The Lions rock, where an ancient side is found and the Pidurangala rock. Both are popular tourist attractions to watch the sunrise from. We saw the rocks from the lake already and were already planning our sunrise tour. Some locals took bath in the lake we were at. A particular one is a monk bathing in the lake talking on the phone. One of my favorite pictures I took so far!

The next morning we wanted to watch the sunrise. We chose not to see the ruins and went onto the Pidurangala instead. The decision was easy… The lions rock costs about 30€ to enter, while the Pidurangala only costs 1.50€. We got up at 4:30 and made our way there. We had to take a Tuk Tuk, because it can get pretty dangerous to walk here at night, the reason being the wildlife. This was for a good reason, because we spotted a crocodile a few days later. We made our way up and watched the sunrise. After the sunrise you could see the vast jungle wet lands that we were surrounded by. A flat jungle looks so different to a mountainous jungle! A flat jungle always looks like moss from above, in my opinion. Watching a vast landscape full of life always makes me happy. You see so much vibrant colors and so much untouched land. It makes you feel small

After that we went back by foot to our accommodation. On the way back a few street dogs trotted along with us on the dirt road. We also spotted a small ancient side and a temple, where a Buddha was sitting inside of a curled cobra. It already was hot when came back to the accommodation. We took a small shower and had some breakfast and noticed, that it was still only 7 a.m. There is an indescribable feeling, when you wake up this early to go hiking… Something I thought I would never say!

During the day we checked out a very popular temple, the Dambulla Cave temple. This temple is more than 2000 years old. There are about 150 Buddha statues inside the six caves. The cave has some interesting history, of kings hiding inside as well as religious significance. The whole cave covered in murals and paintings.

From Sigiriya we went to Kandy for the Esala Perahera. This is a spiritual festival towards the tooth relic. Every driver and every person recommended us to go this festival. On the way we tried a proper Durian with our driver. If you don’t know Durian it is basically known as the stinky fruit. The stinky fruit smells a bit like 5 day old trash. Some even say it smells like gym socks or vomit. The taste is a delicacy among South-East Asians. For me it tasted like whipped cream, in combination with garlic and custard. To be honest I actually liked the taste a lot. I even regret, that I didn’t try it sooner or ate more of them.

When we got to Kandy the whole city was already in chaos mode. People were sitting at the sidewalk in the morning to watch the march in the evening. Cars going everywhere. The usual South-East-Asian chaos, just more intense. The walkway was blocked, so everyone was walking on the busy street, which made it even more chaotic than usual.

One evening we wanted to watch the parade of the Esala Perahera. This festival honors an elephants tooth relic. It is believed, that Buddha was cremated in this part. Today it is a symbol for Buddhism in Sri Lanka. To honor the tooth a parade is happening every evening for ten days in August. The parade consisted of humans with drums, a lot of fire and elephants marching down in costumes. We didn’t like the fact, that elephants were marching there in facemask leds on it. It was way too loud for the elephants, as well as too crowded and too bright. For the locals it is the place to be. It get’s so crazy, that people sleep in the streets in the rain to save a spot for the evening.

Otherwise Kandy is surrounded by a beautiful lake and some mountains. We explored a few things. For instance the woodworking of the locals as well as a few temples. We visited one temple. It was not a particular special temple. However we met a lovely monk that even knew our hometown as he was a member of a club close to our hometown. This is so unusual, because no one knows our hometown! He told us his story how his passport and baggage got stolen in the German train. I found his story quite amusing. I got a lot of reactions of people from home, who questioned my choices of countries I visited. The stigmatization is always the same of a country being ‘unsafe’. This is the prime example, that good people and bad people exist in every country. I almost only good people as they are the vast majority!

Gladly we exchanged numbers. We also checked out the botanical garden in Kandy. It started to rain a lot though, which led to this nice picture.

We enjoyed our time and suddenly it was already time to say goodbye to Marvin. He was leaving back to Germany and we were staying a bit longer in Sri Lanka. We enjoyed our last evening with some beer. This beer got served in a mug. This confused the hell out of us. We later found out, that serving alcohol was prohibited on certain public holidays. This was the answer from the bar to this problem.

Thanks for reading. Cheers!