Sri Lanka: Climbing the lion rock, Sigiriya

View from tuk-tuk on the way to Sigiriya

We took the easy way to Sigiriya and Dambulla - we got ourselves a tuk-tuk for the day. The harder way was to navigate the public bus system which involved some bus changes and walking or still haggling for a tuk-tuk to get to our destination. The B&B organised a tuk-tuk to pick us up from the B&B, sent us to Sigiriya, lunch then onwards to Dambulla, and back to the B&B (cost LKR 4,000 for 2 pax).

Sigiriya is a temporary capital from 477-495 CE when Sri Lanka was under the rule of King Kashyapa. Long, long time ago, Sri Lanka was ruled by a king named King Dhatusena. King Dhatusena has many sons but the one of his illegimate sons, Kashyapa (who was not in line) really wanted the throne.

Kashyapa de-throned his father and his brother Moggallana (who was next in line) fled to Southern India. After that, he crowned himself king in 477 CE. Probably driven by fear, the new King Kashyapa moved his royal seat to Sigiriya due to it's strategic geographical elevated position. The rock earned its name from the enormous lion which greeted visitor halfway up the rock. The crown jewel of Sigiriya today is the king's palace complex at the summit of the rock.

About 18 years later, the rightly heir, Moggallana returned and later defeated Kashyapa. Upon his defeat, Kashyapa slashed his own throat and collapsed dead. After the battle King Moggallana moved the capital back to its historic seat in Anuradhapura.

I won't beat around the bush, Sigiriya is expensive. The entrance fee cost LKR 4,260 pp (~AUD 38/~USD 29). There's option of seeing Sigiriya from another rock, Pidurangala Rock which is a small fraction of Sigiriya's entrance fee at LKR 500. We didn't do Pidurangala Rock but many people we met along the way did and sang praises of it. Sigiriya is expensive but I don't regret picking it over Pidurangala Rock.

There was a warning notice at the ticketing booth on bees but we didn't encounter any, thankfully.

Aside from a notice, the nicer bits was this nice pond with lotus flowers near the ticketing booth. After we got the tickets, up we went.

Sri Lanka is hot, so visit Sigiriya early in the morning though once you are up the top, it gets windy so it was at least comfortable. The climb wasn't as strenuous as I thought it would be, maybe because there were quite a bit of people and we were going in one line. Also, of course, the old empire is now in ruins but the view at the top is pretty amazing. So here goes. :)

 

 

Side note: Ugh.. back to work tomorrow...

Sri Lanka: Habarana - our base to the Cultural Triangle

Habarana train station

We decided travel around Sri Lanka with public transports (and some tuk-tuk), rather than hiring a car and driver. We found out that car + driver hire cost about USD 50 a day, excluding accommodation (usually hotels or B&Bs have driver's quarter but if this is not available, you'll have to pay for the driver's board as well). We figured that as there were only 2 of us, it would probably worked out more expensive to pay for a private driver and car for the whole 2 weeks. Between train or bus, we both prefer train but not every town that we wanted to go could be reached with a train, so bus it would be in that instance.

From Colombo, we made our way to Habarana which would be our base to get to Sigiriya, Dambulla, Polonnaruwa and Minneriya National Park. I found out that there are trains running from Colombo to Habarana from Sri Lanka Railways website though the options are not great. There are only 2 trains and we chose to take the ungodly 6:05 am train because we don't want to reach Habarana at 3:01 am. When I initially searched for the train, an indicative train fare was provided but it is not shown on the website anymore. We paid LKR 300 (~AUD 2.70) per person for a second class, unreserved. Yes, this is for the 5+ hours train ride.

If you are using Mobitel phone, you could also call number 365 for Mobitel Ticketing service code to pre-book your train ticket. They will bill you on your phone credit. We did try this to avoid making a trip to Colombo Fort the day before our commute but for some reason they were not able to purchase train ticket for this leg. So I think this was why there has been some stories on this train line is a bit of a myth.

Colombo Fort before 6am

Despite getting a non reserved train ticket, there were plenty of seats available as not many were taking this train though makes me wonder why the reserved tickets ran out. Anyway, we scored ourselves seats all the way from Colombo Fort to Habarana. View was nothing to shout about and please keep check of the stops as no announcements were made on the stops. We almost missed our stop as Habarana has a really small train station, more like a train stop. We were lucky that there were people getting off and my friend, S casually told me to check the train stop name, just in case.

Bad random photo but spot the fans and the luggage space overhead :)

Habarana is basically a small town with not much of attractions but useful as a base to get to the cultural triangle if you don't want to move everyday. We reached Habarana at about midday but as we had an early start, we basically just lounged the rest of the day after an unremarkable lunch. I decided to give mixed chap suay rice a try. I don't even remember to take a photo of it. Haha.

I can't remember how I found this accommodation (Le Grand Meaulnes), maybe stumbled it on my rampage googling spree but it was pretty comfortable with reasonable price. There was some issue with our booking initially as they claimed they didn't receive our booking and kept on insisting that I ring the number I had on the booking sheet to speak to the person. I booked via their website directly (even though it re-directed to a 3rd party) but all information on my booking sheet is on this B&B, phone and email address. The B&B manager claimed that this had happened before so I was perplexed as to why they didn't fix it if it was a known issue. Anyway, it was sorted and our stay there was pretty good. I've rechecked the link as I write this post, it is now directed to agoda.com. We paid USD 150 for 3 nights (1 room, 2 pax) including breakfast and dinner.

Chicken curry with array of vegetables curry

Side note: About 8 weeks more to Christmas! @_@

Sri Lanka: A relaxing day in Colombo

Like many others, Colombo is the first stop of many entering to Sri Lanka. We pretty much travelled the whole of Saturday (out of Melbourne in the morning, transit in KL and finally reached Sri Lanka just before midnight). There was no plan, except to get a train ticket from Colombo Fort to Habarana (which for some reason I kept on typing or reading it as Habanara, maybe I am craving for some habanero chillies at all times.)

Note: Taxi from Colombo airport to accommodation LKR 3,100 including tol of LKR 300

We stayed in Ocean Studios Apartment, which was a rather interesting place. It started off with the taxi driver not quite knowing where it was... to some kind Samaritans helping us to get the attention of the person who held the keys to the apartment, and me having a little jolt on the finger when I pressed on the door bell.

 The set up was little funny, it was an apartment with a staircase leading up the entrance. There wasn't any proper reception but the person who took care of the apartment lived across the road, on the first floor. So some kind Sri Lankan helped us to shout to the man from the roadside. As there were no response initially and I saw a door bell by the side, naturally I decided to press on the door bell to see if I could get the attention of the apartment keeper. Ha! The door bell actually gave a mini electric shock. Anyways, all ended well - the apartment keeper came, we had a whole apartment complete with a room each, a kitchenette and a lounge area for 2 nights.

We started the day with a good breakfast - breakfast for champions (lol) of rice and fish curry. It was excellent breakfast but I can't tell you which shop as we just picked one along the road.
Note: In Sri Lanka, curry always comes in a few dishes of vegetables curry even if you ordered for chicken or fish curry.

Fish curry and a selection of vegetables curry, with papadum

We then flagged down a tuk-tuk to get us Colombo Fort for the only errand for the day. Reserved seats tickets were all sold out but we could get non reserved seats tickets the next day. We decided that we need more food thereafter and made our way to Cinnamon Grand for their brunch buffet (we were there on a Sunday). The spread of food was excellent, and well worth the cost of LKR3,635 (~AUD 33). Price including tax and ala-carte drinks we ordered.

I had a photo of some of the staffs as they requested for it after seeing me carrying my camera around.

I thoroughly enjoyed the lunch and totally recommend this if you are looking for a relaxing way to enjoy Colombo. I've seen the reviews of this before visiting and it also came as a recommendation from S's Sri Lankan friend.

Balance of the day was spent at a gem stone shop, granted not my kind of shopping but I didn't mind it and learned something new of course. Anything about gem I learned is new as I have zero knowledge on this. In fact, I didn't even know that Sri Lanka is famous for its gemstone.

From there, we walked over to Galle Face Green which is technically a park for people watching. There were many people with successful kite flying and we sat around till the sun just set.

Dinner? Nah - we were so full from lunch that the food pretty much lasted us till the next day, else I would've suggested we had some chilli crabs!

That - was our super relaxing day in Colombo ;)


Side note: I'm such an Asian, I miss rice...

10 random things or thoughts about Sri Lanka

1. Sri Lanka is very popular among the Chinese (as in China's citizens). It was a surprise to me. It started off with S and I sitting in the waiting gate for departure and about 90% of the people there were Chinese. I almost thought we were sitting at the wrong waiting area. Upon reaching Colombo airport, we found that there were even sim package tailored to make calls back to China.

2. Sapphire is dark blue in colour. Ha - this is more for myself. For the longest time, I have illusion that sapphire is light blue in colour.

3. Train journey in Sri Lanka is slow and they are late most of the time. I quote from a tuk-tuk driver,"They are always late."

4. Regardless of how little space there is in trains or buses, the snack sellers can pass through. 

5. I've only know 5 words in Sinhala - Ayubowan (hello), kaju (cashew), wade (or known as vadai, a type of dhal snack), iringu (corn) and stuti (thank you). I know of Ayubowan before I travelled to Sri Lanka but the rest I learnt in Sri Lanka, the food words were all from my train rides. Lol. I wished I had asked how to say, "Chula is a good cook" in Sinhala. (Chula is the excellent cook working in Hill Safari, Ohiya)

6. I can't tell you if the view up at Adam's Peak was awesome or just plain cloudy, or how I had jelly legs going down the thousands of steps or how is Adam's Peak look like in the off season, because we didn't end up climbing it. We make amends by climbing up the little brother though.

But we made it to Little Adam's Peak!

7. Sri Lanka is not a budget destination albeit bus or train fare are cheap. Admission fees, however, are steep and tuk-tuk drivers very proudly announced that we have to pay a higher price because we are foreigners. I know many places have 2 sets of prices (local vs foreigner) but it doesn't mean I have to like it. 

8. We stumbled on a TV channel in Sri Lanka that aired a Chinese movie and it was dubbed in English. Mmm... let's just say I think it is a much enjoyable movie if they retained the original soundtrack and put in subtitle instead.

9. Eating places are referred to as hotels, so don't imagine flashy 5 star sleeping location.

10. Most of the bloggers mentioned they like kottu or hoppers but my favourite is the simple rice and curry - both the Tamil and Ceylon version.... and I learned that chop suey means mixed vegetables in Sri Lanka.

Super yummy rice and curry (thali) at Sri Ram, Kandy

Side note: I tried my usual Sri Lanka rice and curry joint in Melbourne again, it unfortunately doesn't taste like what i had in Sri Lanka. Must be the water... grin. 

My crazy Asia holiday!

I am entitled to 20 days annual leave each year but I usually try to only take maximum of 15 days which easily give me 3 weeks off. The balance 1 week I carry forward to the next year. I limit myself to the allocated annual leave, if I don't have any more annual leave days, I don't get my holidays. I am not allowed to purchase extra annual leave or to take unpaid leave, not for holidays. Despite my constant and recurring itchy feet, I am amazed I could be discipline in that sense. 

Last year, I spent the 3 full weeks in Central Asia. This year, I decided to also go back to Asia as it would stretch the dollar further. My friend, S wants to go to Sri Lanka. I am OK with the idea as I have not been, plus many moons ago, I have had the intention to visit this tear drop country though the visit didn't materialised. 

S wanted to spend 2 weeks in Sri Lanka at the minimum, so that was how my 2 of my 3 weeks annual leave in Sri Lanka. KL is always in the itinerary because that's where home is (sort of) and I have always try to include Singapore to visit friends. As the years passed, many of my friends have moved across the causeway to earn the higher S$. Ah.. and Bangkok, I've always wanted to visit this friend when he jetted around the world but the plan has never been hatched. The stars aligned this round and so I've included Bangkok in the list. 

So that was how I took 7 flights and visited 4 countries in 3 weeks' time. Little P referred this as my Asia tour but I thought that sounded too much like a concert tour, so it was referred to as my crazy Asia holiday!

M = morning, A = afternoon, E = evening

This round I travelled out of Melbourne in the morning with S, had a 5 hours transit in KL and so only reached Colombo at night. Departure from Colombo was a late night flight and I took went straight to Bangkok thereafter. There was a technical error on my part though because I totally forgotten that my flight out of Singapore as actually 1.20 am on 2nd Oct, so technically I only have one full day in Singapore. Oh well, better than none :P. All flights were with AA except the Singapore to Melbourne leg was with Scoot. 

10/09, Day 00 - On flight. Reached Colombo* at night (Ocean Studios Apartment)

11/09, Day 01 - Colombo*

12/09, Day 02 - Colombo, train to Habarana* in the morning (Le Grand Meaulnes)

13/09, Day 03 - Habarana*, day trip to Sigiriya and Dambulla

14/09, Day 04 - Habarana*, off to Polonnaruwa and Minneriya National Park

15/09, Day 05 - Habarana, bus to Kandy* in the morning (Three Three Five Guest House)

16/09, Day 06 - Kandy*

17/09, Day 07 - Kandy, train to Nuwara Eliya* (Heidis Home)

18/09, Day 08 - Nuwara Eliya, train to Ohiya* (Hill Safari)

19/09, Day 09 - Ohiya and off to Horton Plains, train to Ella* (Idyll Homestay)

20/09, Day 10 - Ella*

21/09, Day 11 - Ella, bus to Mirissa* (Amara Guest House)

22/09, Day 12 - Mirissa*

23/09, Day 13 - Mirissa, tuk-tuk to Galle* (Leynbaan Vill)

24/09, Day 14 - Galle, train to Colombo and taxi to the airport

25/09, Day 15 - Bangkok* 

26/09, Day 16 - Bangkok*

27/09, Day 17 - Bangkok, flight to KL* 

28/09, Day 18 - KL*

29/09, Day 19 - KL*

30/09, Day 20 - KL, evening flight to Singapore* 

01/10, Day 21 - Singapore, red eye flight back to Melbourne

02/10, Day 22 - Reached Melbourne in the afternoon

*referring to where we/I stayed overnight

S and I parted ways after Sri Lanka, she took a flight home to Alor Setar while I fly to Bangkok. I bunked at my friend's place in both Bangkok and Singapore. Given that I had very limited time in KL and there were some errands that I needed to run, I opted to stay in Cititel Mid Valley by choice for 2 nights and another night at my sister's place which is less convenient to run my errands. 

Side note: Why the blogs I enjoy reading no longer have any updates and made private? :(