← All articles · Sri Lanka · 13 July 2018

Sigiriya

Climbing Sigiriya in June 2014 with Dileep's parents: the frescoes, the lion paw staircase, wild bee combs on the rock face, and a summit with a view.

Sigiriya, June 2014. This time there were four of us: Dileep's parents joined the cultural triangle run, and Lion Rock was the headline act. A sheer column of stone with a ruined palace on top, parked in the middle of flat green jungle as if someone ordered it from a catalogue.

Glass bakery display case of filled buns with a Don's Bakers sign reading Devilled Soya Bun, Rs. 50 — The drive north runs on bakery stops. Don's Bakers, devilled soya bun, fifty rupees. No regrets.

Inga, Dileep and Dileep's parents standing together on the sandy approach with Sigiriya rock rising behind the trees — The four of us at the foot of the rock, hats deployed, climb still ahead of us.

Dileep in a black sun hat and Inga in a white one on the long straight approach path to Sigiriya rock — The old royal approach is dead straight, so the rock spends the whole walk quietly getting bigger.

The climb

The route goes up through water gardens, then brick stairways, then iron stairs bolted to the rock itself. It is not a technical climb, but June heat plus roughly twelve hundred steps means you earn the view twice over.

Steep brick staircase climbing between old walls and trees toward the rock face at Sigiriya — The climb starts politely, brick stairs between garden walls. It does not stay polite.

Two Sigiriya frescoes of crowned women, one holding a tray of flowers, painted on the sheltered rock face — Halfway up, a sheltered pocket of rock keeps the famous frescoes: fifth century paint, still holding its colour.

Inga standing between the two giant carved lion paws flanking the brick staircase to the summit of Sigiriya — The lion that named the rock is down to two enormous paws. The final staircase runs straight between the claws.

Dark combs of wild bees hanging in a row under an overhang on the sheer rock face at Sigiriya — Those dark slabs under the overhang are wild bee combs. Everyone on the stairs suddenly walked a little more softly.

On top

Dileep standing by the railing at the summit edge of Sigiriya with brick foundations and the jungle plain far below — The summit is a grid of brick foundations with a view that runs unbroken to the horizon.

Large rock-cut water cistern on the summit of Sigiriya with visitors around it and green plains stretching below — A rock-cut cistern on the roof of the fortress, still catching water some fifteen centuries after installation.

Back in 2018, for the curry

We passed through Sigiriya again in July 2018, and the memory that stuck from that visit was dinner: a proper village rice and curry, cooked at the guesthouse and delivered to the table one small bowl at a time.

Inga at a table set with a Sri Lankan rice and curry spread: eight bowls of vegetable curries, sambols, poppadoms and a platter of rice — Rice and curry, village count: eight bowls before anyone touched the rice.

Dal, beans, beetroot, potato, dried fish, poppadoms, and the quiet confidence of a kitchen that has done this a thousand times. Sigiriya anchors the triangle neatly: the cave temples of Dambulla and the ruins of Polonnaruwa are close, the elephants of Minneriya are practically next door, and Kandy makes the natural next stop south.