On our way to the hill country of Sri Lanka we also hit two major stops – Sigiriya and the Dambulla Cave Temple. Sigiriya is an ancient city and it was a huge trek to see all of it. If I had known that ahead of time (the huge trek part) I’d have probably bitched out. We saw a lot here – most notably monkeys getting in fights. I used to think I could take a monkey in a fight if I really had to. Those days are long gone. It’s the teeth. Just don’t make eye contact. We were rewarded for our efforts with lots of great pictures and some amazing views of and from the ruins at the summit. It’s also known for its frescoes. Many of them are lost over time due to photodegradation but a few have been incredibly well-preserved due to being shielded by rock. They are mostly of half-naked women. I found it interesting that even in the fifth century, people liked 1. topless women and 2. a skinny waist and a decent rack. The trek down was a bit easier, probably because we didn’t have a huge rock we knew we’d have to climb dominating our field of vision. The Cave Temple was amazing – it’s a temple consisting of five caves and over 150 statues of Buddha and Hindu deities. All of the caves and some of the larger statues are actually hewn out of the rock itself. It was interesting to explore the temple grounds and discover one room after another of sculptures and intricate murals covering pretty much everything but the floor. There were wild monkeys running around here too, but they seemed to be less volatile. We stayed that night at a guest house and had some proper home-cooked Sri Lankan food. Oh man, how has the food not come up yet? Okay so first off, if you’re ever here, stay in a guesthouse and get home-cooked Sri Lankan food. I can’t stress that enough. And we found it odd that Thai food and Indian food both made it all around the world and yet Sri Lankan cuisine is hard to come by most places off the island. It’s mostly rice and curries, and its staples are sambal (scraped coconut, onions, chiles and tamarind) and hearty portions of rice and curry with lots of leafy and rustic herbs. It’s not the easiest thing to describe, and I’d be doing yourselves and the cuisine a disservice to dismiss it as “almost Indian food.” It just hits all the right notes of savory, spicy and filling, while maintaining a character and identity of its own. Lush vegetation and proximity to the coast means there’s lots of freshly available, locally grown herbs and vegetables and high-quality seafood is relatively affordable (although in general things here are cheap by western standards – most meals clocked in at around a dollar). I couldn’t get enough of it. I got the impression that everything here was comfort food, probably because it’s managed to sustain itself in isolation for so long. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of western influence despite the heavy hand of the British empire in exploiting the land and the people for profit in the tea industry. I guess I should cut them some slack then for targeting western tourists for money.
[1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/97388931@N08/sets/72157639204878776/