Day 4. Ritigala, Kaudulla, Sigiriya

 Back on the bus after breakfast, and out for the day. Our destination for the morning was the ruined Buddhist monastery at Ritigala. This involved a 45 minute bus ride and then transferring to jeeps for the last 15 minutes as it was a very potholed track up to the base of the hill.

The monastery complex is about 2000 years old. At the base was the remains of a reservoir, currently being manually cleared by labourers.

Stepped reservoir walls

From there a series of stone paths wound up the hill. Every hundred metres or so was a cleared area with the remains of a stone structure. Some were baths or areas for houses, some were circles of stone for walking in meditation. It was all clearly chiselled by hand quite precisely.


It took a couple of hours to walk around and make our way back to the jeeps. These took us back to the bus and then followed us to Kaudulla National Park for the second part of the day.

Back into the jeeps, which had soft sides and roof that could be rolled back.


Kaudulla is a nature reserve around the 3rd century Kaudulla Wewa reservoir, which acts to attract wild life, particularly at some times of the year. I actually have a great many pictures from the safari around the lake, so I will make a separate post full of photos and video. For this entry, suffice it to say that the drive started in fine weather but soon started drizzling. At various times it fined up or poured down, and we moved to the centre of the jeep and tried to avoid the rain. That didn't hamper us too much, but after about two and a half hours we'd had enough and were happy to go. We saw few other vehicles driving about, but when we got back to the main entrance there was a traffic jam of 40-50 near-identical jeeps all trying to get in. This was around 3pm and presumably it's the popular time of day, or perhaps they want to be there at sunset.

We were tired and damp by then and very happy to get back to our hotel. That gave us a couple of hours before meeting the rest of the group for pre-dinner cocktails.




Location: Indigaswewa, Sigiriya 21120, Sri Lanka

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