Meeting Samo and Janka
Close encounters of the own kind, Sigiriya and big boobs!
Like Hanuman in Ramayana, I took a giant leap and jumped from India to Sri Lanka, but not to save Rama’s princess Sita, but to meet Samo and Janka and to surf. I only wish that I would have jumped like Hanuman - it took 30 hours of transfer to get from Rishikesh to hotel in Sigiriya. I met Samo and Janka in Dambulla few kilometers from Sigiriya.
It took less time to get to Rishikesh from Bratislava than from Rishikesh to Sri Lanka, and it was supposed to be “next door”.
Sri Lankan buses are quite different from the Indian ones: they are clean and very organized, drivers honk only 5% of time, but they are crowded like hell. What is same as in India is their “speed”.
Sri Lanka (the central part) is also quite different from India. Clean, much (much, much, much) less crowded, and GREEEEEEEEEEN (the greenest green I’ve ever seen) . Palms, rice paddies and jungle everywhere. And signs meaning “Slow down, crocodiles crossing”.
After meeting in Dambulla, we headed straight to Sigiriya, one of Sri Lanka’s many UNESCO sites. By the way, when I came to Sri Lanka all I knew about the country was where it lies, that it’s capital is Colombo, that there had been civil war which included “LTTE” alias “Tamil Tigers Liberation Army”, that there is a place called Sigiriya, where there are old frescoes, and that I should meet with Samo and Janka in a city called Dambulla and that a bus in that direction should leave from town Gampaha which is somewhere relatively near the airport. I skipped any preparations, but luckily there was public internet at the airport so I consulted google maps and found out where was Dambulla and Gampaha. Taxi to a bus station near airport, a bus to Gampaha, a tuk-tuk to other bus stand in Gampaha, a bus to Damulla: Samo and Janka. Close encounters of the own kind on the other side of the world.
So, Sigiriya. A giant solid rock (volcano’s chimney leftover) with ancient gardens around it, beautiful frescoes of naked babes with HUGE tits, and citadel at the top of the rock. Very nice place with nice view from the top. But Sri Lankans decided to cash their sights hard: they charge 25-30 USD for each sight. May Zeus crash them with thunder!
All around the rock there were pools, ponds and swamps with signs “No swimming. Crocodiles”. I like. But the only crocodile we saw was Janka (whose surfing teacher told her that she paddled like crocodile, so now we consider her as reptile).
In this part of Sri Lanka it’s monsoon period right now, so it’s raining most of the day, and I mean monsoon rain, not some light showers. But we were lucky, and it almost didn’t rain during our visit at the rock.
In the evening we took a tuk-tuk to liquor store to buy some beer. Rotten Europeans – we really took the tuk-tuk, 4km there and back, to buy beer. It was the first sip of alcohol since my goodbye party 2 weeks ago. The local beer is really nothing special (to be polite).
