A Mountain Too High Enough

Monkeys In Front of our Hotel Room

Escape Path From Wild Elephants 

The Best Site Not Seen

Huge Golden Buddha

Shopping (Only Cliff Bought)

The Angelia Jolie of Monkeys 

You Can't Take a Picture of Buddha With Your Back to Him

Where We Are Staying Tonight

Inside the Buddhist Caves

We really liked our hotel. There was an amazing amount of wild life that interacted with us. On the grounds were monitor lizards, monkeys everywhere, climbing on to our balcony, and stealing food at dinner. They had a particular kind of squirrel, we had never seen before, that would wonder into the outdoor patio where we ate. Usually we would be frightened of wild beasts roaming free in front of us, but at this hotel it seemed perfectly natural.

We checked out of the hotel today and headed for Sigiriya. This is a massive rock formation, on top of which there are the ruins of a palace and fortress. You can climb to the top and visit the fortress and palace complex. It is a mere 2000 steps up requiring a minimum of an hour and half to get to the top. We politely declined, expressing sorrow to our guide that our advanced age does not allow for climbing up a mountain, even if there are steps.

It is worth noting that the King who created this fortress on top of the mountain, had to commit suicide when he couldn’t defend it against his brother. So if it wasn’t good enough for him, I am sure the gods understand why we didn’t destroy our knees to get to the top.

We saw a ladder against a tree leading to a tree house. How cute, a tree house in a forest, we thought. Our guide explained to us: “That is no tree house, run up that ladder and secure yourself at the top if you a wild elephant appears”. It is an escape hatch into the trees for safety, from the wild elephants.

A new problem popped up. Wild crocodiles are in the area. We did not go near the water! After a brief diversion for shopping, I bought a tee-shirt and batik shirt, we then headed for the Golden Buddha Statue. This is a perfect time to mention, Sri Lanka would be a perfect place for Scott and Courtney to visit. There are tons of Buddhist statues and sacred sites to visit, the hotels are great and cheap, lots of hiking and nature paths to walk upon, and ABSOLUTELY nothing to buy. This is an island that the Craft Movement overlooked. They make nothing, and there are no stores, that sell anything you would want to buy. Scott would love it!

The Golden Buddha is one big Buddha. He is situated over a multi-story Pagoda like structure, that in any other local would immediately be thought of as: “This must be one huge, multi-storied Chinese Restaurant”. It sure looks like one. It isn’t.

After gasping at the size of this Buddha (size does matter – in these matters, as I stated before) we started our ascension to the top of the mountain to see the Buddhist Caves. In climbing to the top we were again drenched in sweat. We had to stop several times to rest. I know for sure we couldn’t have made it to the top of Sigiriya. These ancient caves, and the carvings, paintings and multiple statues of The Buddha, are quite amazing. They instantly reminded Cathy and me of Ajanta in India. Truth be told, and I am dedicated to that, Ajanta is superior in the fact that the cave statues, and painting are original from 30BC, while these paintings and sculptures are more recent. Makes no difference, they are still amazing to view.

We see few Americans here, many Europeans. All of the hotels offer free breakfast and dinner buffets. At tonight’s buffet there were two tables with a total of 18 women and 1 man. Before dinner they burst into a song, I thought it was in Hebrew. I asked one of the women where they were from and they replied - Israel. We started talking to them about them. The election is Israel is Tuesday. We asked if they voted, they said there is no absentee voting in Israel. 18 of the 19 women would have voted against Netanyahu. Shame they couldn’t vote.

One thing I have noticed on this trip is the amount of iPads travelers are carrying. You see many more iPads then laptops. All hotels we have stayed at have wifi, in most of the hotels it is free. iPads and iPad Minis have really captured the travelers attention. On our iPad Mini not only do we have books to read, but we have downloaded our travel guides that were always bulky and heavy. There has definitely been a big technology shift.