Well, it was a bit nostalgic feeling to say goodbye to our lovely hosts of the Globetrotter Tourist Inn in Sigiriya. No doubt, I was quite overwhelmed with the all kinds of hospitality and love that we have received in our Sri Lanka Trip. Srilankans are helpful and caring people.

Globetrotter Tourist Inn, we found it through Airbnb.com and without any doubt, it was one of the best places to stay in Sigiriya, and firstly it is close to the Sigiriya Rock Fortress and it is surrounded by the paddy fields.

Our host recommended us Manju, our driver plus guide, who has his personal car. Manju was our travel companion for a few days. Getting a personal car is the best thing happened to us on the Sri Lanka trip. It made our journey comfortable and chaos free.

Earlier day, we climbed  1200 steps of Sigiriya Rock Fortress  and we were completely exhausted, but Manju asked us to get ready early in the morning since as per our itinerary plan, we had to travel a day long from Sigiriya to Dambulla and from Dambulla to Kandy, around 100 kilometers distance by car in a day.

It was drizzling, when we started from Sigiriya; the climate was foggy and chilled, which was perfect for our road trip. Manju was a good driver as well as a storyteller, he told us some of his travel experiences he had with all the travelers around the world and also a horrible story from Jaffna, when he got mugged by locals at the midnight where he somehow managed to escape from gunmen, it was his death survival story.

After travelling around 15 kms from Sigiriya, we reached at the base of the Dambulla Cave Temple in Dambulla. We bought tickets and started climbing towards the Cave Temple. The first thing I noticed at the entrance was a big golden statue of Buddha at the downhill. It is one of the largest statues I have ever seen.

Dambulla Cave Temple, also known as “The Golden Temple of Dambulla” and it is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Dambulla Cave Temple is a monastery and sacred pilgrim site for 22 centuries. It is the largest and best-preserved cave temple in Sri Lanka.It mainly consists of five cave temples, which contain statues and wall paintings of Gautama Buddha and his life. It was a mesmerizing to see the statues, caves and wall painting of history.

 

 

 

 

Just to mention, we do need to cover arms and body while entering in the caves and in the most of the sacred places in Sri Lanka. And be aware of monkeys. 🙂

 

Have you been to the Dambulla Cave Temple in Sri Lanka before?