From Sigiriya we decided to go on an adventure… we wanted to try to reach Jathika Nemal Uyana (Pink Quartz Mountain) using public transportation, even though we couldn’t find any info on the web about getting there by bus. How hard could it be? We took a bus to Dambulla and we were waiting on another bus to get to a part-way town called Madatugama when we were approached by a persistent tuk tuk driver who kept telling us that we would have to take a tuk tuk, so we should just pay him. Undeterred and very stubbornly we sat on the stationary hot bus for another 20 minutes while he tried to wait us out. Eventually the bus roared to life and the adventure continued. Unfortunately he was right about not being able to take another bus the rest of the way so we hired a (much cheaper) tuk tuk to take us to the wooded park.
It was a beautiful walk through the forest before we got our first glimpses of pink. The mountain is SE Asia’s largest deposit of pink quartz and is thought to be 500 million years old. It was so neat to be hiking on what is normally gravel, but was tiny pebbles of pink quartz.
On the way home we had a great interaction with a security guard who kept us company when we waited for a bus, then bartered us a tuk tuk to a different part-way town for a successful series of buses home. Take that, doubting tuk tuk guy!
We had another great visit with our Sigriya tuk tuk driver, Anu, who took us to a more local spot for sunset views. If you’re ever planning to come here let me know and I’ll connect you with him as he was our favourite person in Sri Lanka.
After another looong distance bus we arrived in Polonnaruwa, which is the 2nd oldest of Sri Lanka’s kingdoms and a World Heritage Site. We explored the huge area of ruins by bike until the heat chased us back to our guesthouse. A consistent theme of this trip is sitting in front of fans in our underwear; it is THAT HOT!
The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn to go on an elephant safari. RockyB had never seen elephants in the wild and it was an auspicious start when we saw our first one walking up the side of the highway! We had the chance to see numerous grey gentle giants, often quite close to our jeep. We were pleased that our guide seemed quite respectful of giving the animals space and we often found ourselves away from the ‘herd’ of jeeps that seemed too intense.
Our guide was very into the birds of the area and I can honestly say that I am becoming quite a ‘bird nerd’. I didn’t have our zoom lens so the pictures suck, but we saw some really colourful green bee eaters, chestnut headed bee eaters, kingfishers, brahminy kites, and great spotted eagles. Have you ever seen a peacock fly? What an unexpectedly cool thing to see.
I have about a hundred pictures of us enjoying cold drinks during the trip, another definite ‘beat the heat’ theme (pictured are king coconuts, coconut shakes, soursop(Rocky)/passionfruit(me) shakes).
The food in Sri Lanka has been delicious. At times we have been missing vegetables as it’s quite heavy of the rice and breads, but we have definitely found our favourites: hoppers, coconut sambol, and dahl curry. I would definitely recommend Sri Lanka as a travel destination. The people are genuine and helpful, and it has the 2nd highest per-capita income in SE Asia. Though it is a developing nation it appears (from what we’ve seen) that most people have their basic needs met and are happy.
After a full day of train travel we arrived back down south, close to the airport. In the ‘would you rather’ game we would both pick a full day on the train over a full day on the bus, but 9 hours is long no matter how you do it! We’re both feeling a little blue as it is our last day of Rock-Awn 7.0. We both are heading to new and exciting adventures, but we have so much fun travelling together that it’s always a little sad to part ways.
I’ll be posting from a new time zone soon, and you can follow RockyB’s adventures at: https://delafrijoles.com/. Rock-Awn!