Carrying Joy, Finding Adventure: Sri Lanka: Sigiriya: Only a Thousand Steps

Before I tell you more about how awesome all the stuff we did was, I want to tell you about who made this trip so awesome. This man's name is Presanne. (Pronounced Pee-Sawn-Ne). We went through a company called Journey Lanka. We told them what we wanted to do, they gave us a sample itinerary, we okayed it, and they booked all our hotels for us, which included breakfast and dinner. We thought that was a great thing. Then, we meet our driver. Now, you know when you meet someone and at first it's a little awkward, because you know you'll be spending lots of time with them but you don't know them yet... well, that's how it was with Presanne... like when he randomly took us to his friend's house to go bathing.... see an earlier post to hear that story!

Well, the more we traveled with Presanne, the more amazing things we discovered about him. Our last night in Sri Lanka, as we sat beach-side eating chicken and mashed potatoes, banana splits, and wine to celebrate Jon's birthday, we made up a list of twenty-five reasons why Presanne is amazing and wrote them in his comment book. He is a sari-wrapper. He is a crazy-bus avoider. He is a tour guide. He carries you when you are weak. He speaks multiple languages. And that's just five of the reasons.... But you get the idea.

He would randomly pull off the side of the road, take us over the cliff bank and down a path to find a hidden waterfall. He made sure we got good deals when we bought stuff from tourist trappers. And he always, always gave us good advice that kept us having a wonderful, safe time.

So, if you are ever headed to Sri Lanka (and I seriously recommend it), let me know and I'll give you his name and number, so that you can have the same awesome experience we had.

The place I put on my to-do list for Sri Lanka the minute I decided I would go there and then actually looked up what there would be to do there, was Sigiriya. Sigiriya is a fortress that a king built on top of an odd rock formation in the 300s AD. Now it is just ruins, but they have set up some semi-safe steps getting to the top where the king used to live. Our guide told us all about the history, about the 500 wives that the king had painted on the walls, the wall of mirrors to reflect these paintings, the water-holding bins, the toilets, drainage system, stage, throne, and every other tid-bit of information. We didn't originally want a guide (but Presanne insisted, so he paid for him), but it turned out to be such a wonderful addition to our time at Sigiriya.

Now, what made this the best place to have a fortress is that the rock is about 200 m high, and has about a thousand steps to get to the top. My legs were burning by the time I reached the top... And as I thought forward to our trip to Adam's Peak a few days later, I wondered how I would do that one, all FIVE thousand steps... but, we made it to the top of Sigiriya, took some sweet pictures, learned more history, and headed back down the steep stairs.

On our way down, we passed a little boy, who was not too thrilled about the thousand steps. His cry of "How many more STEPS!" became our cry for the rest of the trip when we were frustrated or looking for a good laugh. Mostly the good laugh part, because there really were not very many frustrating parts at all!