day 4

We made our way inland to Sigiriya. During the bus ride we noticed that in Sri Lanka there is literally a shrine at almost every other street corner. On these shrines Buddha statues predominate, but near Colombo and Negombo where we started our trip, they mostly contained statues of the virgin Mary or an occasional Jesus. I thought that Roman Catholicism might have been the reason that many Sri Lankans used to go to work in Italy, but since these numbers dropped dramatically since Berlusconi lost power, the more like explanation that we got was the corruption that allowed them to work there illegally. Either way, it did explain the pasta dishes that were present at most buffets, even at places where local cuisine was predominant.

Our first stop of the day was at a local fish market. Perhaps I am growing accustomed to these (although my threshold for disgustingness has generally been quite high to begin with) or perhaps it was ‘cleaner’ than some of the markets I’ve been to before, but to me it all looked reasonably acceptable. The thing that bothered me most was the temperature, but luckily, here as well as throughout the rest of the trip, Sri Lanka has high temperatures and humidity, but also generous breezes.

The fresh fish that does not get sold on the market is pickled and dried next to the market. Women de-gut the fish, man cut them up and put them in barrels with salt and after one day they are too salty for birds to eat them and they get laid to dry in the sun (with sheets of plastic lying next to it, in case it starts to rain). While drying, every single fish has to get turned over manually, which literally looked like back-breaking work. At the end of our small tour on the market, the local guide told us that they would send the pickled fish inland into the mountains. They did not eat that stuff themselves, because they “know how it is made” – wink, wink.

After a quick stop at a Hindu temple and a lovely traditional lunch, we continued our way to the Dambulla temple. The cave temples of Dambulla are at the top of a rocky. At the base there is a resplendent building with lots of red paint and a golden Buddha that Sammy, our guide for the week, did not like, because he said the whole thing looked like a Chinese restaurant (and I had to agree). Those who had not done so already put on ‘temple clothes’ that covered knees and shoulders and then after a 170 meter climb past numerous monkey families, we reached the two thousand-year-old caves. We had to take off our shoes as well, exposing my un-tempered feet to the hot stones, but in the caves this was not a problem. Five different caves contained numerous perfectly scaled statues of Buddha and Buddhist monks and colorful wall paintings (that had slightly faded), all build under different kings.

That night we went to a lovely hotel, where I had a nice room on the third floor overlooking a pleasant court yard with swimming pool. Unfortunately, water pressure was limited that high up. It was in fact insufficient to keep that pin up that directs water to the shower head. Since I was short one hand to wash my hair (holding up the pin with one hand and the trickling shower head with the other, didn’t leave anything for washing), I trained my abs, laying in the bathtub with my head under the bathtub tap. It got the job done, but it’s not really worthy of a recommendation.