Stop me if you've heard this one. An Italian, an Iranian, a Romanian and two Americans walk off a plane in Sri Lanka. They travel 10 hours in a van from Colombo to a small mountain village 150 km (93 miles) away named Dalhousie. They nap for 4 hours and start hiking at 2:30 am in the rain to climb Sri Pada, one of Buddhism's holy mountains.
Sri Pada (also called Adam's Peak) is sacred to three major religions due to a curious foot-print shaped depression on the peak. My favorite story is that it is the print of Adam's first step on earth after he was cast from the garden of Eden. During the pilgrimage season the path is lit, there are temples and shops and restaurants along the way, and there are mobs of pilgrims of all ages. Here is a picture of Sri Pada during the pilgrimage season.
Kristin's love for the outdoors was developed largely by the promise of whistle pops and other treats hidden away in her dad's backpack. I've learned the wisdom of his tricks, and suckered her into this trip with the photo above and the promise of earning some (much needed!) good karma by ringing the temple bell on the summit. I captured it on video.And that is why people generally don't climb Sri Pada during the off season. We climbed a lot of stairs in a lot of cloud...
... with our pants tucked into our socks to keep out the leeches.
After that, we took a 6 hour bus ride to Kandy, hung out there for a few hours and watched a singing and dancing and drumming and fire walking show. Then a late evening 4 hour bus ride to a guest house near Sigiriya. I had forgotten that, given a sufficient lack of sleep, a person can sleep soundly for hours while sitting upright and bouncing along pot-holed Sri Lankan dirt roads. I would wake up only when a particularly large hole caused me to tip over and hit my head on the window. Even that only woke me up for a few seconds.
Sigiriya is a rock outcropping that has been occupied since the 5th century BC, first as a monastery and then as a palace. It is one of 7 UNESCO World Heritage sites in Sri Lanka, three of which we visited.
It took yet more walking to get to the top, but the view was incredible.
In the end, the story doesn't make for much of a joke. But it did make for a pretty good trip.
-F. Seahorse
Beautiful.
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