The cultural triangle | Sri Lanka

The cultural triangle of Sri Lanka

Anuradhapura:

Our first stop in Sri Lanka was the cultural triangle. The triangle consist of 5 ancient cities, spread within a triangle. We just concentrated on Anuradhapura, Polonnurawa and Sigiriya, all of them have world heritage sites.

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka is charging foreigners a lot for entrance to world heritage sites. The entrance fee starts from 20-30 USD, which is a lot for a budget traveller. We wouldn't mind to pay a normal fee for seeing these sights, but paying a pass of 20-30 Dollars every day kind of exceeded our reasonable budget. After reading a lot of backpackers blogs we decided to rent bicycles and ride through the ancient towns.

We didn’t buy the entrance tickets as we just had the plan to drive around and see the huge stupas & ruins from the street. We sneaked into one of the main sites and managed to view all the main ruins until we got stopped at a ticket checkpoint. (I learnt this tricky move from my Dad and Giulia has it in her blood – she is Italian 😉 ) After getting back on the bicycles we got stopped on the streets by some heritage police, asking us to buy tickets – we managed to talk ourselves out of it by saying we were just cycling around. We just kept telling them we were on the way to Mihintale (20km away) and really enjoyed the day in Anuradhapura. (klick on the picture to enlarge it)

Ruwanwelisaya Stupa in Anuradhapura

Cycling arround in the acient city - Jethavana Stupa

Elephants are on of the Sri Lankans natonial animals

A monk praying in the acient city of Anuradhapura

Polonnaruwa:

As we arrived in Polonnaruwa late afternoon we went for a nice ride on a lake near the national park. The landscape and scenery with the sunset was breathtaking. Next day we tried to use the same technique in Polonnaruwa like we did few days before in Anuradhapura. With the help of Maps.me (you have to download that app if you go for travel – its an amazing detailed offline map) we even found a hidden way to the ancient city and literally sneaked in on our bicycles. Of course there we saw more temples, stupas, buddhas, other ruins as well like the lotus pond (bath).

On one particular sight (Big Buddha) we had to turn around as there was another ticket check point. As we didn’t want to temp our luck too much we decided to go back to the hotel, after spending hours exploring the ruins under the sun.

view from Polonnaruwa to the Minneriya National Park

Sri Lankan having a bath in Polonnaruwa

amazing sunset in Polunnaruwa

Guck Guck - sneaked in the acient city of Polunnaruwa

k-carved images at Tivanka image House in Polonnaruwa

k-Lotus pond in Polonnaruwa

eating the coconut oil from the prayers

k-Lankatilaka temple in Polonnaruwa

Sigiriya:

Our last stop on the triangle was Sigiriya, known for its mountain “ The lion rock” , a massive rock with ruins of an ancient city on top. We climbed up the neighbour mountain “Pidurangala” to enjoy the best view of the Lions Rock which is considered to be the best heritage site of Sri Lanka.

on the climb to Pidurangala

getting comfortable

amazing view to Sigiriya

the path up to the lion rock

locals having a bath at a pond on the ancient city

our nice breakfast place

We skipped the sights in Dambulla and Kandy, which are also part of the triangle after seeing 6 days in the row Stupas, Temples, Buddhas and ruins. We were really looking forward to bit of nature and beach time.