Chris and Henry climb 55 flights of stairs

When in Rome... Sri Lankan breakfast of egg hoppers and chicken curry. Some assembly required. A hopper is a pancake-like thing made from rice flour, coconut milk and palm toddy.  You put the chicken curry inside the hopper and roll it up to eat it.

After breakfast, we drove about 4 hours to the Cultural Triangle.  What does Sri Lanka look like? Close your eyes. What do you imagine Sri Lanka looks like? That's right.  It looks just like any place that is not the USA or Europe. Buildings made from either concrete or brick. Some nice. Others... not so much.  Roads clogged with trucks, buses, tuk tuks and motorcycles. Yards overgrown. Lots of colorful signs advertising everything from tires to mobile phones. Stray dogs everywhere. 

Probably the most famous thing in all of Sri Lanka, our first stop was Sigiriya or Lion Rock.  Today, a UNESCO world heritage site, it was built in the 400s by King Kashyapa.  He had to move his palace to this heavily fortified place atop this natural rock formation because of people being mad at him on account of his killing his father and stealing the throne from his brother.

It's 1200 rather sketchy steps to reach the top. 

But we did it.  55 flights of stairs according to my Fitbit.

We are staying at the Water Garden Sigiyira for the next 3 nights.  We have our own villa set within water gardens reminiscent of those of the Lion Rock palace.

That's all for now. We have an early morning tomorrow to see the monkey village and go on an elephant safari.