July 3,

Today we had a “chill” day!! Breakfast was Omelet for Jeff; then String Hoppers, Dahl, and Sambal; and a Fruit plate of watermelon, pineapple, and bananas with service of tea. Finished we went back to our room and I worked on yesterday's blog. Jeff read. That took up the morning.

Around 1330 we went out for lunch. We chose South Restaurant. There are so many little restaurants along this “main” road in Sigiriya – which one do you choose?? We stopped here because… well, maybe eye appeal. Anyway, we both decided to get a Chicken Kottu each! We also had a juice each- me pineapple, Jeff lemon. When the lady brought us our juices, she also brought some crunchy-puffed bite snacks. Then we had our kottu decorated with a big spoon of mango curry, a big spoon of eggplant curry, and a leaf flourish. The Kottu reminded us of Rosie's, having some coconut milk. It was so good, but this caused me to overeat a bit. Just as we finished, we were given a fruit plate. Well, that was unexpected like the snack food! Definitely overate. We paid and left before more food could be delivered. HAHA!

We found the giant Buddha statue that you can see on top of Sigiriya Rock. Going there, it was not as tall as we had envisioned it, but was still pretty tall. No info on it, Jeff guesstimated it to be six stories high. The statue was elevated in an empty pond. We “donated” a 250 Rupee entry fee (for restoration purposes). The temple grounds is in need of restoration, probably the only people who come are ones who see it from the rock top. We walked around grounds and all the Buddha monks lining the perimeter. We did notice a few different statues: different dress, couple with different skin color, and one definitely shorter. Overall I was a little underwhelmed. We loaded up and next we stopped at an ancient ruin stupa-type structure, called Pabbathramaya/Ramachiththiya. We walked up to it, but there was not any English information at all… Questions?

Now we arrived back at our place and I took two different 20 minute naps! I guess I did not sleep as well as I thought last night. We had a very light supper and just hung out, we did not even swim any. Jeff went to bed around 2030. I couldn't sleep due to the naps and other stuff going on. It made for a long night.