From Sigiriya, Leah and I continued our journey to Anuradhapura, one of the ancient cities Sri Lanka has to offer. We only had half a day to see the ruins, so decided to go by tuk tuk for 2.000 rupees. We could have rented bicycles for 500 rupees each, but as we only had a limited amount of time to see all the sights, we feared that we would waste too much time like that. In hindsight we probably would have been fine even with bikes since the sights didn’t take as much time as expected. We started around 7.30 and were done at about 11.30.

The dagobas and temples were nice, and I especially liked the setting with lots of green between the ruins. The massive dagobas Abhayagiriya, Jethavana and Ruwanwelisaya were really impressive, but there just wasn’t too much to explore. It was more like short photo stops, and going on.

In the end we visited two of my favourite places which I recommend not missing out on: Issurumuni Viharaya (well worth the extra 200 rupees on top of the once again steep entry fee) and the rocks/caves of Vessagiriya, the „little Sigiriya“ as our driver would call it. These places were a bit different to all the big dagobas.

Overall, it was good to see Anuradhapura, but it won’t make it into my highlights of Sri Lanka. If we had more time, it might have been nice to go and see the sunset at Mihintale which was recommended to me by some Austrian travellers I met in Sigiriya – although the view did look quite similar to the Lion’s Rock/Pidurangala. So I guess we were fine giving it a miss, and hopping onto the bus at noon – which would take me to Kalpitiya for some more beach time before heading to the Maldives.