Video
Foreigner Visits 8th Wonder of the World (SRI LANKA)🇱🇰
· 25 min · Watch on YouTube
Foreigner Visits 8th Wonder of the World (SRI LANKA)🇱🇰
The climb of Sigiriya rock, out of the villa at 6:30am with Mac, Luke and Ali, and back down by eleven. It rained overnight and the summit is in cloud for most of the visit, which turns out to be the video’s real subject: he does the whole thing and admits at the end that the views weren’t there.
The running joke is the start. They stand in front of the villa for a quarter of an hour complaining that the tuk-tuk driver is late, and then discover he has been sitting round the back the whole time.
Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles.
The practicals
- 6,090 rupees for one adult — the foreigner ticket, roughly $30, and by some distance the most expensive thing in the Sri Lanka series so far. He calls it not cheap and pays it without argument.
- The ticket office is in the museum, not at the entrance. They walk to the gate first and have to come back, which costs them the head start on the coaches.
- Guides wait at the base and ask 100 rupees. They decline and go up alone; he notes how cheap it is, and notes later that the group next to them is getting a history lesson they aren’t.
- A tuk-tuk from the villas takes about 20 minutes.
- 1,200 steps, and he puts the rock at close to 200 m of elevation.
The climb
His conclusion is that it is easier than advertised: he was told to expect 45 minutes to an hour of hard walking and finds it straightforward, saying so at the top and again at the end — and adding that this isn’t really a complaint, because it means more people can get up.
What is genuinely difficult is the surface. Wet rock is the whole hazard: everyone slows down, he slips more than once on the way up, and the descent is harder than the ascent. There is one stretch of open staircase that he identifies as the only frightening part. Ali is afraid of heights, is talked up it by the other three, and is fine at the top and honest about the way down.
At the summit is the east palace complex — a large site with a pool cut into the rock, which he keeps circling back to: people lived up here, and by his reading the civilisation dates to 477 AD. The clouds clear enough on one side to show what the view would have been.
Obs: he repeats an offhand claim that around ten people a year die climbing it (from video – unverified). Nothing in the video sources it.
Down, and the way back
- A cobra, spotted on the descent, which ends that conversation quickly.
- Monkeys at the bottom, which he treats with more respect than the snake.
- The market at the exit: a family-made carving at 25,000 rupees, and photographs of the rock in sunshine at 400 — which he buys, with the joke that this is the view they didn’t get.
- A wild elephant bathing in a river on the drive home, the second in two days, and the thing he sounds most pleased about all video.
He is showered, changed and back at his desk before 11am, which is the other argument for the early start.
His own lesson, stated at the end: check the forecast.
Key moments
[00:00]6:30am, and a driver who isn’t late.[04:43]Arrival, in rain.[05:50]The wrong queue — the ticket office is in the museum.[06:21]6,090 rupees for one adult.[07:23]Declining a 100-rupee guide.[09:28]1,200 steps, and the 477 AD date.[10:31]The wet rock, and the first slip.[12:22]The one section that frightens people.[13:57]The summit, and the verdict that it was easier than expected.[15:31]The east palace complex and the rock-cut pool.[18:36]A cobra on the descent.[19:38]The market at the exit: 25,000 for a carving, 400 for the photo.[22:13]An elephant washing itself in a river.[23:54]Check the weather forecast next time.