The bus journey was much quicker than Chris and I expected. Maybe because I was chatting to a Portuguese girl the entire way, and Chris for a change couldn't keep his eyes open! It's normally me asleep! Unexpectedly, just as we left the main town the driver pulled over and the ticket conductor jumped off quickly to pray to a roadside shrine. I could only assume it was to pray for a safe journey - slightly nerving from our point of view. Or as it came to light, it may have been to offer confidence for the driver to race the bus as though he was in a go kart!
As usual we were dropped near the bus station which meant we had to take a tuk tuk to our accommodation. We had reserved a room at 'Oasis Tourist centre' which turned out to be run by a German lady. The building itself was extremely old, but very characteristic. They had dogs, puppies, cats, kittens, and rabbits all running around. The kitten was especially playful and disrupting everything. Fascinatingly the puppy tidied up after the kitten as she knocked over a vase of fake flowers.
Both of us had suffered with dodgy tummies over night so we munched on some more vanilla cake and bananas and had a lie down.
As the afternoon started to cool off a little we walked across the road to visit the Dambulla 'Rock Cave Temple', our reason for stopping here. Lucky for us, as of two weeks before our visit, the temple became free to enter. Since the government had finished their renovations they no longer needed the extra money from tourism, so now allow tourists to visit for free.
We hiked up the steep slope and steps to reach the rewarding panoramic views from the top across the luscious green countryside. I was not best pleased to see the common toque macaques lining the stairways, but averting my eyes prevented any encounters! Although they were amusing to look at, as these macaques had unusually red faces. I thought they looked as though they had a serious anger problem, Chris on the other hand thought they had spent too much time in the sun!
The UNESCO awarded rock cave and temple was different to the other hundreds of temples we have visited, hence why we decided it was worth our time. The cave temple has five chambers consisting of a total of 153 Buddha statues and murals covering an area of 2,100 metres squared. It was fascinating to explore but we had to watch out for the drops of water dripping through cracks in the ceiling from a spring above. For followers of the Buddhist religion however, they welcomed the water droplets as the water is said to be Holy.
We took a leisurely walk around the newly built lake at the bottom of the cave, passing by locals washing themselves and doing laundry in the fresh water. The heat of the day and all the walking meant a King coconut was called for. King coconuts are native to Sri Lanka and taste a little sweeter than other coconuts. They are bright orange in colour and tend to be drunk straight from the tree, i.e it is near to impossible to find a chilled one.
Later that evening we were directed to a small local hotel who were cooking up egg hoppers. Hoppers are made from rice flour and coconut milk and are cooked in a special pan. Egg hoppers simply have an egg cracked into the hopper which is slightly scrambled. They taste similar to a savoury pancake and with plenty of seasoning and a little bit of chilli they are a really nice starter or snack. We finished with a fried rice and an ice lolly on our way back.

We hoped to tuck into more egg hoppers for breakfast but apparently they are an evening thing. We have to disagree and think they would do great for the western market for breakfast. So unfortunately we just ate our remaining bananas and headed off.
We caught a tuk tuk to the bus station and jumped on the local bus heading to Sigiriya.....