Dambulla
Dambulla is a city in Central province of Sri Lanka.
Understand
Get in
By bus
Buses from Colombo (148 km west), Kandy (72 km south), Sigiriya and other places arrive regularly at the Dambulla bus station located 1 km outside of the town on Kandy road. From Sigiriya, you can continue by direct bus to Dambulla. Buses run on this route at intervals of 30 minutes and cost 40 LKR. The last bus for Dambulla leaves at 18:00. Alternately, you can take a tuk-tuk to go back to Inamaluwa junction, from where you can take the bus to Dambulla as well, or you can go to Dambulla from Sigiriya by tuk-tuk which will cost not more than Rs. 1,000. The distance from Sigiriya to Dambulla is 20 km, and from Inamaluwa to Dambulla is 10 km.
Get around
See
Dambulla cave temple (Golden Temple) (Entrance on Kandy Road). 07:00-19:00. The main if not the only attraction of the town, also inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Caves are accessible after 10 minutes of stone stairs climbing. These caves contains well conserved statues and paintings. The entrance is 1,500 LKR for foreigners (as of September 2015).
Do
Buy
Eat
Drink
Sleep
Splurge
There are both simple guest houses and more up-scale resorts available, some close to the temple complex, about 1 km from the town centre.
- Kassapa Lions Rock, Digampathana , Kimbissa, Dambulla, Sri Lanka, ☏ +94 66 5677440. 31 rooms with a veranda that opens to a mini garden, all of which have air-conditioning, satellite TV and mini-bar. From 100$ (2013).
- Amaya Lake, Kap Ela, Kandalama, Dambulla, ☏ +94 66 4461500, +94 66 2286823/5, amayalake@amayaresorts.com. 120 rooms. From 119USD (2013).
- Heritance Kandalama Hotel, ☏ +94 66 5555000, +94 773043554, kandalama@heritancehotels.com. From 132$ (2013).
Connect
Go next
- There are several buses to Colombo from the bus station, it costs about 140 LKR in non A/C buses.