Yatagala Raja Maha Viharaya

The Yatagala Raja Maha Viharaya is an amazing temple just a few miles from the colonial city of Galle on Sri Lanka’s southern coast. We did a full-morning day trip to Koggala Lake and the Yatagala Temple, something which I’d highly recommend. Just ask your hotel to contact a reputable tuk-tuk driver and you can negotiate the price from there (it won’t be too much).

Yatagala Raja Maha Viharaya is the kind of temple that you’ll more commonly find in the jungles near Dambulla and Kandy: cave temples adorned with intricately-painted frescoes, pathways winding around massive boulders to reveal hidden shrines, huge reclining Buddhas, and absolute tranquility. Seriously…we were the only people there aside from the temple workers and we couldn’t understand why it wasn't more popular with tourists.

Rajamaha Yatagala Viharaya Temple dates back to the the 3rd century BC and is one of the Galle region's holiest Buddhist sites. When you climb behind the monastery up a wide staircase, you arrive at a giant rock garden which is used as a meditating place. One of the rocks is held up by the other rocks, but it looks like it's magically floating in the photo, with the child holding it up. They are granite rocks decorated with donations brought by pilgrims to the temple (mainly fresh flowers). There is also a Samadhi Buddha statue, representing Buddha in a meditative state. Archaeologists think that