This Spectacular Tower Will Rekindle Your Fear of Heights

Up the winding stairs of Sri Lanka’s Ambuluwawa Tower

The Ambuluwawa Tower│Photo by a friend, Jameema Rafaideen (taken with permission)

I went home for the first time in two years during the summer of 2022, with a wanderlust not easily quenched, having come to the painful realisation that I had, in fact, explored very little of my home country.

Sri Lanka: a small breathtaking island shaped like a teardrop off the southern coast of India. You might know us for our tea — most famously, Ceylon Tea — or for our cricket.

A month after I went home, I ventured out with my group of decade-long friends, to visit an iconic tower that had taken over social media in the past few years — the Ambuluwawa Tower.

We boarded a train from Peradeniya to Gampola, and then took a bus from Gampola to Ambuluwawa. As we got off at our destination, thin tendrils of mist were slowly untangling ahead of us. The day was going to be misty and cold.

The cornerstone of the Ambuluwawa Tower at the entrance│Photo by Sharika Hafeez

A trek of about 3 kilometres along a serpentine road will take you to the Ambuluwawa mountain and the tower which stands atop it. It can be crossed either by foot or by the three-wheelers (rickshaws) parked at…