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Published: February 15th 2018
HE SAID... Today we were travelling west from Mahiyangana to
Kandy.
We woke early, organised our packs and wandered down to breakfast at 6:30am. We’d ordered Sri Lankan omelettes the night before, as we needed to leave at 7am sharp, but there was a delay getting them out, so we waited in the dining area with a cup of tea and chunky fruit juice. Our omelettes were placed in front of us at 7am, so we gobbled them quickly, jumped into the minibus and left Mapakada Village at 7:10am.
We were heading to Kandy, Sri Lanka’s cultural capital, which we had visited twice already over the past month. We crossed the Mahaweli Ganga (Sri Lanka’s longest river) as we made our way out of the small and slightly nondescript township of Mahiyangana, which sits 80 metres above sea level.
We climbed out of the Mahaweli lowlands through 18 hairpin bends, and it was a very scenic drive. We stopped around 8am to take a panoramic photo of the dry-zone plains below us, with majestic mountain ranges spreading across the horizon. The incredibly scenic bus ride continued as we slowly made our up the Knuckles Range, reaching 935 metres
above sea level as we passed through the tiny shanty town of Hunnasgiriya. We then began our descent from the Knuckles Ranges through endless hairpin bends. This was a beautiful (albeit slow) bus ride, with rice terraces dotting the mountain sides. Every now and again we would look down on the Bambaragan Oya below (‘oya’ translates as smaller river), and I felt slightly uneasy when I noticed a traffic hazard sign that showed a car plummeting from a steep ravine into a river…
We continued our descent into Kandy (which sits 600 metres above sea level), arriving in the city’s outer suburbs around 9am. It then took us another 30 minutes to make our way into the main city centre. We jumped off the minibus at the back entrance of the Temple of the Tooth, and we soon realised the temple was nowhere near as crowded as it was the last time we were here.
We made our way into the temple complex, and I couldn’t believe the difference from our previous visit, where we were crammed shoulder to shoulder in a chaotic queue which slowly snaked up the stairs and past the casket holding the sacred tooth.
This time we had time and space to take photos, and we were able to leisurely walk up the stairs and past the casket without any crowd turbulence. We made our way into the library, where we walked past the Pansiya Panasjathakaya, the oldest ola leaf book, and we also managed to walk through a small shrine just before it closed (which we had queued for, but missed out on, the last time we were here).
The musicians played as loudly as ever, so we could barely hear ourselves think inside the temple. There were quite a few school groups visiting at the same time, which was fantastic to see. We left the complex mid-morning and dropped into St Paul’s Church on our way to Barista Coffee Lanka for a cold, refreshing ‘lemon ice tea’ and ‘lime and mint crush’. With drinks in hand, we roamed Kandy’s market streets in the old slum area of town before heading to the city’s main market near the clock tower.
The last time we were in Kandy we didn’t spend a lot of time in this bustling market, so we ventured further into its undercover maze of colourful stalls. We then
jumped into our minibus and navigated Kandy’s crazy and crowded traffic on our way to the Prasanna Gem Centre, where we watched a mind-numbingly boring documentary on Sri Lanka’s gem industry and listened to an equally boring explanation of the types of gemstones found in the country. We watched lapidary specialists crafting gems, and then found ourselves in a large salesroom where we were swooped upon by salesmen selling sapphires and other gemstones set in old-style and outdated metal finishes. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough!
We jumped into our minibus and headed back into the heart of Kandy, where we lunched at the Yoosufiya Eating House. The place was packed, so we walked to the top floor and settled at a long table beside a window. We shared yellow rice with boiled eggs,
dahl (lentil curry), okra curry, green bean curry, coconut chutney (a thick mixture of ground coconut, tamarind and chilli) and a
gotukola sambol (pennywort salad with shredded coconut, green chillies, onions, lime and salt). Plates of chicken and beef were placed on our table, but we opted against meat and decided to go vegetarian, as the meat looked like it had been out
in the open air for quite a while, possibly on plates which other diners had picked at. Our rice and curry tasted good (especially the
dahl), and we finished the meal with
watalappan (spiced coconut egg custard of Malay origin), which was seriously good.
We then walked from the main centre of Kandy to our hotel (Hotel Suisse), which was located on the edge of the lake at the opposite end of the main city centre. It was a long walk, and one we enjoyed, as we’d become very fond of the lake on our last two visits. We checked into our tired, old fashioned and enormous room and freshened up… it had been a long day of bus travel after an early start.
In the late afternoon we settled in the hotel’s bar lounge (once frequented by Lord Mountbatten) for a few pre-dinner drinks, then jumped into our minibus and headed into the main city centre. We crept into a very dark and seedy bar (Pawana Restaurant) for a couple of double distilled arrack and sodas, which came with plates of devilled (spicy stir-fry) chickpeas and deep fried cashew nuts with curry leaves. We were surrounded by
tables of local Sri Lankan men, who were very surprised to see women in their bar.
We then walked to another bar (Victory City Hotel) for a few more arrack and sodas before making our way to an Indian Tamil eatery (Sri Ram Indian Restaurant) for dinner. We ordered
chicken biryani (rice dish steamed with chicken curry),
chicken masala dosa and
potato masala dosa (
dosas are thin lacy crepes made of lightly-fermented black lentils and rice / called
thosai in Sri Lanka). The
chicken biryani was served in a deconstructed manner, with the chicken on the side. The food was exceptional, and possibly the best meal we’d had so far in Sri Lanka. Tamil food is certainly becoming a favourite of mine.
We headed back to the hotel and settled at a table on the lawn outside the bar lounge. We sipped on local rum in the balmy night air as we looked out over Kandy Lake, before retiring to our room at 11pm. We had an early start the following day, as we were heading back to Colombo. We only had two more days in Sri Lanka – our holiday was coming to an end.
SHE SAID... We had an early start at 5:30am, as we had to drive from Mahiyangana to
Kandy and get there in time for the morning
puja (prayer ceremony) at the Sri Dalada Maligawa (Temple of the Sacred Tooth). However, our early start efforts were in vain, as the kitchen was running behind on our promised early breakfasts. I was especially peeved as I’d had a restless night, and those 30 minutes we sat around waiting could have been spent in bed! Eventually the food started trickling out, but we had to eat quickly and rush out the door. Not surprisingly, it was harder than normal to keep my eyes open in the minibus. 😊
We left the flat scrubland and drove into greener country, then up the steep 18 Bend Road that until recently had quite a notorious safety record. The road had been upgraded and safety barriers installed. However, it was still a two lane road hanging precariously onto the side of a mountain with reckless drivers who insisted on overtaking on blind corners. As far as I was concerned, until driver education improved, the road would always deserve its bad reputation.
High up in
the hills, we stopped at a lovely little lookout with a gorgeous view over the hills and valleys. However, we decided to cut our viewing time short when a territorial war between two gangs of rabid looking dogs kicked off.
We crossed the mighty muddy-coloured Mahaweli Ganga into Kandy. This was our third visit to Kandy on this trip, and interestingly we’d arrived into the city from a different direction each time. Kandy sits high in the mountains and is surrounded on three sides by the Mahaweli River, and on the fourth side by the Knuckles Mountain range – a city naturally fortified by its geography.
Kandy was the seat of the last King, the last royal kingdom in the country to fall to colonial powers. The Kandyan Kingdom was once powerful and resisted conquer by the Portuguese and the Dutch for three centuries, but eventually fell to the British when they were betrayed by one of their own. It still bears evidence of its royal past with the King’s Palace complex in the grounds of the Dalada Maligawa temple.
Anil our driver had driven at breakneck speed to get us to the Dalada Maligawa for the
morning
puja time of 9:30am. This temple is the most revered Buddhist site in the country and houses an important Buddhist relic – a tooth of the Buddha. The legend is that the tooth was stolen at Buddha’s funeral and smuggled into Sri Lanka, hidden in the hair of Princess Hemamali who fled from India. In an ironic twist, even though the tooth was saved by a woman, and delivered to the country by a woman… current religious doctrine doesn’t allow women to have anything to do with the sacred tooth.
We were dropped off at the back entrance to the temple. It was a weekday and very much less packed than when we visited on a Saturday. As we did the last time, we left our shoes at a counter near the ticket booth and crossed the moat around the temple complex. We walked through the main entrance into the ornately painted
ambarawa tunnel entry which led into the Drummer’s Courtyard in the lower floor of the main shrine. In this courtyard, musicians in traditional costumes had announced that
puja had commenced. The horn blower and three drummers beating unique Kandyan drums were as loud as the last
time we were here, but their performance hadn’t got anymore tuneful or pleasing to my ears.
The crowds were down to less than 50% of last time, and this was most notably felt when we realised that the queue to the main upstairs chamber (where the sacred tooth was housed) started at the entrance to the actual chamber, rather than all the way downstairs at the entrance to the Drummer’s Courtyard. It was a much more pleasant experience.
The queue shuffled past the gilded chamber of the tooth which contained the golden casket with the sacred tooth. This time the queue moved gently, and with less yelling from the men in charge of crowd control. We also managed to see the casket again by walking into the main room that faces the shrine, which had far fewer white clad devotees this time.
The last time we visited, we missed out on seeing the small room that housed the King’s personal shrine. Our ineffective guide on that trip had neglected to tell us that the shrine was only open during the brief period of
puja. So this time we hustled out of the main chamber and lined up
to walk into the smallest of shrine rooms with a very old Buddha statue. In a temple full of pomp and ceremony, I loved this small and personal space very much.
We revisited the manuscript room in the
pattirippuwa (octagon) building that is featured in most photographs of the temple. While the main attraction was the collection of ancient palm-leaf manuscripts in glass cabinets and a collection of Buddha statues, my main motivation to revisit this room was to walk out on the wooden balcony and look at the temple grounds from this impressive vantage point.
Before we left the old temple, I relished the chance to take in the rich details of the interior architecture and design of the temple at a much calmer pace. And taking photographs is much more pleasurable when you aren’t being jostled in all directions! 😊
The Alut Maligawa (the new temple) sits across a stone courtyard from the old temple. In a large shrine hall flanked by white Buddha statues donated by Thailand, the focus of the room is a large golden Buddha at one end. The walls were also lined with art works that depicted Buddha’s story from enlightenment
to reaching nirvana.
Something I haven’t yet mentioned about Buddhist temples, is that it’s considered the height of rudeness and disrespect to pose for a photo with your back turned to a Buddha statue (i.e. no selfies are allowed). This was made very clear with signs at every Buddhist temple or shrine we’d been to in the country. And yet so many tourists are either oblivious to the signs, or don’t care about causing offence in the pursuit of snapping a selfie.
While we were in the new temple, I took it upon myself to point out the signs to a few offenders… their reactions were mixed – a young bloke in a south park t-shirt gave me an evil f-off look (especially after he realised my smiling face was blocking the Buddha statue as in his beautifully composed selfie), but two older couples apologised profusely. I think they thought I was a local Buddhist who was personally offended… but they clearly didn’t dwell on it for long, as a few minutes later I saw one of the old men doing it again. Sigh. 😱
The two floors above the shrine hall contained the Sri Dalada Museum,
which we had mixed reactions to the last time (10% of it was interesting, 90% of it was like being in a hoarder’s house). It definitely didn’t warrant a second visit.
We waked into the palace grounds and into the lovely 18th century
magul maduwa (Audience Hall). This open air pavilion with carved wooden columns and a Kandyan style roof definitely warranted a second visit. It was where court was held, but more famously it was where the British ended the Kandyan Kingdom with the signing of the Kandyan Convention in 1815. Quite aptly, this open pavilion design was used as a blueprint for the Independence Memorial Hall in Colombo, which commemorates the end of colonial rule.
We walked past the glass house where devotees were lighting little clay oil lamps, then past the King’s Palace (which now holds the Museum of the Department Archaeology), and finally past the smaller palace (where the King used to meet foreign guests) which housed the sorry looking taxidermied remains of the temple elephant Rajah.
We then explored an outer courtyard we’d missed the first time. It held three ancient shrine houses called Devales. The 14th century Natha Devale’s vibrant sculptural
entrance panel caught my eye, as did the old bodhi tree (a fig tree native to south Asia) on the grounds – a sapling taken from the very sacred 2000+ year old bodhi tree we visited in Anuradhapura. Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment while meditating under a bodhi tree in India, and it has since became a symbol of the Buddha's presence and an object of worship. This complex used to contain the sacred tooth before it was moved into its more secure location inside the palace walls.
I was glad we had the opportunity to re-visit the Dalada Maligawa and see the main chamber that housed the sacred tooth on a quieter weekday, and it made me wish the temple would restrict tourist numbers on weekends and holy days. Our last visit on a Saturday was manic, and I really felt that we got in the way of people praying. Our need to experience the temple shouldn’t be at the expense of worshippers, because for some this was a once in a lifetime pilgrimage.
Leaving the temple and palace complex, we visited the red brick St Paul's Church which was right next door. My Mum
used to teach at the attached school, and even though I had spent time there as a child, I didn’t remember any details of the beautiful church or the grounds. It was sad to see that the beautiful church was badly in need of some love and renovation.
By this stage we were hot and thirsty, so we crossed the road to a Barista coffee shop and ordered an iced lemon tea and lime juice. As lovely as the cold drinks were, it was also an excuse to use their clean toilets. 😊
We then headed downtown via the busy Queen’s Hotel arcade, and through the jam-packed bazaar streets in the Ali Mudukkuwa area near the iconic Kandy Clock Tower. The tightly criss-crossed back alleys are now home to all manner of commerce, but it used to be a high density slum until its residents were relocated to housing in the suburbs.
We walked into a seedy underpass lined with shops, and came upon a once-beautiful fountain with an ostentatious skylight. It was such a shame that it had been left to ruin. We exited the labyrinth underpass into the bus station area near the produce market.
The produce market was still as underwhelming as the last time we visited. I had been prepared to give the much talked about Kandy Market the benefit of the doubt. However, the second visit confirmed that the produce wasn’t that great and the produce sellers were a surly bunch.
A few people in the group wanted to buy some Sri Lankan gems, so a trip to a gem outlet had been arranged. Andrew and I had no intention of buying anything, but went along out of curiosity. Bad mistake. We boarded our minibus and were driven to a complex on the outskirts of town. First we had to walk through a very kitsch stage set of a mine tunnel, complete with 4 foot tall papier-mache miners with eerie smiling faces. Then we were subjected to a painful 80s style video glorifying the mining process. By this stage I was ready to stab my eyeballs out! Luckily it got briefly better after that. We observed a raw gemstone been cut and polished, and then watched jewellers setting cut stones into custom made silver jewellery. It was really interesting and I could have watched them all day.
Then as expected,
we had to spend time looking at their jewellery – with determined salesmen following our every move and putting the hard-sell on us. It’s absolutely my least favourite way to shop, but more to the point, the quality wasn’t brilliant nor were the savings enough to warrant the lack of love in the process. I looked at a few blue sapphires (my birthstone) and the prices weren’t that different to jewellers in town. Mind you, I could have overlooked many of these things if the jewellery was to my taste, but none of it was even close (although almost all the other people in the group bought at least one piece).
We were driven back to the Ali Mudukkuwa area in Kandy’s city centre for a local lunch. The main street of Kandy is a very heavily populated Muslim area, and most of the commerce and eateries are operated by the Muslim community. In the streets behind the Muslim Hotel we’d eaten at before, we walked upstairs to Yoosufiya Restaurant. We always say we want to eat as the locals do, and this was as local as it got. I have to admit that I was slightly (a lot)
perturbed by the filthy walls and floor, but we were there on the recommendation of Bala (our group leader) who loves his food, and the place was absolutely packed – so we put our trust in the food gods. Dishes of yellow rice, boiled eggs, curry sauce, green bean curry, okra curry,
dahl (lentil curry),
gotukola sambol (pennywort salad with shredded coconut, green chillies, onions, lime and salt), and coconut chutney (a thick mixture of ground coconut, tamarind and chilli) were brought to the table. There were also deep fried chicken and beef dishes, but given the environs, we decided to be vegetarian for that meal. The food was quite delicious, but the highlight was the dessert of
watalappan (spiced coconut egg custard of Malay origin) – easily the best we’d had on the whole trip. I was glad the food was as good as Bala said it was… and I was even gladder that no one got sick. However, I would have enjoyed my meal much much much more if I hadn’t been trying to block the dirty floor and walls from my peripheral vision.
After lunch we walked along the road that circled Kandy Lake to our
lakeside hotel. The afternoon was overcast and cool so the walk was pleasant. We’d stayed on the eastern banks of the lake on our first visit to Kandy and were familiar with this walk around the lake. However, the road is quite a busy one, and the walking experience was somewhat marred by overstuffed public buses with horns blaring, speeding around the bends in the road and blowing a gale of exhaust smoke at us.
We checked into Suisse Hotel, where our luggage had been brought earlier in the day by our minibus driver. The hotel is in an old colonial building that would have been beautiful and grand in its time, but is now what I would call very much faded and chipped grandeur. The rooms were huge and well-furnished and it was easy to see that this was once quite luxurious, but hard to ignore that it is now tired and sad looking. Our bed had been strewn with rose petals and there was a small complimentary heart-shaped chocolate mousse cake waiting on the dresser. Cute, but oh-so old fashioned. 😊
We were nearing the end of our trip and it was showing – my energy
levels were getting low. I showered and napped until 5pm, after which we joined Damien at the hotel’s Mountbatten Bar for drinks. Lord Mountbatten was Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Southeast Asia during World War II, and had his command headquarters in Kandy. He apparently favoured this hotel and bar. The bar was grand but understated enough to be warm and welcoming. I had an arrack cocktail with passion fruit juice and lime, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as the arrack cocktail we had at the Queen’s Hotel across the lake.
The three of us got picked up by our minibus at 6:15pm and drove downhill to pick up the rest of the group who had attended a Cultural Show. Bala had been promising us a ‘dodgy bar’ tour in Kandy, and the first one was down a side street and up a back alley across from the Kandy Clock Tower… and it was seriously super-seedy. There were very very drunk looking local men with bloodshot eyes drinking alone, and a few socialising in small groups. We shared a bottle of arrack, which came with a devilled (spicy stir-fry) chickpea dish and deep fried cashew nuts
with curry leaves. The snacks were very tasty and went well with the arrack. I’ve been to some seedy bars, but I have to admit I was glad to leave this place.
We then walked to a second bar – the Victory City Hotel on Colombo Street. This was a normal kind of bar, but again, only frequented by men. We shared another half bottle of arrack before going to dinner.
Dinner was a few doors up at Sri Ram Restaurant, which specialised in South Indian Tamil food, so we took the opportunity to try their
dosas (thin lacy crepes made of lightly-fermented black lentils and rice / called
thosai in Sri Lanka). Mark, Damien, Andrew and I shared a
chicken masala dosa,
potato masala dosa and a
chicken biryani (rice dish steamed with chicken curry). The
dosas were fabulous, and while I'm still not a big fan of
biryani, this was quite a tasty version.
We retired to the lawn of the Suisse Hotel for drinks, and had one or two drinks before falling into bed for our last night in Kandy. Even though this had been a very brief visit, we had now spent a
total of six days in Kandy, and I felt like we knew the city centre and surrounds quite well.
Considering this is the city in which I was born and where I spent the early part of my childhood, it may seem odd that I’d never before given thought to how Kandy got its rather odd but fabulous name. On doing some research, I was surprised to find that there are many versions of the story. The one that rang most true was that the Sinhala reference
Kanda Uda Rata (meaning the land on the mountain) was anglicised during the colonial era. The Portuguese shortened this to
Candea, and the British changed it to Kandy. In Sinhala, Kandy is called
Maha Nuwara, meaning ‘Great City’, but I have never heard anyone use this name.
I’ve heard the region of Kandy referred to as one of the most beautiful places in Sri Lanka – with its waterfalls and mountain ranges, colonial buildings and ornate temples. However, whatever beauty the city once held, urban sprawl has had an impact on its natural surrounds, and the increased population density is choking the narrow old streets in the city centre. It’s also
very obvious that no money has been spent on the maintenance of the city, and it definitely doesn’t seem to get the same sort of investment that Colombo has received.
It’s certainly a far cry from the charming old Kandy town I remember from my childhood, and it desperately needs some innovative urban planning, sensible traffic management and sustainable investment to make it shine again.
Next we travel south-west to Colombo…our last stop in Sri Lanka.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Extraordinary colors
Love this shot.