Kandy

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Relaxing at the Kandy House

Heading off south from Sigiriya to Kandy, we stopped about 20km from Dambulla at the Nalanda Gedige, a little-visited temple (Ervin had never been there) that, uniquely, blends the design of south-Indian Hindu temples with traditional Sri Lankan Buddhist architecture. It is a thousand or more years old, very beautifully proportioned, and sits in a delightful spot on a peninsular jutting into a large artificial lake. Some sources say that the gedige (image house) is also built at the geographical centre of the island, but very little appears to be known about it. Carrying on south we stopped to explore one of the many spice gardens along this road where Lisa made several purchases of Ayurvedic potions and we had a "light lunch" of rice and nine different curries; it was remarkably cheap, and yet proved to be amongst the best Sri Lankan food we experienced on our whole trip.

Our final stop, 24km before Kandy, was at the Aluvihara monastery where several caves are filled with Buddha images and brightly coloured frescoes depicting both religious images and scenes from hell designed to encourage people to lead sinless lives. There is also a dusty old museum of sorts that is connected in some impenetrable way to the transcription of Buddhist canon from Sinhalese into Pali (a written language connected to Sanskrit) in the first century BC.

Finally, in the late afternoon we arrived on the outskirts of Kandy and after a tortuous drive along twisty back roads we found the peaceful sanctuary that is the Kandy House, where Yves and Ashleigh Ogier were waiting to meet us. After settling in, we had cocktails on the lawn with our hosts followed by an excellent dinner that emerged from Yves' kitchen. The time flew as we caught up with each others' news, and it was twelve-thirty before we got up from the table and fell into our four poster bed.

The Kandy House was built as a walauwa (manor house), probably in the late 18th century. By 1804 it was owned by the aristocratic Ratwatte family whose descendents include the Bandaranaikes (two Sri Lankan prime ministers and a president). Still in Ratwatte family hands, the run-down walauwa was leased to a Hong Kong couple and extensively renovated in 2005 by Geoffrey Bawa's protégée, Channa Daswatte. He turned it into an elegant boutique hotel with nine chic rooms, cool courtyards, bird-filled gardens and a pool perched on a terrace overlooking the Ratwatte family paddy fields. Ashleigh and Yves had been running it since early 2006 and it is an enchanting place.

In the morning Lisa and I accompanied Yves on his daily shopping trip to the market in Kandy town. He developed a handful of regular suppliers here for his fruit, vegetables, meat and fish both for the Kandy House kitchen as well as for their own home ten minutes up the road. We then went on to an antique shop owned by Waruna Jayasingha and his Japanese wife Yumi, friends of Ashleigh and Yves, and a delightful couple. After an hour or more of browsing their rambling and eclectic shop we left with ten small Buddhas and a Parvati bronze!

Back at Kandy House Yves put together a light lunch of brain salad (goat brains, actually, which we had bought at the market earlier). Later, while Lisa had a massage I relaxed with my book and had a refreshing siesta in the cool of our room. It was great to unwind after all the sightseeing of the past five days.

In the early evening, Ashleigh collected us up and took us home for dinner. They had rented the self-contained half of a massive, rambling old house with a large garden and were still knocking it into shape; in fact this could end up being a five year project! Although their eldest daughter, Poppy, had recently left for boarding school in Brisbane (Lisa and I had seen her in Singapore on her way through), it was good to see Ruby-Rose, aged 4, again and to meet 13 month-old Indigo (born in Kandy) for the first time. Joining us for dinner was Asoka, a charmingly eccentric Sri Lankan from (one assumes) a moneyed family, a witty raconteur and terrific company. As we conversed across a range of topics from Sri Lankan history to world politics to life in London, Ashleigh's cook served up Tamil-style roti, various curries, and daal - all exceedingly good. At the end of the evening, Asoka drove us back to the hotel, windows down, David Bowie cranked up to maximum volume, shattering the tranquillity of the rural neighbourhood.

The next day was Sri Lanka National Day, and we spent a lazy morning at Kandy House. I indulged in two egg hoppers for breakfast. Hoppers (appa) are thin bowl-shaped chapattis made from a batter of rice flour, coconut milk and a dash of palm toddy, which is added for the sourish taste and to provide the fermentation which makes the centres full of little holes like crumpets. An egg hopper has a fried egg in the middle, and was served today with a sambol of red onions, garlic and spices. Next to traditional bacon and eggs, this has to be the best breakfast ever, and as I write this my mouth is watering.

Lisa taught the kitchen staff a lamb shank recipe (goat shank, of course, that we bought in the market the day before), and when it was cooked we took it over to Ash and Yves' for a relaxed lunch. Yves had cooked three new types of vegetable he had discovered in the market, none of which appear to have a name, but each of which was delicious. He could talk with great animation about local produce and recipes, and was loving the foodie experience he was getting in Sri Lanka. After just a few days in the country, it was easy enough to see why.

After lunch we all got in the car to drive about 25km out of Kandy into the fringes of the Knuckles Range to Hunas Falls which derives its name from Hunasgiriya Peak, a forest-covered mountain overlooking a tranquil landscape and the graceful sixty meter high waterfall. Just above the falls is a tea plantation and the Hunas Falls Hotel where we had a pleasant wander around the extensive, manicured grounds: Yves and I took a short but steep hike up a nearby hill while Ruby-Rose had a pony-ride around the lake that feeds the falls and Lisa, Ash and Indigo just chilled out and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

On National Day no alcohol is permitted in public places, but we rose to the challenge anyway and took off to Helga's Folly for "cocktails" and dinner. This huge rambling family home, said to be "1930's Art Nouveau", was turned into a hotel perhaps fourty years ago and has been decorated over the years in an eccentrically surreal and fantastically colourful style by owner Helga de Silva Blow Perera. Every inch of ceiling and wall is painted with murals and then much of it covered with paintings, old photographs, family memorabilia and any other eclectic item that takes Helga's fancy. The accessories are all equally whacky.

We had an appetizing alcohol-free dinner and when Helga, whom Ash and Yves know quite well, joined us we spent a most entertaining hour chatting with her. She is a larger than life character who lived much of her life in England. To avoid returning to Sri Lanka from boarding school in the early sixties, she got married at age seventeen to Jonathan Blow (twenty-five years her senior), a minor British aristocrat and historian with an estate in Gloucestershire which he gifted to Helga as a 21st birthday present. Widowed at 32, she had a second and immensely tumultuous marriage that lasted nine years, before returning to Sri Lanka again in 1989 in the throes of a bitter divorce - when she started to whimsically decorate the "Folly" to sublimate her depression. It would take a whole book to tell Helga's story and that of her eminent family of activists, artists, designers, lawyers, politicians and diplomats. Snippets are that her QC brother, Desmond (knighted shortly after our visit), is married to Princess Katarina of Yugoslavia (96th in line to the British throne, I discovered), and her daughter Selina Blow is a well-known and successful London fashion-designer. Next ➤ ➤

Howard's Kandy Gallery

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