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COLOMBO - 7th April
An early morning arrival in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka and we were heading out of the city to the hill country town of Kandy.
Colombo is situated at the crossroads of the great spice routes, it is the country's largest city and leading port on the west coast.
This is our second visit and they have not stood still as far as development of the port area.
The country now has a separate cruise ship terminal so it looks as though they encouraging more ships to visit.
There is a lot to take in if you choose to stay in the city with the must sees mainly being Churches, Temples and Mosques.
The most important and impressive being, Wolfendahl Church, the oldest Protestant Church, St Lucia's Cathedral in the Kotahena district (the seat of the Archbishop of Colombo), Jami-Ul-Alfar Mosque (holds 8000 worshippers) and the Gangaramaya Temple, an unusual Buddhist temple. There are also plenty of museums such as the Dutch Period Museum and the National Museum.
We had opted for the trip to Kandy, which is 72 miles from Colombo so a very
early start. Our previous visit had taken us to the tea growing area so I think we were hoping for something a bit different.
The trip takes a few hours so you are treated to mountain views across paddy fields and small tea estates.
We were heading primarily to "The Temple of the Tooth" the most sacred Buddhist place in Sri Lanka. It houses the casket containing the sacred tooth relic of the Lord Buddha. Seventy per cent of the population are Buddhist so we expected it to be crowded.
The most visited temple in Sri Lanka is the Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara just a few miles from Colombo, we hoped everybody would be there, but guess what - they all had turned up to see the casket.
However there is nothing to see, it was one of the least inspiring temples and Royal Palace we have been in, coupled with the oppressive heat and humidity and the crowds made it very uncomfortable.
We had to remove our shoes and the concrete was so hot. So after an abortive visit to the National museum, which the guide suddenly found was closed we set off for
lunch. The traffic was appalling in the town. Lunch was some local dishes mixed with western styles (lots of rice) expensive beer.
Then to cap it all a thunderstorm started as we were leaving to go to the botanical gardens, our last call of the day.
The orchid collection was the highlight, but time constraints only gave us a short time to visit the gardens. The whole day could have been planned better, so it was disappointing to arrive back very late to the ship, tired and feeling a bit short changed. If the museum had been opened we would have even been later.
The final nail in the coffin was the bus driver got lost in the port with the ship in full view and us driving around not getting any nearer to "our home".
We were not the only ones disappointed, but at least we saw some nice scenery driving out to the town.
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