A Sweet Time in Kandy

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Kandy is considered the Sinhalese capital of Sri Lanka. Located on a wide plain surrounded by a ring of guardian mountains in central SL, it was difficult for the invading/colonizing foreigners to succeed in taking over the region. As a result, it retains its reputation as the last bastion of independent Buddhist thought and succeeds in holding on to many of the traditional cultural and spiritual rituals of the early people of Ceylon.

David and I hired a driver to take us there on Saturday. On the way, we stopped at the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage. You can see some of the pictures we took of the elephants enjoying their bath in the river. These elephants, hurt or abandoned, are raised at the Orphanage until they are trained to become working animals. The babies were so adorable sticking close to their mothers but also trying a bit of exploration of the river and rocks nearby.

We arrived in Kandy in the late afternoon. Our guidebook had prepared us for a lovely walk around Kandy lake. The sidewalks, though, were typical of those in Colombo ----- broken, in a state of almost repair, and muddy from the afternoon’s downpour (our first while in the country). Kandy was the edge of the comfort envelop for me. Our guest house, while quite clean, had mattresses with no give --- each night I would awaken with aches and pains. The scrambled eggs we had for breakfast the first morning had ants in the eggs. When I told the waiter I couldn’t eat them, he said he understood and returned them to the kitchen. He seemed neither surprised nor upset that I had refused the eggs. David picked out the ants he found and ate his.

The second day of our visit, we strolled around the city visiting markets and the Tooth Temple, known for housing, in a series of solid gold caskets, a tooth from the Buddha. There are many stories about the history of the tooth. In short, it was stolen by many countries and Kings, crushed and thrown into the Indian River, and resurrected into it’s tooth-like shape and smuggled back into Sri Lanka from India in the hair of a princess. It is highly revered by the Buddhist Sri Lankans who worship it each evening in the Temple and who parade it through the streets of Kandy during a religious festival each summer.

I was really put off by the idea of having to take my sandals off to go into the Temple (the female security guard assured me in no uncertain terms that I couldn’t wear shoes.) It had been raining and the thought of walking in bare feet with other muddy-footed worshipers was a real turnoff. But we had read that the Temple was one of the major sites of the town, so we returned the next evening and discarded our shoes along with the rest of the throng.

Prior to the opening of the room, which held the caskets, drummers and horn blowers played their soulful instruments preparing for the tooth to be moved and to be shown to those of us waiting in line. Most of the Sri Lankan women had purchased flowers prior to entering the Temple to bring to the Buddha as an offering. I brought some flowers too and put them on the table along with the others. The temple was beautiful. There were special chambers and rooms with gold and marble Buddhas and the flowers that had been left by the worshipers (and me) had been taken by the monks and distributed beneath all of the Buddhas.

D and I had gotten pretty tired of the spicy SL food by Saturday evening. So we went searching for “western” food and found it in the Queens Hotel. No longer the chic hotel of its former life the food was nevertheless edible and not spicy. Our wish was to find something that was at least adequate and that’s what we found.

The best part of the stay in Kandy was the visit to the magnificent Botanical Garden. It was a magical place and D and I spent about 4 hours there. The orchid house alone was worth the price of admission. I would loved to take some of those orchids home.

We had booked two seats in the first class observation car for our return to Colombo. I had envisioned an air-conditioned car with lovely seats and conductors offering chilled beverages. Well, for about $5.00 for the two of us, you won’t be surprised to know that it was hot, cooled with noisy circulating fans, old, very old, and entirely lacking in refreshments. There were windows that opened with some difficulty but keeping them open during the trip meant that the car was filled with the loud blast of train noises that seemed to randomly increase in sound. The views of the rice patties and egrets and the valleys of SL were, however, well worth the almost 3 hour
trip. Besides, we had our own water. We looked at the views while listening to a wonderful Elmo Leonard mystery and arrived back to Colombo thinking that we were glad to be home.

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Comments

[Beth B]

So interesting
Thank you Judy for the pictures and your stories. I really enjoy all the information. Take care.