Aclimatising to Sri Lanka in Kandy

---

Geo: 7.28446, 80.6375

This was a beautiful first stay for 2 nights, with time to appreciate a tastefully renovated house that an Indian earning good money overseas had restored with his parents. I had a swim every morning, we had breakfast in thr garden and supper each night in the living room. Our bed was at the top of a tall look out tower, reached by a dangerously steep flight of stairs, but beautifully breezy,with a good view of garden and pool, when you got there.

The first thing to get used to is the warmth. For the most part this is an attractive summer temperature, with cool early mornings and warm evenings, but walking around between 12.00 and 4.00 can be a lttle sweaty. Having an air con car helps. Our driver Christopher is a nice guy to get to know, with lots of experience guiding for flash companies like Abercrombie &Kent . He drives his comfortable Honda carefully, which is the main thing, and makes the journeys very easy. He has lots to tell us about Sri Lankan society, sometimes with a bit of a chip on his shoulder, but maybe with good reason. He seems to like us anyway.

On our first full day in Kandy he showed us round the Botanical gardens and after a buffet lunch the Buddhist temple of the first tooth, both prime tourist sights, so we got introduced to Sri Lankan tourism, with visitors from all over, including tour groups of Russians and increasingly large numbers of Chinese family groups, with all generations travelling together.

The crazy traffic gets some getting used to, with lorries, busses, tuc tucs, pedestrians and cars all competing for the same space on 2 lane windy roads. At least the cars look more road worthy than they were 35 years ago, when we were last here, but Im glad were not travelling by bus!

---

Photos

Peter on the balcony,
our bedroom in the top of that tower

Stuffed Raja
He carried the Tooth Relic in parades for over 40 years

Comments

[Jane McClelland]

Looks great. Will be there in the 20th. Do we need an umbrella??