Mood: Mellow yet motivated
Listening to: Another Like You - Mishka
We got a treat by being able to sleep in. Mainly because we
didn’t have anywhere to drive this day. We got up slowly, had a wonderful
breakfast (that buffet was huge!) and found Harry.
We went to the Botanical garden. I was very, very impressed.
The grounds are beautiful. I’m not going to bore you with the 20 bajillion plant
and flower pictures I took, but it was very well done. Kandy is up in the
mountains and the temperature is a bit cooler than other places further down
with a bit less humidity. Mind you I didn’t say it was cool nor there wasn't
any humidity. By this time the heat and humidity was really getting to us and
there wasn’t much enthusiasm. Harry walked with us and gave all of his tour
guide spiel, which was nice. We weren’t there very long at all – just no
interest.
When we were done, Harry took us to a gem factory and we
were shown how they polished. We were also shown a movie on how the gems were
mined that smacked of exploitation. I’m still not sure why they showed that
because I never want to buy any gems from Sri Lanka. Ever. We admired all the
dingchak (shiney thins) politely and asked Harry to eat lunch. We stopped at a
place that had a beautiful view of the river. This was the only good thing about
this place. We opted for sandwiches to keep it cheap and light. We got small
shreds of spicy carrots on bread loaded with mayo from a waiter who for some
reason thought we had ALL day to linger.
After lunch, we were taken to a wood carving shot. At this
point, Daddy G and I were thoroughly tired of being steered towards buying
things. We looked politely and the work and
watched as they explained the different types of wood. We wandered throught the
ginormous warehouse with everything you could ever imagine. Seriously – I saw
wooden dildos inlaid with moth of pearl. Not even kidding. Tables, beautiful
chess sets on coffee tables. We wanted to buy a traditional wood mask. We chose
a design and spent a few minutes digging for a brightly colored one. The
salesman who was supposed to give us a “great price” absolutely did not and
Daddy G just didn’t have enough energy to bargain. After that we were steered
into a clothing boutique loaded with overpriced stuff. We half heartedly looked
around while I whispered to Daddy G that if we were taken to one more shopping
spot, I was going to disabuse Harry of the notion that we wanted to shop
anymore. We’re not big into shopping anyways. The sales girl was quite offended
that I wouldn’t even look at the 600 rupee tee shirts for the kids with
elephants. Erm what? Not only do we not need shirts for the kids, I am not
paying 600 rupees for them just because you silk screened some elephants on
them. We headed back to the hotel to
relax a bit and asked Harry to pick us up in the evening to visit the Temple of
the Tooth.
After we woke up, we took a brief swim and then got dressed.
Harry picked us up and we headed out to visit the Temple of the tooth, where
one of Buddha’s teeth is. The temple was beautiful. Very colorful and ornate. We spent a while in there wandering around.
When we were done, we stopped to get some fresh juice with
Harry.
After that we were hoping to wander around a market type
area, but Harry told us there wasn’t much open after dark. We asked to eat
something simple and cheap and he suggested KFC. We enthusiastically agreed.
KFC was about the same price as it is in India. After buying some water from the grocery next
door for the next day, we headed back for our final night in Kandy. We all fell
asleep rather quickly this night.
Becky
Most likely Harry was getting a cut from all the stores he was taking you too ;-)...
ReplyDeleteThe Temple of the Tooth looks magnificent!
And I've been meaning to tell you - my brother visited Sri Lanka a few years ago - and he came back livid at the price difference for tourists and locals. I mean, in regard to museums and such.
Oh I'm definitely sure he was getting a cut. He never pressured us to buy anything from any particular store, but he pressured us to only shop at certain stores. After his being a tour guide for 15 years, I'm absolutely certain this was happening.
ReplyDeleteThe temple of the tooth was very fun to see. Very bright colored and festive. It's a bit on the smaller side compared with the others we saw, so it didn't take too long.
The price of an attraction (meaning anything you need a ticket to get into) is close to US $30 per ticket. Even in the US, in Manhattan no less, you never pay so much to get into places. We told them my husband forgot his passport (he's a new US citizen) so he used his Indian driver's license to get the reduced fee that they use for Indians the and surrounding countries. The hotels were pretty much the same story - 300 rupees for a 60 rupee bottle of water! That's 150 rupees for a 30 rupee bottle in India, which is still way overpriced!
I noticed the same thing with the water in some of the airports here. I always argue with them about it but with no luck ;-)
DeleteLol. In Chennai, I asked for a bottle of water and he gave it at MSRP. He fought me about not having change for a 100 rupee note, but that's a whole other subject. My husband just about fell over when he heard they gave it at cost, especially after having paid 150 rupees earlier that day.
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