Sri Lanka Day 5: Kandy Part 2

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

Sri Lanka Day 4: Damballa and Kandy

Mood: Mellow yet motivated

Listening to: Carousel - Buckcherry

We woke up early again (notice a pattern here?) and had breakfast. The buffet was standard, but really nice. Back into the car and on the road to Kandy with a stop in Damballa.

Damballa:

This has got to be one of the coolest places I have ever been in my life. I know my inner nerd is showing, but still. We parked at the Damballa temple. After some quick bathroom breaks and more money hemorrhage for tickets, we wandered into the Buddhist museum. It was amazing. If you ever have the opportunity to go to Sri Lanka, you just can’t miss this. It was a great museum. I’m only posting some of the pics I took – otherwise this would take way, way too long.

Wall Paintings

For some reason this Buddha cracked me up. Look at that Goatee and pencil stache. That there is Buddha Bro.

I'm not going to drive you nuts by posting all of the Buddhas in here (and there were TONS), but it was fun to see how different countries reincarnated the image to fit their needs.

Buddha's on every flat surface. Oh my.

My kids swore these statues were going to come alive at any moment. My husband, being the gem he is told them they only come alive at night and eat naughty little girls.

We then hiked up to the temple in the mountain. Harry took us half way in consideration of the smallest child. It was still a little hike, but nothing like Sigriya. Lots and lots o monkeys here. Silence is required, as is leaving your shoes outside.

The outsides of the caves

Even the frogs are Zen. We were super close to this one.

The caves were absolutely breathtaking. So very serene and spiritual. Trust me – that’s quite a statement coming from me.

When we were finished, Harry took off for Kandy like it was running away. We eventually wove our way up into the mountains. Harry stopped at a spice garden so we could take a tour. The guide talked us into eating lunch there. We were hungry, so it seemed to be a good idea. Again with the fried noodles and Sri Lanka curry. There was absolutely WAY too much pepper in the food. We dropped so much money just on water to wash it all down! It was a tourist place too, so way overpriced.

The “kerosene” lamps cracked me up.

The guide took us around the spice garden and showed us some of the plants and pontificating on their Ayurvedic properties and uses (another word for plant based medicine).  He said “Excuse me Sir and Madam,” Every 3 minutes, even though he had our full attention the entire time. I felt like flicking him in the head by the end of the tour, even thought it was short.

Pepper Tree

He offered to give us short Ayurvedic facials and massages at the end. After the way my skin reacted to the facial I had in Bangalore, I wasn’t up for putting anything else on it right now. As to the massage, well, I’m not a big fan of touching people or being touched by random people, especially guys. After moving to India and having guys trip over themselves on the street to not accidentally run into me, I’m quite cool with that. Even disrespectful guys never get close enough to touch. No touch-ee dude, no touch-ee.

We collected Harry and piled back in the van to finish our short trip to Kandy. As we arrived, I loved Kandy. It is an absolutely charming city. It’s set in a valley with a river running through the middle of it.

On the way, we stopped at a Batik shop. Batik is created by an artist using a special tool to drop wax on certain parts of a cloth (which also soaks through to the other side) and then the whole cloth is dipped in dye. The cloth is then boiled to remove the wax. Depending on the design, it is waxed again, either the same spots or different, dyed and boiled again, until the desired picture is achieved. It struck Daddy G and I as very tedious work for the artists and we bought some as a souvenir.  The shop lady even kindly showed me how to tie a Sri Lankan sari. I know it was a sales bit, but it was fun to learn, since I already can tie an Indian sari. Another wedding was going on right next door.

When we were done, Harry piled us I the van and went to park along the street across from the cultural center. WE walked down to the river and took a very much over priced boat ride. It was nice, but short. There were an absolute ton of birds everywhere, including cormorants, which I like.

When we were done, we went back to the cultural center to take in a traditional Kandyan dance performance. Again, this is one of the best experiences I have ever had. If you want to see an example, I suggest you check out Kandyan dance on Youtube. Blogger is very unhappy with me today due to all the pics I am uploading. Every one of us enjoyed the show immensely and especially enjoyed the fire dance show that happened afterwards.

When we were done, we asked Harry to go somewhere to eat, but he told us no can do. Apparently, a General who had gone against the President was let out of jail and was visiting the temple of the tooth. Bad place for foreigners to be in general. We quickly agreed with him and went to the Kandy Topaz hotel to check in. Quick check in and fresh juice. The hotel lobby was quietly fancy and had a gemstone store. We went to our room and chilled out for a while. There are some rumors about bedbugs floating around on the internet for the Topaz, and I think they are correct. The room looked spotless, but we still came away with multiple bites, even though the room didn’t have any mosquitoes. Our room had a small porch and the view was beautiful.

Again, we headed down to the pool. There wasn’t really a shallow section of the pool here, so the kids swam with us. It was on a hill ledge and it was dark by the time we got to swimming. It was still very nice.

Again, a dinner ordered for the kids – which they were almost too tired to eat any of – and then back for bed.

This hotel charged for internet access. While it was expensive (350 rupees for 2 hours!), I had work I needed to do. When my computer died because it didn’t have batteries, things got ugly. There were absolutely no plugins in our room. I got really pissed that I had just bought 2 hours of internet I could not use. The lobby didn’t have any plug ins either.  What gives Hotel Topaz??

I pouted, stomped (quietly) around for a while and then just went to bed. I decided to embrace Sri Lankan Buddhism and just accept the situation.

Becky