Saturday 24 January 2015

By Train to Nuwara Eliya: Part 7 of Sri Lanka, Isle of Serendip

An Enormous Buddha, the Wrong Cemetery, a Train Ride and the Hill Club

The Bahiravakanda Buddha

Sri Lanka

Today’s main event was a train ride up to Nuwara Eliya, the highest town in Sri Lanka's hill country, but as it left at midday we had time to see some of Kandy's other landmarks.

A huge white statute of a seated Buddha overlooks the town, and despite Kandy being tucked into a dozen different valleys it can be seen from nearly everywhere. The twenty minute walk from the city centre is steep, so we were happy to let Ravi drive us there.

The Bahiravakanda Buddha looks down over Kandy

This is Sri Lanka, so you must pay to enter the Buddha's enclosure, (and pay again for someone to look after your shoes), but the view from the top is worth the price - it would even have been worth the effort of walking up.

Kandy from the Bahiravakanda Buddha

The view of the statue, though, is better from the valley; here it is too close and too large.

The Bahiravakanda Buddha, Kandy

Commonwealth War Graves, Kandy

We had suggested to Ravi that we would like to see the graveyard of the British garrison, a nineteenth century curiosity in the royal complex beside the lake. Most of those interred died depressingly young from diseases (mostly now conquered), accidents (some of them bizarre) and, occasionally, enemy action.

We thought Ravi had taken this on board so I was a little surprised that from the Buddha he did not descend to the lake, but drove us round the hill and down a couple more valleys which seemed to be heading away from the city. Ravi knew his way round Sri Lanka in general and Kandy in particular, so we said nothing.

'Here we are,' he announcedturning down a country lane a few miles outside the city. As he brought the car to a halt we realised that we had arrived at a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery - we had not known there was one in Kandy, nor indeed that Sri Lanka had been involved in World War II. We had discovered it by serendipity, which seemed appropriate on the Isle of Serendip.

Lynne at the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery, Kandy

The cemetery is maintained in collaboration with the botanical gardens and like all Commonwealth War Graves it is beautifully looked after. The guardian/duty gardener wandered over to show us round.

There is one WW1 grave, the son of British residents of Sri Lanka who was killed in France; the other 200 are from WW2. After the fall of Singapore the headquarters of the British Indian Ocean Fleet was moved to Sri Lanka - the island guarded the route to the gulf and its oil and there was concern that it might be the next Japanese target. There were bombing raids on the fleet, which accounted for many of the casualties, but no invasion was ever seriously threatened.

Commonwealth War Graves cemetery, Kandy

There were many Sri Lankan names among the dead, many British, too, but also a surprising number of African names. It seems strange that a son of one continent should sign up to serve a country on another continent and be sent to die on a third - I suppose that is what makes it a world war.

Peradeniya Station

The cemetery was not far from Peradeniya station and the botanical gardens. For some reason best known to the nineteenth century pioneers who built the railway, the main line from Colombo to Badulla misses central Kandy, stopping instead at this small suburban station.

Peradeniya Old Station

As we parked, Ravi told us he was unhappy about his brakes and wanted to have new brake pads fitted before driving into the hill country. He told us he would deliver our suitcases as soon as he could and meanwhile his friend Raj would meet us at Nanu Oya station and take us to our hotel in Nuwara Eliya. We would recognise Raj, he said - he was a man in his fifties with a large moustache. We were unconvinced. A middle aged Sri Lankan man without a moustache would be something to look for; a middle aged Sri Lankan man with a large moustache is just a middle aged Sri Lankan man.

Sri Lanka (click to enlarge)
The Colombo - Kandy (nearly) - Nuwar Eliya (nearly) - Badulla Railway is clearly marked

Peradeniya is a delightful old station, with vintage signals, seats in the shade and a no photographing sign to ignore. Our train was half an hour late, but as it had come all the way from Colombo that would have been considered early on Indian railways.

Vintage signals, Peradeniya Station

The Train to Nuwara Eliya

The train was a clattering line of tin boxes hauled by a diesel that looked more suitable for a commuter line than a main line service involving a climb from Colombo at sea level to 1,800 m (6,000ft).

Most of the waiting passengers were Europeans, and we all filed into the otherwise empty first class carriage. The rest of the train looked packed - standing room only - but not Indian-style packed nobody was hanging out of the doors or sitting on the roof.

Here comes the train, Peradeniya station

The privately run ExpoRail first class carriage was attached to a regular Sri Lankan Railways train. It was of the same flimsy construction, but fitted with reclining seats and aggressive air conditioning. Multiple screens hung from the ceiling showing adverts and returning repeatedly to the unlikely claim that ExpoRail was ‘redefining train travel’. Presumably they felt rich Europeans would not feel at home without a vacuous marketing slogan to consider.

Palm trees and paddy fields south of Peradinya

We rolled through pleasant green countryside; paddy fields lined with coconut palms are always easy on the eye. Soon the two smartly dressed young stewards brought round rice and curry and we lowered our tray tables. It was not quite like being on a plane, the wooden tables opened to such an angle that lunch would have arrived in our laps had we used them. The stewards, though, were obliging and friendly and the food was surprisingly good – far better than any curry we have eaten on a plane.

Lynne with rice and curry ExpoRail style

The landscape became steadily less tropical with first the palms thinning out and then the paddy fields. The first tea plantations appeared amid streams and the occasional waterfall. By the time the stewards brought us an afternoon cuppa, tea bushes covered every slope and valley like vines on the Côte d’Or.

Paddy fields but no palm trees north of Hatton

With frequent stops at small towns and places that were not towns at all, we climbed higher into the mountains. After a couple of hours we reached Hatton. Presumably named after a tea planter or his plantation, this town of 15,000 people is best known as the place where the Hatton National Bank, Sri Lanka’s largest, was founded. It is also the place to alight for those wishing to climb Adam’s Peak. Climbing the conical mountain to its summit at 2243m (7,359ft) is a pilgrimage for adherents of all the island’s religion; a rock formation near the top being variously interpreted as the footprint of Buddha, Shiva or Adam.

Tea mono-culture, near Hatton

Like most of the foreigners we got off at Nonu Oya. The 92km journey (60 km as the crow flies) had taken 3¾hrs. As we descended the stairs from the bridge we were approached by a middle aged man with a large moustache, 'I am Raj, Ravi's friend,' he said.

Crossing the bridge at Nonu Oya station

The drive from Nonu Oya to Nuwara Eliya took fifteen minutes, the road winding between the tea-covered hillsides

The Hill Club, Nuwara Eliya

Nuwara Eliya (pronounced New-rail-ya) is known as Little England. The cool climate attracted tea planters and administrators, and their houses, though hardly very English are even less Sri Lankan. We were to stay at the Hill Club, once the club of the British overlords, now a club for the Sri Lankan elite who operate it like a hotel dedicated to ensuring that nothing will ever change. The club, like most of the 'British' buildings in Nuwara Eliya, is a dog's breakfast, a cut and shut of two buildings, neither of which look quite right.

The Hill Club, Nuwara Eliya

We checked in and were told the rules - no shorts or sandals in the public areas after five o'clock, gentlemen must wear jackets and ties in the dining room - and went to our room. South Suite 2 was not as the name might suggest one of two or more southern suites, but was half of the former South Suite. Nevertheless it was large and comfortable enough, though as darkness fell it became cool - verging on cold, for a man wearing shorts and tee shirt, clothing which, according to the rules, now confined me to our room.

Seven o'clock came, and Ravi had still not arrived. I am reluctant to phone somebody who is driving, but eventually I felt I had to know where he had got to. He answered surprisingly quickly. 'Where are you?' I asked. 'At the front door of the Hill Club,' he answered.

We went down to collect our bags. The receptionist in his neat dark suit looked at me in my shorts and tee shirt, made a perfunctory effort to hide his sneer and organised a flunky to move our bags. Ravi explained the arrangements for the next day and we headed back upstairs to dress for dinner - not a phrase I use very often.

Properly dressed for dinner after I had borrowed a jacket and tie
Hill Club, Nuwara Eliya

While we were in our room there was a knock on the door. An aged flunky appeared with two hot water bottles, placed them in the bed, but a pillow on top each to retain the heat and bowed his way out.

The Hill Club may like to think it is as unchanging as a rock, but it is not entirely immune to societal shifts. In the 19th century ladies were not allowed through the front door, but they got over that and then, half a century ago, they swallowed the elephant - the change from British to Sri Lankan control. They have been straining at gnats ever since, but between the publishing of our copy of the Rough Guide and our arrival, the 'men only' bar had become the 'informal bar' and was open to all. There is also an 'informal restaurant', same food, same price no jacket and tie. That was where we headed, now that I was wearing long trousers and a shirt.

A sign of changing times, Hill Club, Nuwara Eliya

It was full. One of the waiters indicated that I should follow him, and I found myself in the billiards room with several other gentlemen rifling through a wardrobe in an effort to find acceptable appropriate clothing. There must be people who pack a jacket and tie when they come to Sri Lanka on holiday, but I am not one of them. Looking round the dining room, the quantity of non-matching and ill-fitting clothing on display suggested I am part of the overwhelming majority, though I think (or imagine) that I got away with it reasonably well. The ladies in general and Lynne in particular handled the situation much better - no surprise there.

Dining Room, the Hill Club, Nuwara Eliya

The formal dining room was indeed formal, the five course table d'hôte menu a Sri Lankan take on the 1960s British take on sophisticated French dining. Liveried Sri Lankan waiters with white gloves and silver trays floated silently through a throng of mainly European diners. Four Japanese girls sat together at one table, but why there were together was a mystery as none of them spoke or lifted their eyes from their phones all evening. There were a sprinkling of other Japanese tables but in two nights we saw only one person of south Asian appearance, an elderly woman dining with a European friend.

Coffee by a roaring fire, Hill Club, Nuwara Eliya

It was not a great meal, nor indeed a cheap one, particularly as we paid premium price for a very ordinary Italian merlot - though it made a pleasant change from Lion lager. We drank our coffee in the lounge before a roaring log fire, probably the only one on the island. Above the fire were portraits of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, unchanged since the 1950s. Eventually we retired to our room. It had been a strange experience, but we had rather enjoyed our step back in time and even looked forward to a rerun tomorrow - though we would be happy to return to the 21st century afterwards.

Sri Lanka, The Isle of Serendip

Part 1: Colombo to Anuradhapura and Mihintale
Part 2: Anuradhapura Ancient and Modern
Part 3: Polonnaruwa and Kandalama, An Ancient City and a Modern Hotel
Part 4: Sigiriya Rock and an Ayurvedic Massage
Part 5: Dambulla and on to Kandy
Part 6: Kandy and Around
Part 7: By Train to Nuwara Eliya
Part 8: The Horton Plains, Nuwara Eliya and a Cup of Tea
Part 9: Through Bandarawela and on to Ella
Part 10: Ella, Little Adam's Peak and the Demodara Bridge
Part 11: The Sinharaja Rainforest
Part 12: Kataragama and the Yala National Park
Part 13: Through Hambantota to Mirissa
Part 14: Galle, Fish and a Fort
Part 15: Colombo, National Day and a Full Moon

Friday 23 January 2015

Kandy and Around: Part 6 of Sri Lanka, Isle of Serendip

Gemstones, a Great Botanical Garden and Three Rural Temples

Sri Lankan Weddings

Sri Lanka

Our hotel was a popular venue for weddings; there were two every day we were there. They monopolised the lift in the morning transporting stuff up to the fourth floor function room and again in the evening bringing it down again. A wedding is not complete without traditional dancers, their costumes covered in little cymbals so they tinkle as they walk.

Ravi was a little late, caught up in traffic, so we watched the wedding preparations; elaborate items of furniture wrapped in polythene were being delivered by van while the dancers waited patiently in the lobby.

Wedding dancers waiting patiently in the hotel lobby, Kandy

The Hills of Kandy

We expected our first visit to be to the Botanical Gardens, but on the way Ravi drove us over the hill into the next section of the city, the summit giving a fine view of the lake and the Temple of the Tooth (see yesterday's post), Kandy’s ceremonial centre, and of the huge white Bahiravakanda Buddha who has overlooked Kandy for the last 25 years (see tomorrow's post).

The lake and the Temple of the Tooth, Kandy

That was not the only interruption. Marco Polo wrote that Sri Lanka was home to the world’s best sapphires, topazes and amethysts. Today they still claim the finest sapphires and also produce a wide range of precious and semi-precious stones, so Ravi thought it would be appropriate to visit a gem museum.

The Bahiravakanda Buddha looks down over the city of Kandy

Sri Lankan Gemstones

In an upmarket jeweller’s near the top of the hill we were shown a short film about gem mining. A pit two or three metres deep is dug by hand at a likely looking spot, shored up with timber and 'waterproofed' with ferns. The chances of being buried alive in such a crudely dug hole looked alarmingly high. Excess water is pumped out and the stones and gravel at the bottom are hauled up in baskets and washed. Like gold, the gemstones are separated from the dross by panning. It takes a sharp and experienced eye to tell a rough gem from a worthless pebble, as we realised when we saw their exhibition of unpolished gemstones in their natural state.

We went through to the workshop where craftsmen were making intricate settings of gold and silver for the stones. Some of the work was very beautiful and, no doubt, would be seriously expensive. Then we entered the glittering sales room. We had no intention of buying, but despite ourselves we became involved in some serious bargaining; by the nature of it nothing was cheap, but we eventually bought a sapphire studded pendant at a reasonable price.

Jeweller's Kandy

Peradeniya Botanical Gardens

The Botanical Gardens are at Peradeniya, to the west of the city. Ravi dropped us off at the entrance and told us to call him when we had finished. We have been to botanical gardens before and expected we would call him sooner rather than later. We were wrong.

Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, Kandy

Perhaps it was the lush tropical setting which allows plants from all over the world to thrive, perhaps it was the colours, perhaps it was the poor maps which resulted in us making discoveries in places we had not intended to go, but the whole place was a delight. It is a story best told in pictures. We saw more different bamboos than I had ever thought existed...

Bamboo, Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, Kandy

...a pond full of water lilies,...

Water Lilies, Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, Kandy

...and the spectacular orchid house...

Orchid, Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, Kandy

...(worth two pictures)...

Another orchid, Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, Kandy

...and the collection of palms.

Palm, Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, Kandy

Finally we had a good look at the coco-de-mers. The fruit of this endangered species is an oddly shaped double coconut. Its botanical name is lodoicea maldivica, though it was previously known as lodoicea callypige. Callypige is formally translated as 'beautiful buttocks', though 'nice arse' (said in the voice of Leslie Philips) better captures the spirit. The husks were highly prized around the Indian Ocean as a cure-all and by European gentlemen in the 17th century as decorative objects. They were found almost exclusively washed up on the shores of the Maldives, hence the botanical name, but the palms don't grow there. Legend had it they came grew on the sea bottom and the ripe fruit fell upwards to the surface. The truth is only a little more prosaic. They grow only on a couple of small islands in the Seychelles which were uninhabited and undiscovered until the 19th century. They then found that the ‘beautiful buttocks’ grow only on the female plants while the male plants have distinctly phallic catkins. This led to a wealth of lurid legends and coco-de-mer being no longer marketed as a cure-all, but as an aphrodisiac.

Coco-de-mer, Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, Kandy
but I cannot spot any beautiful buttocks here

The Temple Loop

We did not call Ravi until well after twelve. We had inadvertently established a pattern of eating lunch closer to three o’clock than one so we set off straight away on the ‘temple loop’, which makes a good day trip for those who wish to do it on foot, or a good way of ensuring a late lunch for those with a car.

Galadeniya Temple

Some 10 km out of Kandy is Galadeniya, a temple built in 1344 on a rock outcrop. The friendly young man in the ticket office was working on watercolours of the site, which consists of an Indian style temple, and a white subsidiary shrine surmounted by a small dagoba covered with a roof. We had seen dagobas with pillars that once supported roofs, but this was the first with its roof intact.

Subsidiary shrine and roofed dagoba (and lily pond)

Walking onto the rock we quickly realised we had a problem and stepped smartly into the shade of the shrine’s doorway. Though shoes may not be worn around temples, socks are tolerated and we had come prepared. The cruciform shrine has, we discovered, a Buddha image in each wing.

Buddha image in the subsidiary temple

Crossing the baking rock to the temple we admired the almost circular lily pond in a depression beyond the shrine.

Galadeniya Temple

The temple hides under its (I hope temporary) corrugated iron roof. There is a Buddha image inside (are those eyes too close together?) and a subsidiary shrine to the Hindu God Vishnu.

Buddha image, Galadeniya Temple

Back in the office we bought one of the young man's watercolours.

Galadeniya

Lankatilake Temple

The drive to Lankatilake was on minor roads running round the edges of the paddy fields beneath the coconut palms. The bright sun shining on the almost luminous greens of the lush vegetation made this a delightful short trip.

On the minor roads around Kandy

The Rough Guide describes the approach to Lankatilake as finishing with ‘a magnificent flight of rock cut steps leading precipitously up to the temple...built on a huge rock outcrop’. Ravi parked among a small collection of dwellings, a hamlet rather than a village and we walked past cloves drying on mats outside the houses,.....

Cloves drying, Lankatilake

...approaching a temple on a rocky plateau up a very ordinary flight of concrete steps.

Lankatilake

Predictably, the rocks were hot and we deployed our socks. There was no one there to meet us and we thought for once we might get a free look at a temple. Then we walked round the back and discovered it was, despite appearances, the front and there were the rock cut steps leading downwards and, of course, a smiling man ready to accept the usual 300 rupees.

Main Buddha image, Lankatilake

The temple, built in the same year as Galadeniya, originally had four storeys, but the uppermost two collapsed in the 19th century. The tall central shrine contains a large Buddha image and some very Hindu looking gods.

Outside, protected by a fence, is an inscription in Pali (the religious language of Buddhism) on the rock describing the construction of the temple. The view (below) of the temple and inscription (though not, of course, Lynne) can be seen on the 50 rupee banknote.

Lynne, Lankatilake and the Pali inscription (as seen on the 50 Rupee note)

Embekke Devale Temple

As we drove on to Embekke Devale, the third and last stop on the three temple loop, Ravi stopped to show us the view of Lankatilake for those arriving on foot.

The pedestrian approach to Lankatilake

The road to Embekke Devale was as pleasing as the drive to Lankatilake. It was by far the busiest of the three temples and our 300 rupees also hired a self-appointed guide. Outside, the temple is an audience hall, like that at the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. As usual in this climate the hall has a roof but no walls.

Audience Hall, Embekke Devale

The wooden pillars, which were brought from another temple, are all carved with different designs. Bhoddhisatvas, dragons, dancers, peacocks wrestlers and even soldiers might be expected, but there is also a depiction of a man on horseback, one of the early Portuguese arrivals on the island.

Soldier, Embekke Devale

In 1505 a Portuguese fleet reached Sri Lanka and noticed the abundance of cloves and cinnamon. Starting as traders, the Portuguese, in the European style of the age, gradually took over and eventually became the island’s rulers. They were ousted by the Dutch in the early 17th century, who in turn yielded to the British two centuries later. Portuguese rule left little mark on the island except this carving and the hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans who still bear the Portuguese surnames adopted by their ancestors. Sri Lanka has countless da Silva's, Fernandos and Pereiras, including the redoubtable Ravi or, more formally, J.A. Ravindra Perera (a slight spelling change from the Portuguese).

Portuguese gentleman, Embekke Devale

The shrine behind, was of rather less interest, though the door was flanked by a couple of splendid lions

Lions, Embekke Devale

Late Lunch and the Sri Lankan Navy

For the by now traditional late lunch Ravi drove us to a large hotel near the botanical gardens. For a set price they offered an elaborate rice and curry buffet and we made the most of it. Unable to get away from weddings in Kandy, we shared the large dining room with one wedding party and encountered a second on leaving. Fortunately no-one chose that afternoon to launch a sea borne invasion of Sri Lanka - most of the country's naval officers were dancing in a car park in Kandy.

An Evening Snack and Lemon Gin

We had a stroll in the afternoon, but our corner of Kandy that was not quite urban yet not really rural had little to offer. We failed to find an alternative to the café where we had eaten last night, but after a large and very late lunch we did not want much. Passing a small bakery we dropped in and bought two samosas and two cakes (25 rupees each - dinner for two for 50p) and had a picnic in our room, with the beer from the mini-bar.

Bakery, Kandy

Later we went down to the hotel bar to learn about lemon gin. Sri Lanka distils passable ordinary gin, but they also have a lemon gin similar in concept, I suppose, of our sloe gin. With a sharp citric flavour and not over sweetened as sloe gin sometimes is, it made a pleasant end to the day.[Update: 2015 was in those far off days before a thousand flavoured gins were on every supermarket shelf]

Thursday 22 January 2015

Dambulla and on to Kandy: Part 5 of Sri Lanka, Isle of Serendip

The Dambulla Cave Temples, a Spice Garden and Kandy's Temple of the Tooth

Morning in the Heritance Hotel

Sri Lanka

In the morning we were disturbed by tapping on the window. Drawing the curtains we saw a monkey (more precisely a toque macaque) sitting on the balcony. When it comes to aggressive begging macaques have few scruples so, following the hotel’s advice, we left the door firmly locked.

Toque Macaque on our balcony, Heritance Hotel, Kandalama

Dambulla

After another good breakfast we made our way, yet again, to Dambulla. It is a small town, reputedly home to 68,000 people but feeling much smaller and if there is more than a single main street we did not see it.

The city was first settled in the seventh century BC though recently excavated graves suggest a sophisticated civilization existed in the region two millennia earlier. Modern civilization has given the city a 30,000 seat international cricket stadium, built in 2000 in a remarkable 167 days, which has hosted many one-day internationals though as yet no test matches. It also boasts the biggest wholesale fruit and vegetable market in northern Sri Lanka with a semi-permanent traffic jam outside, but for us the main attraction was Dambulla’s ancient rock temple.

Dambull Rock Temples

The temple’s modern additions include a large Buddha image on top of what looks like a restaurant but is actually a museum.

The Golden Temple, Dambulla

It may lack the gravitas I would expect from a religious building, but the locals seem happy enough and come here to celebrate their weddings.

Wedding party, Dambulla Golden Temple

The rock temple is behind and above the modern image. After climbing 200m to the top of Sigiriya Rock yesterday, the 100m climb up broad staircases and gently sloping paths was a rest cure, particularly as we did not have to remove our shoes until the top.

Lynne plods up to the Dambulla Rock Temples

At the entrance to a wide, paved ledge a monk tied a length of white cotton round our right wrists to symbolise the passing of knowledge. On the ledge five caves lurk under the overhanging rock face, enclosed by an outer wall.

A paved ledge beside a rock overhang, Dambulla Cave Temple

The Rock Temples date from the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa periods (437BCE-1232CE). The nearest and smallest ‘Cave of the Divine King’ was crowded and dark, indeed it was only by taking flash photographs - for once permitted - that we found it was filled by a 14m long reclining Buddha...

Head of the Reclining Buddha, Cave of the Divine King, Dambulla

...with an image of his disciple Ananda at his feet. Despite the temple being Buddhist there is an image of the Hindu god Krishna, whose divine power created these caves, at the Buddha’s head.

Ananda, Cave of the Divine King, Dambulla

Entering the ‘Cave of the Great Kings’ next-door is one of those stop-and-catch-your-breath moments. 50m long and 25m deep, its name comes from the 1st century BCE King Vattagamani Abhaya, who honoured the monastery and is commemorated by a statue, and the 12th century King Nissanka Malla who gilded many of the Buddha statues of which there are 56 - 16 standing and 40 seated. There is also a spring which drips healing water through the roof into a stone font; it is in all the guide books but somehow we missed the drip.

The third cave, entered through a thick wooden door, is the ‘Great New Monastery’ and has 18th century Kandian style murals and mosaics and another 50 Buddha statues.

Plenty of Buddhas, Cave 3, Dambulla, Cave Temples

The final two caves are a slight anti-climax. Cave 4 holds multiple identical meditating Buddhas, while in Cave 5 the statues are more recent being of brick and plaster. A 10m long reclining Buddha is surrounded by paintings of Vishnu and Kataragama.

Reclining Buddha, Cave 5, Dambulla Cave Temples

We descended to the museum, which has the sort of artefacts you might expect and did not detain us long, then located Ravi in the car park and set off south towards Kandy, Sri Lanka's second city.

Spice Garden

After a coconut stop where Ravi insisted on borrowing the coconut vendor’s machete and scraping out what little flesh there is in a drinking coconut…

Ravi is determined to get full value from his coconut

…we arrived at a spice garden, or rather we stopped at one of a line of them strung along the roadside. The garden, surrounded by coconut palms, grew pepper vines, nutmeg, clove, cardamom, cinnamon, vanilla and aloes among others. We tasted cloves, cardamom and cinnamon fresh from the trees. Before drying, the green clove bud’s flavour is intense and they are hot on the palate, while cardamom seeds explode in the mouth with a dizzying freshness. Nibbling bark peeled from a tree would normally be eccentric, but when it is a cinnamon tree, the fragrant sweetness is astounding.

Cardamom, Highland Spice Garden

We were interesting in buying culinary spices, cinnamon and cloves being the two particularly associated with Sri Lanka, but the man who showed us round was keener to sell us cosmetic oils and medicaments with heftier price tags. The hair remover certainly worked, a small bald patch on my arm proved that, but it did little to solve my real problem - the reluctance of hair to grow on my head.

Green Vanilla pods, the Highland Spice Garden

We enjoyed looking at the plants and tasting the spices in their natural state and managed to leave with the spices we wanted and with no creams or lotions. I am cynical about cosmetic products whether straight from a garden or expensively packaged. There is no way to remove wrinkles - apart from polyfilla - nor should one be sought, wrinkles are nature's way of adding character to a face.

Sri Lankan Diversity

We passed through a town where the women all wore headscarves. 'Sri Lankan Moors', Tamil speaking Muslims, who may be Tamils who converted to Islam or an entirely separate ethnic group - the issue is under debate - make up 10% of the country's population. 75% are Sinhalese who are overwhelmingly Buddhist and 15% are Tamils, largely Hindus. Sinhalese and Tamil are official languages and English is constitutionally defined as a ‘link language’. The Sinhalese migrated from Bengal in the 5th century BC, or even earlier, and their language is related to the northern India languages, though long separation has made the relationship distant. Tamils colonised northern Sri Lanka from southern India in the 2nd century BC. A long, vicious and ultimately unsuccessful war was fought from 1983 to 2009 by the Tamil Tigers to establish an independent Tamil state. A minority group of Tamils, the 'plantation Tamils' where brought over by the British in the 19th century to work in the tea plantations of the central highlands and did not, on the whole, support the Tamil Tigers. There are also some 30,000 Sri Lankan 'Burghers', of mixed European descent and 15,000 Vedda people who are believed to be the island’s indigenous inhabitants.

Dambulla is not marked, but it is a little to the south west of Habarana
(which is marked though it is much smaller!)

Matale and the Sri Muthumariamman Kovil Temple

Matale is the last sizeable town before the road starts to rise into the mountains. At its entrance is the Sri Muthumariamman Kovil Temple. When it comes to colourful exuberance you cannot beat a Hindu temple. This is Sri Lanka, so there was a charge for walking round the outside; it cost more to go in, but Hindu temples are always showier on the outside so we did not bother.

Sri Muthumariamman Kovil Temple, Matale

School children were heading home for lunch. School uniforms are usually all white, for boys and girls, as though everybody was in the cricket team. Girls wear white dresses, somewhat incongruous teamed with a tie (though not, it seems in this case).

School uniform, Matale

Beyond Matale we stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant. It was clean and modern, if a little characterless. Doubling as a local shop, it was largely patronized by locals. The vegetarian rice and curry buffet was more interesting than most, but would have been better if somebody had lit the burners under the trays.

Driving through Matale

Kandy

We rose gently into the foothills of the central mountains and by the time we arrived in Kandy in late afternoon we had reached 500m. With 125,000 inhabitants, Kandy is Sri Lanka’s second city. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Kandy from the late 15th century until the start of the colonial era and was the place where Buddha’s Tooth was kept. It is still there. When the British moved the capital to Colombo in 1815 the link between Tooth and capital was broken after 2000 years.

The Temple of the Tooth, Kandy

Kandy: The Temple of the Tooth

The Temple of the Tooth sits beside a lake. I had thought this might be one of the highlights of the trip, but the temple is an unmemorable pile surrounded by the administrative buildings of the British raj. Some parts are new; the Tamil Tigers detonated a truck bomb at the entrance in 1998 killing 20.

The Temple of the Tooth, Kandy

The temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but that does not mean visitors will see The Tooth. It sits inside a gold casket which is very rarely opened. In fact we did not even see the casket (my photo is of a replica in another temple); it is only displayed two days a month.

Replica of the Casket of the Tooth

When the Buddha was cremated in 543BCE various body parts were rescued from the flames. In the 4th century BC, with Buddhism in decline in India, the tooth was smuggled to Sri Lanka wrapped in the hair of a princess. Bella Sidney Woolf (a writer, wife colonial adminstrator Tom Southorn and sister-im-law of Virginia Woolf) saw the tooth in 1914 and described it as a ‘tooth of discoloured ivory at least three inches long – unlike any human tooth ever known.’ In 1597 a Portuguese traveller claimed it was a buffalo tooth. To express doubts about the Tooth’s authenticity is deeply offensive, so I will keep my scepticism to myself.

Inside the Temple of the Tooth, Kandy

Every year the Tooth is paraded in its casket through the streets of Kandy carried by an elephant. This job was done for fifty years by an elephant known as Raja. When he died in 1998 he was stuffed and put on display where he is viewed as reverently as a holy relic.

Rajah, the former bearer of the Tooth

In the courtyard is the audience hall, built in 1783, partly burned by the British when they took Kandy in 1803 and then promptly restored. It was here in 1815 that the Kandian chiefs handed over power to the British. Some of the pillars survived the fire and are originals.

Audience Hall, Temple of the Tooth, Kandy

Our Hotel, Surroundings and Dinner

Our hotel was only a couple of hundred metres from the temple, but Kandy is a strange city arranged down a series of valleys around the lake and in many places neither looks nor feels urban. Our hotel room overlooked paddy fields; squirrels ran up and down the corner of the building, monkeys played in the palm trees.....

Kandy from our hotel balcony

.......and we watched a white-throated kingfisher waiting for a meal.

White throated kingfisher, Kandy

To find our own meal we walked back towards the lake. The only option, a small business on a corner by the water was doing a brisk take-away trade but there were also a few seats inside. We sat at a rather sticky table and ate devilled chicken and rice. Devilled dishes are the only genuine Sri Lankan alternative to rice and curry. Pieces of meat come in a thick brown sauce with a flavour not far from Chinese sweet and sour but with a good chilli hit. We resorted to them on a number of occasions and apaert from devilled beef (like most Sri Lankan beef, it is too tough to enjoy), they make a pleasant change.

The locals kept coming for the take-aways, but by the time we had finished all the tables were filled by Europeans escaping from various hotels. We drank fruit juice; Lynne's lime was fine but my pineapple was so thick I gave up on the straw and resorted to a spoon. Despite the doubtful cleanliness of the place we suffered no adverse reaction, indeed we had no problems the whole time we were in Sri Lanka.