Holiday in Sri Lanka (7): more Kandy
In terms of sightseeing, Tuesday was the busiest day so far – and that’s how I like it.
We left our hotel in Kandy at 7.30 am and travelled west to a place called Pinnawala to visit the elephant orphanage there. This is the second elephant orphanage that I have seen, the other being in Nairobi. It was a journey of an hour and a half, so we arrived just 10 minutes early for the first of the three daily milk feeding sessions at 9.15 am. They have this is Nairobi but there are many more elephants and an open air feeding, whereas at Pinnawala there were only two elephants being fed and they were in a covered enclosure which was rather dark.
However, what we saw in Pinnawala that was completely different was dozens of elephants crossing a main road and striding down a side road to the local river where they had a wonderful time enjoying a refreshing bathing session. Close to the river, we called into a workshop that converts elephant dung into paper products which are on sale in the adjoining shop. Who would have thought it? Environmentally clever.
Of course, one cannot have a holiday in Sri Lanka without visiting a tea factory. One hour’s travelling from the elephant orphanage and back In the direction of Kandy, we visited the Geragama tea factory in the town of Pilimathalawa (Sri Lankan names just roll off the tongue). We were shown around the various processes by the smallest woman in the nation (and that’s saying something in this land of diminutive souls).
On the one hand, a noticeboard provided staff with a whole list of rules fir working in the factory and a sign above a sink exhorted them to “Kindly wash your hands and feets”. On the other hand, nobody wore any protective clothing where the dust and the noise strongly suggested the need for face masks and ear defenders.
Back in Kandy, we had a light lunch at a restaurant called “Aloy”. Much though I love deserts, I decided to pass on “curd and trickle”.
After we lunch, we viewed the most famous location in Kandy. Thus is the Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic (locally known as the Sri Dalada Maligawa), one of Buddhism’s most revered pilgrimage sites. This temple houses the sacred tooth of Buddha which apparently was smuggled into the island in the 4th century AD. The tooth itself is housed In a series of seven ever-larger, ornate, dome-shaped caskets like a Russian doll and the outer-most casket is only made visible to visitors three times a day when the crowd is overwhelming – so we did not even attempt to view it.
The temple is not so much a building as a collection of structures but, compared to the Buddhist temples that I have seen in places like Luang Prabang (Laos) or Bangkok (Thailand), this was very plain.
Finally, a little further round the Kandy Lake from the Temple of the Tooth is the Red Cross Society building which was the unlikely setting for a cultural performance lasting one hour. We were treated to seven traditional Kandyan and Low Country dances followed by a demonstration of fire walking.
We returned to the hotel towards 6.30 pm, having been out for a full 11 hours. Once more dinner was in our hotel but this time it was the same hotel as the previous night.