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In the morning we had a leisurely stroll around Kandy. Firstly we climbed to the top road to get a good view of the lake and then onto the royal gardens. The gardens were quite small but on every bench there seemed to be a courting couples. This excited Ken so he had to lead Judi to a quiet spot!
We then continued on round the lake to temple of the tooth - the holiest site in Sri Lanka. A casket containing Buddha's tooth is held here - you are not allowed to see the tooth. only the room where the casket is held. We were fortunate however to see the ceremony of the keys - where the keys are taken from their special container to check the casket is still there. The tooth is of dubious provenance having been in multiple locations after being smuggled out of India in a princesses hair. It was also held by the British at one time. We had a guide round the place who insisted in giving us a quick 101 in Buddhist history. The temple itself was a mixture of styles but the Sri Lankan clearly revered it greatly.
After this, we continued round the lake stopping off at a bake house for lunch. This is the first time we have seen these kind of places - cakes, sandwiches etc. Then it was into the town to check out the trains. We stopped off at the market - we found a keen fruit seller who gave us tastes of lots of the fruits - we did end up buying 3 days supply of his fruit. It was then back to the hotel to have beer and mangoes on the balcony. Diner was at the History restaurant as we decided we needed a change after 8 days of curries. We had diner with Barbara - a charming Italian lady who is teaching in Kandy (we had met her in Polonnaruwa). All this excitement proved too much for Fran - trying to keep up with Judi she fell over a raised pavement and hurt her shoulder - She blames the pavement I blamed the beer.
The next day we went off to the Botanical gardens. It was a 8km tuk-tuk ride - the driver naturally wanted to take us via the 'handicraft' village but after a small discussion we drove straight to the gardens. The gardens were established by the British in the late 19th century. It was a nice way to spend 3 hours. The highlight was seeing a very large colony of bats - flying foxes - it was difficult to believe they were bats as they were so big when flying.
We then went back to town for a little shopping and afternoon tea at the Queens hotel. Fran went into an antique shop and managed to pick out the most expensive trinket in the shop - a 400 year old ivory elephant god - a bargain at £200. After much persuasion on my part she bought a small bone elephant for £3.50 instead of the ivory one. The hotel is a relic from the colonial era (so old, Ken remembers it being the place to stay on his last trip 30 years ago) and certainly had an aura of faded grandeur. The tea was excellent.
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