Day 4: Sunday 10th March.
Again we beat the wake-up call, after a reasonable night’s sleep. Our guide is getting used to us all being a little tardy (well some of us, not my family) and we got away about 15 mins late at 730am.
The early start was so we could get to the Golden Temple of Dambulla before the crowds and the heat of the day. There were about 200 steps from where the coach parked, which was about half way up the hill where the caves were. After appropriately covering ourselves (Boys long pants, girls with clothes past the knees and covering shoulders), we headed into the caves which are again a world heritage site. Lots of Buddha statues, engravings, frescos, monks chanting and offerings. We probably spent more time watching the cheeky monkeys than the caves. Highlight: Seeing the Sri Lankan National flower in a pond, it is a quite beautiful purple:
We walked all the way back down to the base of the hill (400+ steps down) where the coach had moved to pick us up. My legs were slightly jelly at the end! A quick and most unpleasant toilet stop (I’ll spare you the details) and we were back in the comfort of the air-conditioned coach.
About an hour later, as we headed up the hills towards Kandy, we stopped at a Spice garden near Matale. We were guided around all the spices and plants, tasting and trying as we went. The fresh cinnamon quills in particular smelt and tasted amazing. I’m not game to show you a picture of the hair removal herb that was tried on Will’s leg, but I loved the sandalwood and cinnamon facial moisturiser and the shoulder and neck massage with Sri Lankan spices at the end, which was a real treat.
We stopped the bus a short time later to pick up some ‘takeaway’ lunch at a bakery on the other side of Matale. I shopped up (although total = $10) and we shared some vegetable curry roti parcels (even better than Taveuni, Dad!), some beef samosas, chicken rolls, flat egg and vegetable savoury pancakes, and for Dave, chocolate cake!
We arrived into Kandy at about 2pm, checked into the most beautiful hotel on the top of a hill looking over Kandy (grandkandyan.com), then had a quick freshen up (read: young ones = cocktail by the pool, older ones = nap), then met at 3pm to be taken to a ‘Gem Store’. Hmmm. Sapphires are beautiful, but it felt like a con job and so probably was. We decided to duck away from the group tour for a few hours and took a couple of tuk-tuks back into the centre of Kandy city. The tuk-tuk ride was lots of fun, our two seemed to be racing to get us there first ? $600 rupee each (about A$5 for a 20 minute ride through traffic)
After a cocktail to refresh us at the Queen’s Hotel, a beautiful colonial style hotel in the middle of the city, we separated and checked out Kandy’s city centre. Lots of dodgy shops, a local ‘bazaar’, many restaurants and busy streets. Victoria was less than impressed by the snake charmer with a 4-5 metre python and I hated the dressed up monkeys performing on the sides of the streets. The lake in the center of town was quite beautiful though. We completed our routine holiday compulsory supermarket visit.
We met the rest of the group back for dinner in the city at a local restaurant specialising in curries, roti, noodles and stir-fries. For the five of us with drinks, including beer, it was less that $40! Bed time by 10pm. A big but enjoyable day.
View of Kandy from our room: 