Category: Sri Lanka

Yesterday we visited Manning Market, a bustling market ripe with everything grown in Sri Lanka and is the city’s wholesale fruit and vegetable centre.

Manning Market

After a quick lunch we took a tuk tuk to Gangaramaya Buddhist Temple which is one of the most important temples in Colombo and is a mix of modern, Sri Lankan, Thai, Indian and Chinese architecture.

Gangaramaya Buddhist Temple

We departed Sigirya on the 7th for a relatively short but scenic drive. En route to Kandy we stopped at the Golden Temple of Dambulla, a World Heritage Site and the largest and best preserved cave temple complex in Sri Lanka.

The Golden Cave Temple

The traffic in Kandy is worse and more chaotic than Colombo with narrow roads and steep hills and exacerbated by huge long line ups of every vehicle type along the sides of the roads in both directions in addition to long lines of people with a variety of glass and plastic containers all waiting to purchase fuel which was in short supply due to a recent petrol strike.

We checked into a nice hotel with a view of Kandy Lake which is situated in the city centre, relaxed a bit and then headed out to see a Buddhist ceremony at the Temple of the Tooth. This temple holds a tooth from Buddha and the site is revered by Buddhist from around the world. We watched a drum ceremony and then proceeded to wait in line for the tooth viewing. There were many people here but the tourists were greatly outnumbered by locals. The temple is only open for about 1 hour. The crowds need to be moved quickly past the tooth viewing window. A bell rings (I think), the gate opens and we proceed to shuffle barefoot towards one of the most revered body parts of Buddha. We quickly get to the viewing area and inside, manned by three men is a large donation plate which catches your eyes right away and diverts your attention from the main attraction nestled in a large ornate temple behind the men blocking the view while being continuously shuffled onward. We didn’t see the tooth.

Temple of the Tooth.

The next morning we spent several hours strolling through the Royal Botanic Gardens in Peradeniya, about 5.5 km outside of Kandy.  The garden includes more than 4,000 species of plants including orchids, spices, medicinal plants and palm trees and is spread out through an area of 147 acres. There is also a large group of flying fox estimated to number more than 24,000.

Royal Botanic Gardens

We arrived early this afternoon after an amazingly scenic drive from Kandy. The road took us up 1,500 metres into the clouds and mountainous tea country lush with plantations scattered throughout, waterfalls cascading everywhere and scenery straight out of a fantasy film.

It is a rainy day here and not much to see so we’ll relax and do pretty well nothing. This is just a stopover point for tomorrow where we’ll catch the 9:30 am train for what is supposed to be an incredible journey through the mountains to the town of Ella. There was supposed to be a train strike starting at midnight last night but fortunately it was called off as talks continued with the government and assorted unions and it looks like the petrol strike has ended so hopefully the country will get back into some normalcy.

Yesterday we spent a leisurely morning updating the blog and then headed to the train station to take the scenic 2 1/2 hour ride to Ella. The scenery was breathtaking with lush forested valleys, mountain sloped tea plantations and the occasional cascading waterfall. We had booked the correct seats,”right side is the best side” on the train but as luck or something would have it our train car was the only one with the seats facing to the rear of the train so our right seats were in fact the left seats and all the right seats were taken so we missed a few “cascading waterfalls” pictures but we were ultimately treated to as good or better views on our side as the train got nearer to Ella.

After checking in to our hotel in Ella, we wandered out onto the busy streets teeming with young back packing travellers and a sprinkle of older adventurers. The main street was lined with restaurants, bars and every type of accommodation. It was a very cool town and we had a very chillin time.

We departed Ella on the 11th and before doing any driving we hiked way up into the mountains to view the surrounding area and Little Adams Peak. Adams Peak is the 5th tallest peak in Sri Lanka at 2,243 metres and is well known for the Sri Pada, “sacred footprint”, rock formation near the summit, which in Buddhist tradition is held to be the footprint of the Buddha, in Hindu tradition that of Shiva and in Islamic and Christian tradition that of Adam.

We climbed to the top of this mountain

Adams Peak

Adams Peak

The climb was way more than we expected  especially with the heat and humidity so when we arrived back to the car we were literally drenched in sweat. VERY uncomfortable but worth the calorie burning climb. Our next stop for the evening before heading to Bundala National Park was Tissamaharama, a small town where tourists generally stay as a base for doing safaris in either Bundala or Yala National Parks. As usual the drive was very scenic and the countryside lush and green.

We were up before dawn and headed off to Bundala NP. The park is an internationally important wintering ground for migratory water birds in Sri Lanka. In 2005 the national park was designated as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO, the fourth reserve in Sri Lanka. The park harbours more than 197 species of birds including a very large population of peacocks and is also home to a small population of resident elephants.