Hi all,
Last night we had dinner at the hotel. As yummy as the rice and curry is
over here, the club sandwich and French fries I had were delicious, and
it was nice to have some variety. We had a fairly early night ahead of
our sunrise hike.
Then we were up at 4.30am to hike Pidurangala, the rock opposite to
Sigiriya. The only three that opted to do this were us and Carmel from
South Africa. The hike was only about 20 minutes or so, with a path for
the most part and a five minute rock scramble at the end. Mum slipped
once but luckily only suffered a graze and nothing more. The early morning and rock scramble was worth it - the sunrise was
beautiful, as was the view of Sigiriya amongst the lush greenery. The
three of us were glad we had done it. Again, I was grateful my hip
somewhat behaved itself and I was able to reach the top.
Then after we had breakfast back at the hotel, we checked out and started our journey
towards Kandy. The queues for petrol today were insane, even longer than
we had seen previously, I suspect due to the upcoming Hindu new year perhaps
people are preparing to travel around. An update on the economic crisis
here - overnight Sri Lanka declared bankruptcy and defaulted on their
international debts. It’s a very uncertain time and future for the
people here. I’m glad we are able to support tourism and do the little
bits that we can such as supporting local providers and families.
En route to Kandy, we went to a spice plantation. Some parts of this
were interesting, but for the most part it was an opportunity for the
herbalist running the tour to try and convince us he had a cream, oil or
powder to cure every ailment possible. The area we walked around backed
onto a 156 acre property. Items were made out of everything from
sandalwood to cinnamon. They didn’t have much luck with us - all we
bought was some hot chocolate. The products were very expensive and I’m
too much of a skeptic to think any would work. Some people on our tour
spent hundreds though.
We then had lunch at the Sthree Craft Shop, which is funded by our tour
company G Adventures. ‘Sthree’ means ‘woman’ in Singhalese and Tamil,
and the cafe raised money to support women and those with disabilities
in the local area. The lady thanked us for coming. She said Darsh (our
tour guide) was on the first tour that visited in January 2018. Due to the
April bombings in 2019 and then the pandemic, they were shut for three
years due to no tourists, and only started welcoming people back in
December. We bought some cute handmade gift cards here.
Then we arrived in Kandy. We had a quick orientation walk with Darsh. It
was so busy, as it is Hindu new year today/tomorrow. There were a lot of
street stalls on the footpath selling last minute gifts. Some were even
selling fireworks, which Darsh told us usually are very popular but
people are being a bit more conservative with their money this year due
to the present situation. We got some money and some water and met back
up with the group.
Darsh told us in the 14th century Kandy was the regional capital, and in
the 1500s it was actually the capital of Sri Lanka. The Portuguese
tried to invade Kandy four times and failed, the Dutch three times and
failed, and then the British were successful. On March 2nd 1815 a treaty
was signed called the Kandyan Convention for the ceding of this
territory to Britain.
We checked in at the hotel, before heading to a Kandyan dance show. It was good, but by this point I was hitting a wall after limited sleep and a big day. The costumes were beautiful and some of the dances impressive. One dance set had a man with a creepy mask and a belly. I actually think it may have been intended as a pregnant woman/harvest sort of dance? Anyway, the person made weird noises at the crowd and I couldn't take them seriously as their black top under their costume was an Adidas one. Made me laugh - maybe because I was so tired by this point!
Finally, we went to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. When Buddha died, a tooth was kept. Whenever the capital would move in the past in Sri Lanka, a temple for Buddha's tooth would be built. Seeing as Kandy was once the capital during these royal times, the temple exists here. It was first built in 1592, but was destroyed a couple of times due to invasions. The present structures were built in the mid 1700s and have been added to over time.
I'll be honest - by this point, I was cooked. I was walking dead on my feet. So when we went inside and there was some huge giving of alms ceremony (AKA a super spreader event - OMG - so many people in such a small space!) the drum sounds, incense smells and heaps of people really overwhelmed me. But I took in what I could. It was interesting seeing people queued up in their white clothes with all their offerings to pray.
Carmel, Mum and I ended the night by getting a pizza at Pizza Hut. Our idea behind this was to avoid a lengthy group dinner as we were so tired. But hilariously, we could see the group eating at a vegetarian restaurant in the street. They ended up getting their food and finishing their food before us, and we had to get a tuk tuk back ourselves! Never mind - the pizza was pretty good.
Love to all,
Claire
Xoxox
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