Kandy

Kandy, Sri Lanka's second city, is dispersed in small pockets over the scrunched surfaces of the mountains it is folded into. It centres around a 200 year old artificial lake (flooded paddy fields with any disgruntled labourers set on stakes in the lake-bed by a disgruntled king) and most famous for its Temple of the Tooth, that houses Budha's tooth, rescued from the ashes after his cremation. Apparently it is three inches long but it is rarely shown (perhaps in part due to the number of scientifically minded sceptics that abound in these modern times). On our previous visit the lake's fountain had never been on  so I was pleasantly surprised to see it shooting a single jet 12 metres or so into the air. There was also an unusually large crowd outside the gates of the Temple of the Tooth. We soon found out the reason for this - a prince was coming. Iris was distinctly thrilled at this news. Anu had to gently break in the news that Prince Charles of England might not be the vision of a prince that she had in mind from due to the twisted imaginings of Walt Disney and his cronies. 

The first picture here was the view from the balcony of the Olde Empire hotel that overlooks the entrance grounds to the temple - the little rooftops are for a little run of market stalls selling beautiful flowers to be given as tributes within the temple. And some very annoying salesmen with brightly coloured 'bird' whistles that they continually play in an effort to entrap young children into believing they might be able to make similar sounds were they to purchase one. 

We took Arlo out for a bit too long and his batteries ran low. On leaving the van from the botanical gardens he was taken kicking and screaming up to the hotel room, where we remembered we had run out of the milk he was screaming after. I decided to pop out to the shops with Iris. On my return I found that we were stranded on the wrong side of a ten elephant and drummer procession that cut us off the hotel.

We took the train there and back. The view from the train offers some fine views out over the mountains and on our return trip a heavy morning mist hung in the tropical valleys with their palm tree scattered hillsides. We dropped out of the hills and down into the paddy fields, peppered with clean white egrets and water buffalo and the odd worker. And for context, all this exoticism was offset by the A/C chill of our Expo carriage that had some B-list Disney animation chattering away, interspersed with the odd Mr Bean sketch.