We got off the train in Kandy around 4 on a fortunately not too hot day. We had studied the map carefully as we pulled into the station and we had a pretty good idea of where we were to go. We intended to not stop so that no one would feel the need to "help" us for a monetary fee. So we were able to brush through the hordes upon hordes of tuk-tuk drivers with an ease and confidence that convinced them (presumably) that we knew where we were headed. We did, more or less. We walked through the busy center of town, past the clock tower and the nice looking old buildings and all the beggars that were in front of them. And then we came to the lake. As we walked along it, pretty much every Sri Lankan person we saw there tried to sell us a room in a guesthouse or a tuk-tuk, or some jewellery or a "very nice tour".
We also walked by the temple of the Tooth (the tooth of the Buddha purportedly). We were unsure at the time as to whether we would go there. It looked pretty impressive, but so did the price of entry. We would later decide that, as we were going to spend $50 to get us both into Sigiriya, which I will speak of later, the Temple of the Tooth would be a visit for when we had more money to spare. As it was, there seemed to be a lot of armed guards around the Temple. I found later that a Tamil Tiger bomb went of there about 10 or 12 years ago and actually damaged the temple a bit. Security had been tight since then, even though the war is now over.
We came to the Green Woods Guesthouse which was a nice place. It was on a hill that was away from all bustle of Kandy, with forest behind and overlooking forest and a few houses. And a lot of playful monkeys in the trees. We were greeted by a friendly older man, who showed us to our room and told us of a good place to eat. We took another shower, just because and then we went to the restaurant that he had mentioned.
This was the History Restaurant and it turned out to be our main highlight in Kandy, besides the guesthouses. It looked out over the Lake and the lights of Kandy and gave us a clear view of the setting sun, just as we had such a good view of the rising sun that morning. The food was good, the beer the best prices we had seen in Sri Lanka and it was full of old new paper clippings and photographs from the history of Kandy, going back about 130 years or so. There were articles about independence from Britain, wars around the world and new developments in Kandy and the wider Sri Lanka/Ceylon. There were also pictures of British colonial officers (you should have seen the mutton chops!) with village chiefs and whole tribes, or just pictures of village councils. There was also one article that was called woman's corner and it offered advice on child rearing, cooking, cleaning and other "womanly" arts. We stuffed ourselves with beer and food, since we had not actually eaten lunch that day. I had rice and curry and Nancy had BBQ chicken, because she was a little sick of rice and curry.
We returned to the Green Woods and attempted to stay awake a bit longer (it was 7:30), but we really couldn't manage that and we were asleep pretty much the moment our heads hit the pillow.
We slept for about 10 hours, not having had any sleep since 1:30 Am the previous morning. And the Green Woods was clean and felt safe. We woke around 7 and sat out on the shared balcony reading and enjoying the waking of the day. When we were sharing the balcony with too many monkeys though, we thought it best to go back inside. We ate our breakfast with hopeful monkey faces peaking in through the windows behind us. And then we checked out of the Green Wood and walked a surprisingly short distance to the Green Villa which was the place that Jayasuria at the Beauty Mount had actually suggested we stay in Kandy. They were not quite ready to receive us, but they said we could put our bags in our room while we explored Kandy.
We decided to take a walk around Kandy Lake, which we had found out on the train had a pretty horrendous history. It was man made lake, commissioned by the last Sri Lankan ruler of Kandy. He was not the nicest person and was deposed by the people in favour of the British taking over in 1810. One of the not so nice things that he had done was execute the people who were making the lake for him because they wanted a bit more payment. He had them all buried in the lake and then replaced them with new workers, who finished the job without much complaint. I'm not sure what happened to them.
After the 15th person offered to sell something or just asked for money we began to time them. The longest we went without someone accosting us for most of the walk around the lake was one minute and twenty seven seconds. On our way we were offered all manner of art, tours, clothes and drugs. One well dressed lady simply asked if we could give her money. I was reminded at this point of something that Paul Theroux had said about the "Ceylonese" as he called them, on his first trip to Sri Lanka in 1973. While he was on the train and speaking to people, they would randomly ask him for something (money, clothes, etc). He said it seemed as it they were not down trodden at the time but were asking for later, just in case. That seemed to be the only reason why a woman who was clearly wearing new, and expensive, clothes might be asking us for money. Another man told us that there were tickets to the parade that happened most weeks in Kandy at the fire walking school that he worked at. He told us that he wasn't trying to sell us anything, but he spent a lot of time telling us about how good this parade show would be. And kept suggesting we buy tickets. He was a fire walker, he showed us his feet. He suggested that we take a look at his school, which, as he had said, sold tickets to this parade. Apparently the president of Sri Lanka was going to be at the parade (when we asked about this later, at our guesthouse, they were rather confused, since there was no mention of this anywhere). As well as a monk from Japan, who would preform a blessing with the Tooth. We could never find the truth of this one. In any event, when we said that we could not go since we did not have the money for it, our new friend quickly made his fair wells and departed.
We retreated to The History Restaurant to decide what to do. We hadn't known how long we would stay in Kandy, but after the lake experience we decided that we would be leaving the next day. We spent a good deal of time looking up how we would get to Sigiriya on their wi-fi and drinking tea from a gigantic tea pot. We eventually decided that we would take the bus, despite the fact that we did not really want to take another bus, especially given our recent experience on the bus. So we went back to the Green Villa and enjoyed the nice room that it offered and the excellent meal they cooked up. I called a guest house in Dambulla a place that was relatively close to Sigiriya (45 minute bus ride) and was happy to find that for once the price listed in the Lonely Planet had not changed.
We ate breakfast at the Green Villa as well and were off shortly after that. The people at the guesthouse were a little confused as to why we had not seen much of Kandy and I must say we probably didn't give them very convincing reasons. We arrived at the Kandy bus station after running the gamut of the city and even managed to find a bus without too much trouble.
The bus ride itself did inspire any new confidence in the Sri Lankan bus system as it tore through the winding hill roads. Nancy had a lot to say about the driver's abilities after we got off the bus, especially after he started moving while I was in process of getting off the bus and I nearly fell flat on my face on the way out. All I actually did was smack my knee rather painfully on the doorframe of the bus as he stopped again. But all was well and we managed to walk the 500 meters to our guesthouse in Dambulla. It was run by a nice Tamil family and the rooms were quite nice, the only problem was the fact that it was right beside the main road, which did not shut up all night. Despite the soft beds we did not fall asleep for quite a while that night. But that's for next time. We were at the gates, sort of, of Sigiriya. What Clarke called Yakkagalla in The Fountains of Paradise, the other place besides Sri Pada that we had come to see in Sri Lanka.
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