Elephants!!!

So we had just a single night in our beach hut before having to wake up at ridiculous o’clock to meet out guide for our overnight tour of Kandy, Sri Lanka’s second city and spiritual home to its 90% Buddhist population.

Once we poled out back across the river on the ferry though, we were met by Anton, a really nice driver and guide, who whisked us away in his fantastically air conditioned car on our tour. He was brilliant though, filling us in on all of the sights as we drove past them and explaining some of the traditions and customs. The man was a one stop whistle stop tour of Sri Lanka!

He explained to us that we were actually going to go to the elephant orphanage first, ending up in Kandy this evening, but our first stop of the day was at a pineapple estate. Anton guided us around, showing us the papaya trees, the mangoes, and the pineapple, which when I got a bit too enthusiastic, bit me with its spines!

We even got to taste a freshly picked pineapple which was delicious! But there was no rest as we then raced on to our next stop, a little way further down the road, a rubber tree plantation:

The workers cut groves into the bark each day and a small trickle of the rubber seeps out overnight to be collected in a half coconut stapled to the bottom of the tree. It’s just like PVA glue, and you can pick up a string of it and play! Apparently natural rubber is one of Sri Lanka’s biggest exports.

No time to stop too long though, we’re on a schedule to get to Pinnawela in time for the elephant feed, so off we shoot again, stopping briefly to allow a photo opportunity of a 200 year old Buddhist temple at Galagedara:

As we followed the Maha Oya river we drove more and more into rural Sri Lanka, which was amazing - paddy fields with ibis stalking frogs in them watched by idly chewing cows and water buffalo; groves of coconut palms shading the smaller banana trees, all of which were laden with fruits. Anton explained to us that there are green coconuts and ‘king’ coconuts, the milk of which is meant to be great for hangovers! There were also red bananas as well as the native small yellow ones, which apparently have as distinctive taste, so we vowed to try these at a later point.

When we reached Pinnawela, we’d actually made really good time, so we decided to visit a local tea plantation first, the makers of Glenloch Tea. The guide there showed us around the factory and the process from the drying to the ovens and sorting, which was fascinating and a process (and machinery) that hasn’t changed for a hundred years. They even gave Suz a tea leaf all of her own!

But then the important bit (bear in mind that we’d been on the road since 6.30) we then got to sample the produce! Ceylon tea is lovely! Several cups later and we were on our way over to the orphanage as it was feeding time!

The orphanage at Pinnawela is really well set up, with amazing amounts of space for them to roam around in and are all looked after by the keepers (who are all on the make!). At feeding time though the little ones at the ones that need care are brought into an open shed to be fed, some by bottle, some by branch, and up close and personal these guys are cute! We were even allowed to scritch one behind the ear as he was having a munch and a hose down!

These guys are wonderful and you can see the intelligence in their eyes, so beautiful. They even had a teeny tiny little 3 week old calf there:

and a great big hulking beast who was being kept in solitary as he  kept breaking out and doing toes!

After walking around wide eyed here though, we then got to go and see them being bathed as the orphanage is right next to a river, which you can imaging is a tourist draw!

They looked to be having such fun though! 

After a relaxing watching the elephants have a bath, we were once more underway, the next stop on our marathon to Kandy was the Spice Garden. Perched on the side of a hill, they have created a list of spices for which Sri Lanka is known, from the vanilla orchid, to cinnamon trees, all growing right there, ready to be shown. It was a fascinating tour showing all the various spice plants, and the smell was amazing.

green peppercorns

After being shown around  we were then treated to a demonstration of the benefits of some of these spices with massages, and bizarrely, hair removal (I now have a completely bald patch on my leg!). Whilst relaxing under the ceiling fan, a huge butterfly flew in meandered around and got hit by a fan blade. It sounded like a massive thwack, but when our guide went to look for it, the butterfly was simply dazed, so they let him rest on a leaf before flying off. Bullet-proof butterfly!

Carrying on towards Kandy, we climbed ever upwards, the road still surrounded by merchants on both sides, with huge numbers of fruit vendors everywhere. We stopped briefly at a nice viewpoint overlooking a valley towards the mountains at Kadugannawa, a flat-topped mountain with flat-topped monkeys which made me chuckle:

flat-topped monkey!

After that we hit Kandy proper which made a welcome relief as, in the space of one street, the hawkers disappeared giving way to the order of the city. The driving was still manic though! 

Our next stop after a brief lunch overlooking the river was at another of Sri Lanka’s famous exports, gems and semi-precious stones, as the best quality sapphires are found here. We were taken around a cutters and shown the trade, including a video of how these gems are mined, which looks like hard, dangerous work. The smiths themselves though were really skilful, and showed us how they cut the facets on a diamond grinder:

They then took us around the showroom which had a lot of beautiful things in it, and seemed strangely disappointed that Suz couldn’t wear jewellery, so didn’t want to buy anything!

As if we hadn’t done enough things for one day, we still had the second highlight of the trip to come today, the centre of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth. we duly removed our shoes at the entrance and then a guide took us around. This place was amazing and so serene. Parts of the temple had been decimated a number of years ago when two Tamul Tigers committed suicide here, blowing up a large fraction of the entrance hall. All the damage has been erased now, and thankfully the troubles have eased, but the whole temple and story of Buddha and the Sacred (left) Tooth was fascinating with some of the decoration and carvings being very intricate and lovely:

We toured around the whole temple and the ancient meeting hall as well as the new hall dedicated to the last elephant to wear the title of ‘Raj’. The middle  elephant in the picture above is the one that leads the whole celebratory procession with a replica of the Sacred Tooth on its back.

After this tour, Suz and I were flagging, but we weren’t finished yet, as the last stop for today was to see native dancing in the Red Cross hall followed by firewalking. The hall was dark and hot, but it wasn’t long before the drumming and piping and dancing woke us up a little.  As did watching the very bored-looking finger cymbal player!

The firewalking followed straight after, and made the whole place stink of paraffin and smoke:

Come the end of the day, we were dying to get to our hotel for the night when Anton, our guide, took us through a series of back alleys to  The Mahaweli Reach, a really beautiful place with palatial rooms and comfy beds to sink into…