Sri Lanka

That's  no  place  for  a  Motor Home,  and  caravan  towers  probably  get  breathalysed  on  principle  !!

Our group has an excellent Sri Lankan guide, very knowledgeable and friendly, but boy, does he like to talk! 

The food is really excellent. Most main courses are curry based, but quite mild which apparently is the local tradition.  We had a really good fish massala on the first evening. The meat tends to be a bit tough and overdone so we've mainly stuck to fish dishes of which there is a great variety. 

Today we've arrived in the ancient capital of Kandy, now a world heritage city and famous, as I told Mrs M, for having the highest above sea level test match cricket ground in the world (but apparently that's not a very interesting fact! )

On our way we stopped at two temple complexes. I had wrongly assumed that the main religion in the country was Hinduism but, in fact, over 70% of the population is Buddhist.

The first we visited was the cave temple complex at Dambulla. As the name suggests, the temples are carved out of caves. There are 5 of them, all lined with multiple statues of the Buddha in various poses, but it was too dark inside to take really good photos on my tablet. It is definitely taboo to pose with these statues. There was also a Buddhist school on site and the children, from 5 years upwards were desperate to pose for us!

The highlight of the day was a visit to the most sacred location in the country, the Temple of the Tooth, where tradition has it that a tooth belonging to the Lord Buddha is housed inside a series of intricate gold and jewel encrusted containers, kept behind the solid silver doors in the last photo. These doors are only opened on very special occasions and attract huge crowds of pilgrims when they are open. The whole site is strewn with colourful Buddhist flags and streamers. It was a truly fascinating and awe inspiring visit. 

Many thanks Moulesy, it makes an interesting read. 

Thanks moulesy.  Lovely photos and very informative.  I didn't really know much about Sri Lanka. Is Buddhism the main religion?

Yes, about three quarters of the population is Buddhist. There are smaller Hindu and Muslim communities and a tiny proportion are Christians.

The traffic in Kandy seems even more chaotic than in Colombo if that was possible!

But today we escaped to an oasis of calm just outside the city, the Royal Botanical Gardens. We spent a fascinating morning there. The area was used as the HQ for the South East Asia command under Louis Mountbatten during the war and, apparently there is even a scene in Bridge over the River Kwai showing this. The large conical shaped tree is the very one used in the film!

Other very impressive specimens include a stunning Bronze Shower tree, an avenue of Royal Palms and a huge Japan Fig Tree, the canopy of which covers about 250 square metres. It is an offshoot of the original tree which was said to cover 10 times that area.

There is also a stunning collection of orchids and a thriving colony of gigantic fruit bats, which can be seen roosting in many of the trees, but you'll have to look very closely at the last photo to spot them.