Today was one of those wonderful travel days where you tick everything off the must-see list, and have a fabulous time doing it.
We hired a local tuk-tuk driver to take us around to Kandy's more far-flung sites for the day. Sri Lanka is known for its elephant population, so we tuk-tuked an hour out of town to the Milennium Elephant Foundation. This is a wonderful sanctuary for abused, sick, and unwanted elephants.
They currently house six elephants, and the price of admission includes a chance to bathe them in the river, and get up close and feed and pet them. Even better, unlike some abusive zoos around Kandy, all the money from admissions and souvenirs goes to help rescue more elephants. We had an amazing time giving a large female elephant a bath, and petting her playful trunk.
Our next stop was a spice farm, as Sri Lanka was originally a world capital of spice production (which is why the Portuguese colonized the country in the 18th century). We had a lovely tour through a local producer's garden, who explained how coconuts, nutmeg, vanilla bean, sandalwood, lemongrass, cacao, allspice, and many others are grown. We even sniffed and sampled a few off the trees. Matt was especially interested in the tiny shop, where he snagged real cinnamon sticks for just $3 USD. Fun fact: Cinnamon originated in Sri Lanka, and only "real" cinnamon is grown here. Other fun fact: If you ever find yourself in a Sri Lankan tropical garden, for the love of god wear bug spray. I am quite chewed.
Our next stop was a small family-owned tea factory, which has been producing its own tea for nearly 200 years. I had thought tea was always grown here- Sri Lanka's former name was "Ceylon," as in the tea- but I found out that tea was not grown here until the British took over in the 19th century. They moved in, looked around, and noted no tea was available, so they converted many farms to tea plantations. We enjoyed a civilized cup of tea in the factory's tea room, and then moved on.
We visited the National Railway Museum, because in case you didn't know, Matt is a train nerd. Sri Lanka's railway routes are among the most amazing in the world, winding through the hills of tea country with spectacular open-air views. We will be taking two of those trips later in the week, so the Railway Museum was a bit of a teaser for him.
Our last stop was unplanned, but given that a GINORMOUS white Buddha statue dominates the Kandy Lake vista, we wanted to see how big that thing was up close. Bonus: Our 200 rupee admission (about $1.75 USD) included climbing up to his giant shoulder. Not bonus: They required us to take our shoes off and walk around barefoot in the muck, AND charged us 50 rupees ransom to get our shoes back. Grumbles.
(side note: When we first visited Asia in 2002, I thought the taking-off-your-shoes thing was charming. Now, it irritates the crap out of me....I don't want to be slagging about in the muck while my bare feet rub on the dirty floors, in everyone else's foot fungus and filth stew. THIS IS WHY WE INVENTED SHOES. I'm just sayin'.)
We ended our day of fun at a very late lunch, once again at the Muslim Hotel, for another round of chicken kottu and wood apple juice. I am proud to say that this time around, I neither attempted to drink from the finger bowl, nor broke any glassware and receive stinkeye from the waiter. Score!
Tomorrow morning we depart Kandy, and head up into the highlands of Tea Country to Sri Lanka's "Little England." Cheerio until then.
Like a Kid In a Kandy Store
Monday, March 02, 2015
Kandy, Central, Sri Lanka
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