Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon)
23rd March 2014
WOW!!! What a day. Today we were up early for an 11 hour
excursion to Kandy. Even at this early
hour we were greeted on shore by singers and dancers dressed in their native
clothes.
Our trip to Kandy involved a three hour
journey each way, therefore we were escorted by local police, who guided our
five coaches through the Colombo traffic, spending most of the time on the
wrong side of the road, pushing the thousands of local “took took” taxis and
buses off the side of the road to let us through.
Our first stop when arriving in Kandy was
the Royal Botanic Garden, where we spent an hour walking around the grounds and
glasshouses, which held an extensive display of orchids and tropical ferns. In the grounds there was a colony of fruit
bats flying and roosting in the tree tops.
After a very hot walk we were very pleased to return to our air
conditioned coach.
We then drove into the centre of Kandy
where we saw many educational schools and colleges and wondered which one of
these Pat and Maria may have worked in.
Alongside a beautiful lake we stopped at the Swiss Hotel, an old
colonial building, where we were treated to an oriental buffet lunch (which
included a Thai Chicken Curry, Andrew) and a nice cool beer.
After lunch we were taken to the Temple of
the Sacred Tooth Relic, which is a Buddhist Temple, which houses the tooth of
Buddha. At the entrance there were
officials inspecting the dress code (no bare legs, shoulders, etc). After an inspection of Geoffrey’s shorts the
official deemed they were a little too short, so he pulled them down below his
knees until he was satisfied. However,
Geoffrey had to walk about the temple with the crutch half way down his leg and
his underpants visible over the top, just like the youngsters wear them back at
home, so he felt quite trendy.
The temple was similar to many others we
have seen on this trip and the Sacred Tooth was kept in a casket behind closed
doors and only brought out on special occasions.
Our drive home was a little more exciting
than the journey out as our coach was the last of five being escorted by the
police and half way back we got detached from the front four coaches and ended
up pushing our way through the traffic without the help of the police. Nonetheless it was an interesting drive as we
went through different villages each specializing in leather goods, cane
furniture, girls selling cashew nuts, inflatable children’s toys, and many
different tropical fruits such as bananas and pineapples and many others we
just did not know. We eventually arrived
back at the ship at 7.00pm too late for dinner.
On leaving Sri Lanka we are entering pirate
infested waters, so the ship has rigged up high pressure water hoses around the
Promenade Deck and we have taken on board four SAS personnel, complete with
weapons, and yesterday we had an emergency drill, which involved us sitting in
the corridors outside our cabins, whilst the ships crew repelled a simulated
attack.
1 comment:
I am totally blown away by how much you have done and seen, your reports are wonderful! Your cabin looks luxurious ! I think I could handle a glorious trip like this ! Love Jenny
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