Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon)

23^rd 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.