Day 5 Tuesday

A more civilised start this morning so I could enjoy my egg hopper and chilli pickle at leisure. We were off fairly early before it got too hot to visit the Royal Botanical Gardens in the centre of Kandy. Kandy’s ambience is definitely colonial although between 1592 and 1850 it was the seat of the kings of Sri Lanka. It is in a bowl surrounded by mountains and the word Lanka actually means mountainous region. It is a world heritage site with its Temple of the Tooth Relic. Earl Mountbatten was Governor here during the Second World War and had his bungalow and offices in the Botanical Gardens. Several films have been shot here - Bridge over the River Kwai, the Temple of Doom and another one I forget. The route through the town was very congested because everyone in a vehicle had to stop at a particular temple and put a small amount of money in a dragon’s mouth on the wall for a safe journey.

Small dragon’s mouth for prayer money

While waiting for our driver to do that I noticed another interesting shop name “The Clapped Store”.

No idea what they sold. 

The gardens were extensive, well laid out in named areas  and beautiful. Some groups of primary school children were having a picnic and were sitting so nicely eating their breakfast on the lawns in their pristine white dresses. Girls must always wear a tie but boys don’t have to

 Lots of macaque monkeys trouping about, not to mention the enormous giant bats with a wing span oef up to 1.5 metres which were roosting in the trees near the river and still flying about in the light. And they stank!

 Bat in flight

Roosting and very smelly giant bats

 Anyway the interesting trees we saw were the cannon ball tree, fruits like cannon balls,the jack fruit tree which is very trendy at the moment with vegans, as the flesh of the unripe fruit is very fibrous and can be made into something which tastes like pulled pork. A very tall tree which in the past was used to poison the tips of arrows but you had to climb to the top to get the poison. I would think you would have got a bit fed up and called the fight off.

A tree which has a male and a female variety. The male has got dangly bits  and the female has rounded bosom like bits. It’s called the Coco de Mer. Tree. So that’s where the sex shop got its name from!  Cook’s Pine grows tall but wonky because termites or something attack its root.

Cook’s   Pine

Su told us that the national tree is the Iron Wood tree, the national flower is the blue water lily, the national bird is the jungle fowl and the national animal is a giant squirrel. Ronnie said it would have been better to be a sleeping dog as they were everywhere.  

Around the perimeter of a lawned area was a ring of trees planted by foreign dignitaries.  But do you know that apart from the British ones, the Queen, Harold McMillan and Princess Anne, the rest were all assassinated thereafter. So the moral is, don’t plant a tree in Sri Lankan gardens it’s the kiss of death . On we went across a narrow suspension bride where a policeman only allowed 6 people at a time with strict instructions not to rock it. If you stopped to pose for a selfie, he blew his whistle and waved his arms

. Time to leave but first we passed some huge bamboos which got us all reminiscing about the time we planted a bamboo in our gardens.  Don’t they grow big and fast?  Mine came up in the neighbour’s garden. Bill had to dig ours up in the end and he did his back in etc etc etc. 

Giant bamboo

After lunch and a short rest, we decided to take an optional excursion of a short boat ride along the longest river in Sri Lanka called the Mahaweli.

Our hotel on the banks of the Magnificent Mahaweli River

We saw so many birds most of which I had not heard of before but we also saw some basking monitor lizards

Sunbathing monitor lizard

and a and a farmer bringing his water buffalo down to the river to drink and cool off.

We also a serpent eagle in aa tree, eating a little snake. Several crows hopped around him hoping for some left overs. Sadly the photo didn’t come out too well. ,

The eagle is central and the snake is a yellow loop dangling down

 Rush rush rush. After a quick cup of tea, only about meh, we were off to see a show of drumming and dancing at the local cultural centre. I think possibly the drumming was an acquired taste. The dancing consisted of girls doing graceful dancing like peacocks and the boys jumping about with big hats on with long tails attached.

A bit of conch blowing was followed by fire eating and, gobsmackingly, walking on hot coals.

There was no trickery or sleight of hand, they definitely walked on burning coals.
Back at the hotel for dinner. For those of you worried that I will not be eating much due to my resistance to curry, don’t.  There are so many choices. It is always a buffet and always at least 6 different curries.  But there are other choices, fish, beef, eggy things, sometimes pasta. But what they all have in common is that they are bloody hot. I don’t mind that but it does mean that my intake of Lion beer has shot up.
Early night as we have another outrageously early departure time tomorrow. But at least Ronnie made a new friend