After a good nights sleep and a sumptuous breakfast, we were all set to explore Kandy. Our first stop was quite close to the hotel, the Buddhist Temple of the Tooth Relic, where the Left Canine Tooth of the Buddha is enshrined. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is of great significance to Buddhists, Visitors of all religions from all over the world make it a point to visit this beautiful temple which houses rare historical artefacts. The temple premises are immaculately clean and well-maintained. Saliye explained this temple’s history and significance to us in great detail and helped us make an offering. Our pictures are in the gallery below, and a Link to the official site of the Temple is also given below for those who might wish to read further about it.
After the Temple Visit, we went to a Batik Centre where we learnt the process (once again) by which Batik Fabrics are made. Unfortunately, we did not find anything suitable to buy and left without any purchases. Just across, was a large wood factory, where they manufactured and sold wooden artefacts of all sizes. Now this was something we could relate to as we had a lot of woodwork available in Ghana and this was quite similar. Added to that, the sales person who attended to us was – no kidding- a real doppelganger of Prashant Sharma, our upstairs neighbour at ATS Paradiso and that made it all the more interesting. We took a fair amount of time going through the multistory shop and finally selected several wooden masks, a Lord Ganesha and a couple of other items which we felt we could use either here or at our Antara residence which we expect to get possession of shortly.
Not far from here was the Botanical Garden, a huge expanse of green lawns with lush trees and colourful flowers of all types. We walked through this beautiful property and took a break for lunch at their In-House Restaurant. It was tiring but utterly enjoyable.
Our pictures from the morning sojourn are below:
We were booked to attend a cultural show later in the evening and we still had some time to spare. So we did a quick drive through Kandy, visited the Bazaar, strolled around the lake area, and took a few pictures from vantage viewpoints before heading to the theatre. The cultural show featured traditional drummers – which again reminded us of Ghana – as well as some Traditional Dances, all beautifully performed. After the show, we headed back to our hotel for dinner and some well-deserved rest. Tomorrow would be another day
