Kandy, Sri Lanka
Once the capital of the island, now the second largest city in Sri Lanka, Kandy is the country’s cultural, buddhist and tea-y capital.
Without milk or sugar. Or tea.
The day started with a visit to a nearby tea factory. In Sri Lanka, as opposed to, for example, India, they still harvest the tea by hand. Whether that makes it better or not, I leave to the more avid tea-drinkers to decide, but it certainly makes it more expensive. The pluckers are paid a living wage, but sometimes the factory use workers who not only don’t get paid a fair amount, or at all, but in fact even pays for permission to come to work: tourists.
We did our own little five-minute harvesting, filled a third to a half of the little baskets, and went back to the factory for some presentation of the process. Basically, the leaves are fermented (to make black tea), not fermented (for green tea), then dried, crushed and separated. The grading is what gives the tea different taste. Of course, if you really want to differentiate the taste, one could always add other flavours and herbs to the mix. Ginger, lime, coconut, arrak, berries, bergamott, and so on, and so forth, in that manner.
After the factory tour we got to sample the tea. Not a variety of versions, mind you. Not even a few. Nope. One cup of one flavour was what we got. And it was the, probably, most vanilla* of tea ever: English Breakfast. So, yeah. No. Meh.
Lake it or not
The tour had so far been pretty jam-packed with activities from dawn to dusk, but after the morning tea business, we had time to explore Kandy on our own. Leaving the town’s most famous attraction, we set out for a stroll among the second most: Kandy Lake, aka Kiri Muhuda.
An artificial lake, created by Sri Wickrama Rajasinha in the 1800’s, it offers a relaxing break from the otherwise rather bustling street traffic of Kandy. The lake is populated by fish (eagerly fed popcorn by the locals and tourists alike), pelicans, ducks, monitor lizards, turtles and cormorants.
Setting off to find a restaurant recommended by a former co-traveller, we soon realised that the turnover in the food and drink industry in Kandy must be rather high; we found the place, but it was closed, seemingly for good. Moreover, none of the bars and pubs listed on map apps seemd to be in business. Eventually, we found ourselves back at the hotel, ready for the evening activities.
It’s fun to stay at the….
The first of which was a cultural show performed at the local Y. MCA? Nah, MBA**, of course. Skillful drummers and dancers performed traditional and ceremonial dance and acrobatic numbers, dressed in elaborate clothing, demonic masks, or peacock dresses. For the finale, we went outside for a fire show.
Tooth fairy
Kandy’s main tourist, and indeed pilgrimage, attraction is the Temple of the Tooth. Some buddhists believe that when Siddharta Buddha’s body was cremated in India, somehow one of the teeth survived scot-free. That tooth was retrieved by devout monks and given to the king. According to the story, it later swapped hands a few times, eventually made it to the Portuguese, who obviously burnt it, smashed it to powder and spread it into the ocean. Yet somehow the tooth magically reappeared in buddhist hands, and since the hindus forbade veneration and worship of human remains, the tooth was smuggled from predominantly hindu India to predominantly buddhist Sri Lanka.
Different kings placed the dental deity in different capitals, until it reached Kandy, around which a temple was built and the tooth was displayed for all to see.
In a temple that is definitely not a temple, but nevertheless an interesting, and indeed more or less mandatory, site to behold when in Kandy.
Except no. First of all, it’s not a temple, as it lacks two of the three things needed to be considered such: no stupa and no bohdi tree. And second of all, the tooth is kept in a chest, which in turn is kept in another chest, and so forth, like a Russian doll.
The few non-buddhists to have seen the alleged magical resurrected denture all agree that it’s way too big for a human tooth, and more probably comes from a cow. It doesn’t stop hundreds of people to every day stand in line to see a chest that may or may not contain a few more chests that may or may not contain a tooth, which may or may not have belonged to a human, who may or may not have been an Indian prince, who may or may not have reached enlightenment, by his own statement.
In a temple that is definitely not a temple, but nevertheless an interesting, and indeed more or less mandatory, site to behold when in Kandy.
Caroline’s corner
The Brits introduced the tea plant to Sri Lanka, thus causing the man-elephant conflict as they took the lands populated by the elephants and repurposed it to tea plantations. The elephants were pushed out of their natural habitat. The organisation we travel with, Intrepid travels also has a foundation: The Intrepid foundation. They try to give back to the communities which we visit. One of these projects is the Orange project. Apparently elephants don’t like oranges, lime etc. The plants/trees are too filled with thorns, and the smell and taste of the oranges is not for the elephant palate. By planting the edges of the farm/tealands one lessens the crop destroyed by hungry elephants thus decreasing the elephcide. I do believe that the Orange foundation plants more elephant suitable crop in places where these beautiful giants can live in peace. A pretty neat setup. Also they try to minimize the plastic waste. We collect our plastic waste in a bottle that will be used as a brick in a house. Another cool thing with Intrepid is that they really try to use local suppliers. For example, we got small canvas bags for shopping sewn by a single mother with handicapped kiddies. Yeah, that sounds like a fib but it is really true. And nice.
More than 21 million individuals live on this island. The lankese, the hindus and the tamils.
They have an amazing history. In fact, the longest recorded written unbroken history record is Sri Lankan. When my ancestors played with bronze and chased the sun god, the Sri Lankan old ones had a books, brick buildings and a very technologically advanced society. A lot of that knowledge was destroyed intentionally by the colonial rule. The Brits, the Dutch and the Portuguese intentionally targeted the scholars and the skilled craftsmen and therefore wiped out all that skill.
During our stay we have seen and met many dogs. Sri Lanka have approx 3,5 million dogs. Not wild but more like communal dogs. People feed them, some have collars (and those have less fleas) some are clearly filled with bugs and other nasty little surprises. It is somehow interesting to se how dogs look like without human interference. No small, pugnosed ones, no big, longlegged tiredlooking ones. They all are approx knee-high length, long noses, perky ears and lean tight bodies. Rather like short-haired foxes. But it is hard to see them and not adopting them all. Even harder not to cuddle them but some do have rabies so no cuddling it is.
Kandy was an interesting experience. Our fine and fearless leader mr Matesh fills our bellies with good and tasty Sri Lankan Street food. Yum, yum and yum. Since my partner-in-crime does not like the sugary pastries I got all of them.
The main business in Kandy is surprisingly marriage. Or rather the party surrounding the nuptials. 2 shops out of 3 were basically either a wedding party rental shop, a weddingbeauty salon or a lawyers office….
*) Other than, of course, actual vanilla
**) Young Men’s Buddhist Association
