We had breakfast at our hotel – there was a really nice buffet that had both English style and Sri Lankan cuisine. Sabrina introduced us to hoppers – these are basically bowl shaped pancakes. They contain coconut milk and rice flour – they are crispy at the top and a little thicker at the base. They are used to dip curries and chicken in – again for that more savory breakfast. It was a nice treat!

We also had some fun watching three monkeys storm the breakfast buffet. We watched them slowly scurry down towards the edge of the roof and peek in. Once they saw no one was watching they dropped down. The staff chased them away numerous times. It wasn’t until we were leaving that one of them had successfully stolen half a loaf of bread. We were able to watch him enjoy his reward from the top of the roof.

After breakfast we hit the road – we made a brief pit stop to take pictures at the Golden Temple – this is right next to the Dambulla Cave Temples. We didn’t have time to stop at the caves due to Sabrina and company having a very long drive back to Colombo. The drive to Kandy took about 2.5 hours from our hotel in Sigiriya.

We stayed at the Queen’s Hotel in Kandy. It was centrally located near Kandy Lake and Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. Kandy is the second largest town in Sri Lanka. There was a lot of traffic and people were everywhere.

We had a quick bite to eat at the restaurant in our hotel and then we set out for the Temple of the Tooth and the Royal Palace.

The Temple of the Tooth is a very sacred place for Buddhists in Sri Lanka. There really is a tooth – a relic from Buddha. However, if you think you are going to be able to see it – you’re wrong. It is shrouded in mystery – just kidding – it’s actually housed in a golden casket. The tooth relic had been moved around Sri Lanka quite a bit – it was believed that whoever possessed the tooth had the right to rule the island. Sri Lankan Buddhists believe they need to visit the temple at least once in their lifetime because it is supposed to help their karma.

There was a lot of construction surrounding the temple – and it looked like we were supposed to cross a road that had been blocked off to get to the Royal Palace. Once we started walking we realized we couldn’t get through – it was one of the few tourist attractions where we paid a fee and didn’t receive a map of it. So we walked out of fenced off area thinking the Royal Palace wasn’t connected. We were wrong – but honestly we ended up being okay with that decision. We walked around a little more near our hotel.

We decided to hike up to see Arthur’s Seat around sunset. This would give us a great view of all of Kandy. The hike wasn’t too bad – but our legs were still aching from climbing Lion Rock. The view was superb. Unfortunately for us, the place we chose for dinner meant we had to go down the hill and climb back up on the other side. I guess we were making up for long time we had spent in the car in the morning!

(The view from Arthur’s Seat – Kandy Lake in the background along with a few temples – the large white items on top of the different hills).

We took a tuk tuk back to the hotel – now that it was dark it was pretty dangerous to walk on single road streets. Not that riding in a tuk tuk is much safer – the driving in Sri Lanka has been pretty crazy. I think Sri Lankan’s use the lanes as “guides” not that you can only drive in one side. They really do use both sides and you’ll frequently see two tuk tuks side by side in a tiny lane. I’m grateful that we don’t have to drive at all while we are here!

We are heading to Ella next. One of the things we were most looking forward to was taking the train from Kandy to Ella – however, the agency we booked our train tickets with cancelled them because the train was overbooked. So we will be using a driver to get us there instead.

Up Next:

• Drive to Ella
• Uva Halpewaththa Tea Factory
• Nine Arch Bridge