Wake up call at 7.30, but had woken a little before, breakfast at 8.00 to leave hotel at 8.30. First stop was a batik workshop where we were shown how batik was made. We then piled on board the bus to our next stop, a gem museum and workshop. There we were shown a full sized model of a mineshaft followed by a short DVD explaining how the gems are mined. They are still all mined by pick, shovel and hand, and the mineshafts shored up by nothing more than timber, (a...

We reached Kandy at around 3.30, our first stop being The Temple of The Tooth. The Temple of The Tooth (Sri Dalada Maligawa) is believed to house the left upper canine tooth of the Lord Buddha himself. According to legend, the tooth was taken from the Buddha as he lay on his funeral pyre. It was smuggled to Sri Lanka in 313 AD, hidden in the hair of Princess Hemamali who fled the Hindu armies besieging her father's kingdom in India. It immediately became an ob...