Sunday. A late start 10.00.

A drive to Kandy which is set on the steep sides of a valley. An 18C king decided a lake would be good so he had one built. Sadly Adrian had now been dead for many centuries so a new lake builder was employed!

And then to the Temple of the Tooth. This is where one of Buddha’s teeth is kept and worshipped! You enter a very crowded temple (previously a royal palace) and pass the place where the alleged tooth is allegedly kept. I kept my mouth shut in case they were after another!! Only extremely VIPs are allowed to see it. We were not!

We were rather hot after so Lionel took us to the Queens Hotel - once visited by QE2, and possibly not updated since! A shrine to faded colonial grandeur. Following a refreshing ginger beer, we were taken to the gem museum which - surprise, surprise - tried to sell Lin jewellery. Fortunately she resisted! Then a bite of lunch in a tourist restaurant and then to the Royal Botanical Gardens. These cover 147 acres and were rather good. There is a pedestrian suspension bridge across a river to enter and then a number of trees full of roosting fruit bats. Noisy whatsits. We wandered round for a couple of hours, were quite disappointed by the orchid house which took a long time to find with both the map and staff giving incorrect locations!

Finally, and probably a mistake was a traditional cultural dance show - typical tourist stuff and probably not terribly traditional or terribly cultural but it was finished with a bit of fire walking and blowing which was mildly interesting/amusing. And then back to the guest house after dark in the rain!

And there ends another day

ADO/LMA xx