The trouble with beautiful, comfortable, scenic and hospitable hotels (with particularly comfy beds) is having to leave them. Having to leave Jetwing Lake at 7.30 am seemed to add insult to all sorts of injury. Breakfast was incredible - they even had bacon - and we sat in their indoor/outdoor dining area looking out towards the lake as the day’s curtain of humidity arranged its skirts and settled into place. We had had a serious discussion during the prior evening about climbing the Sigiriya Rock. We looked at photos, we considered what was up there, we considered all the archeological wonders we’d seen recently - including Angkor Wat and the temple zone of Bagan. Mainly we considered the heat of the day and the 1200 steep steps to the top and then said.... ‘naaaah’. As a result we spent most of the morning chilling out on a massive comfy sofa and chatting at a very pleasant colonial style bar - The Rest House.

The coach picked us up around 11 am and the next stop of the day was lunch - eventually. It was a fabulous experience to visit Anura village for the Sri Lankan food experience. Basically a scenic canoe ride, local Sri Lankan food in a communal dining house then a tractor ride back to the coach. This is an initiative the tour company supports and we were all curious how well the village does out of an endeavour like this. Apparently, very. What the company pays for one lunch experience for a group like ours, is equivalent to a month’s income for the village (pre-lunch routine). During the time they’ve been doing it, our guide has seen the boats improve, the buildings in the village improve and so forth - so nice that positive things are happening.

After our great and mainly vegetarian lunch - including a sambal made from a freshly slaughtered coconut and chilli - it was back onto the coach for a short drive to the Luck Grove Spice Garden. Our guide (still proving his worth in every way) pointed out before we entered that the ‘experience’ had already been paid for ie. the tour of the spice garden and the presentation on ayurvedic medicines and herbal remedies - so we ddin’t need to feel that we had to buy something. He doesn’t know us very well. The exit was, of course, via the gift shop. The products seemed very expensive though we admit to knowing very little about herbal remedies. Some people still parted with the readies for assorted pills, potions and spices - just not us. All in all not a bad visit though it seemed a bit gimmicky and we probably wouldn’t have done it had we been travelling independently.

The afternoon still had a fair bit of driving left in it and it was 5.30 pm or so before we made it into the the picturesque lake side town of Kandy. Once more we found ourselves in an OZO hotel - just not quite as impressive this time as the tour had only sprung for a town-facing room (unlike the superb ocean view room we had at the OZO Colombo). The rooftop bar was however gorgeous and it was freshen-up time and lickety-split upstairs for some dinner - this time around we enjoyed excellent fish and chips with tartare sauce and a chicken caesar salad. We’d had local food for lunch... no need to go getting carried away (and we’d been eating curries for breakfast, lunch and dinner for weeks on end as it was).

Our second day in Kandy started early (seriously - when we reach NZ we’re not getting out of bed before 8 am if we have to lock the doors and staple the sheets to our bodies). First stop of the day - the big kahuna - the world famous (even in Myanmar), the one, the only - Temple of the Tooth. Once a royal palace, back when the capital of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) was actually in Kandy, this site is a pilgrimage destination for Buddhists worldwide. The relic itself, a tooth of Gautama Buddha’s, is rarely seen. It exists in a special box which the monks tend and people queue up every morning to see the box being brought from it’s sleeping spot to its on view spot. The temple is heavenly scented with flowers available to purchase outside and thus make offerings with. We enjoyed the pomp, ceremony, drumming and music as the monks proceeded to prepare for the day and entered the lower temple before taking the reliquary up to it’s display spot. It doesn’t mean anything to us spiritually and we’re a bit past queuing for the sake of queueing, so did not join the throngs of devotees upstairs. A good visit nevertheless and certainly a relic to add to our virtual collection (a bit like visiting the tomb of Lazarus in Cyprus).

The next stop was fascinating. Probably because we worship a large cup of tea to get the juices flowing every, single morning. We headed slightly out of Kandy to visit the Geragama Estate tea plantation factory. This colonial building (face it... aside from the new Chinese harbour in Colombo... it’s all colonial...) was built in 1903 and apparently, very little has changed in the way the tea is processed - though obviously a few machines have sped things up a fair bit. Whilst it was ‘only’ 35 degrees or so outside as we approached lunchtime, the heat in the drying room was extreme - most of us didn’t last long - at a guess 45+ degrees. The rich scent of tea permeated the building and the highlight for us was a cup of orange pekoe tea and a couple of biscuits upstairs in the tea shop. Capitalism isn’t dying anytime soon in our household and we did want to buy some of the loose, boxed orange pekoe - but they came in packs of 5 boxes. We immediately organised a 5 party tea buying syndicate among our group and contributed enough dosh for just the one box. Perfect. And so economical.

Next stop - a gem museum with a nifty display of how the Sri Lankan gem mines work (in fact we stood in the only air-conditioned mine in the country... the display one). It was an outstanding display of all the different groups and categories of gems and we discovered that sapphires are a ‘precious’ gem - however rubies are not on the ‘precious’ list... for the simple reason rubies are nothing more or less than red sapphires! So interesting. The prices however were on the rude side of interesting and the staff were high pressure and arrogant. We hung around to support a friend who was buying 4 pairs of earrings - and the sales crew really wasn’t keen on that. Like lions with a weak gazelle separated from the herd, suddenly there were 6 sales staff working on her - can only presume they went on the defensive when we turned up. Only saved her $300 odd in the end, but better than nothing. We finally made it back to the hotel via a very posh car and driver (see... she still paid far too much) and had a late lunch, before racing back to the room, gussying up and heading out at 5 pm to see the famed dancers of Kandy.

Well, perhaps they’re world famous... in Kandy, but dancing was not the forte of this particular troupe. The ladies were not bad but the blokes were more (or less) just stepping in time to music (though quite good at drumming). The young, fit blokes were athletic and did a lot of acrobatic flips. The older, tubbier ones drummed (and stepped). The male plate spinner was good. The lady dropped hers. We ended up sitting on horrendous school-assembly chairs in the heat for at least half an hour before it started and once underway it was definitely too hard, too hot, too loud, and infinitely too long. The drummers literally just kept banging on. I gave in about 15 minutes before it finished and joined a dozen or so other escapees outside in the fresh air. As it turns out I was holding us a prime viewing position for the following fire walking display which was stupendous! Neither of us had ever seen this phenomenon and were very impressed indeed with the last 15 minutes of the evening’s show. We chose to skip a big night in Kandy and took a tuk tuk up the steep hill back to the OZO. Tomorrow? Off to the much, much cooler climes of Nuwara Eliyah - Sri Lanka’s ‘Little England’ - via the scenic tea trails.