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Please refer to my Colombo entry for info on how to get to Sri Lanka. All international flights land in Colombo, so you will need to hire a car to get to Kandy, which is about a 4-hour trip. I booked my car online in advance, departing directly to Kandy from the airport, which made for a stress-free experience. If you are visiting Sri Lanka, I would recommend making Kandy your home base for your travels because it is centrally located to many of the most interesting tourist sites such as Sigiriya. Not to mention that Kandy itself is one of the most pleasant and beautiful cities I have ever visited in the world. If you have seven days to spend in Sri Lanka, I recommend staying in Kandy for five of the days, with Colombo taking the remaining two, at the most. I am so happy I did my research and structured my trip so that I actually did spend most of my Sri Lankan time in Kandy and the Central Region.
Kandy is beautiful. The Central Region has so much culture. You really get a feel for Sri Lanka when you visit Kandy and its environs. It’s also a great place for the budget traveler as prices are reasonable compared to much of Southeast Asia. I also love the cuisine, similar to India, but delightfully different in significant ways. I would love to return to Kandy in the future to see even more of Sri Lanka.
Kandy has beautiful nature within the city limits. Take time to wander around picturesque Kandy Lake, which is located in the center of town. For a relaxing stroll through the forest, head to Udawatta Kele which has an extensive trail system. I hired a tuk tuk for the ten-minute trip from my guest house to the Sanctuary.
The proprietor of my guest house assisted me in hiring a Tuk Tuk (small motorized rickshaw) for a 5-hour tour of the area in and around Kandy. I was able to visit a spice garden, a tea factory, the Sanctuary, and two Buddhist temples during that time. I wouldn’t ride a Tuk Tuk in Jakarta out of fear for my life, but in Kandy it’s a pleasant, inexpensive, and reasonably safe experience.
Tea was introduced as a crop to Sri Lanka by the British in 1867 and now it is one of the nation’s most important agricultural products. New Girigama is one of the oldest factories in Sri Lanka and provides an interesting tour for the visitor, where a person can learn about the entire tea manufacturing process. Of course, there is a showroom for tasting where you are encouraged to purchase the product.
In my travels through the Central Region, I would not be exaggerating to say there are over 250 spice gardens where the visitor receives a botanical tour where hundreds of tropical plants are showcased and their medicinal properties are explained. Some of the spice gardens also manufacture their medicinal potions in giant cauldrons heated by wood fires. At the end of the tour you will receive a high pressure sales pitch to buy their lotions and potions. I did my best to resist, but sandalwood is indigenous to Sri Lanka, is much cheaper there, is great for the skin, and has a lovely, subtle fragrance, so I did buy a jar of hand cream. Please note that every driver you ride with has an agreement with various spice gardens to bring unsuspecting guests in for a visit. If your driver suggests that you stop by a spice garden he strongly recommends, please feel free to gently say no if you wish to avoid the aggressive sales pitch. I visited one spice garden and, after that, I was very comfortable politely declining any additional visits.
Ranawana Temple just might be one of my favorite Buddhist temples ever. It is unusual in that it is one of the few that depicts a gigantic “Walking Buddha,” which symbolizes the Buddha’s journey toward enlightenment. I was also delighted by the statues of Buddha’s 80 followers also making their journey through the woods.
Bahirawakanda Temple, a rather modern temple built in 1972, features a fairly standard pose of the Buddha that is over 80 feet tall. As an added bonus, the views of Kandy from the temple are breathtaking.
In central Kandy is perhaps the most important Buddhist temple in all of Sri Lanka. This temple holds one of the most important relics in Buddhism: one of the teeth of the Buddha, removed by one of his followers while Buddha’s body was being prepared on his funeral pyre. I take stories of holy relics with a grain of salt as it seems every church in Italy has some bone or tooth of Jesus housed inside, but this particular relic seems to have a history that has some documentation. After being housed in India, the relic was transported to Sri Lanka around the year 300 and was protected by the Sinhalese Kings for centuries. The current shrine was constructed in 1595 and was bombed twice by rebels during the Civil War in 1989 and 1995. The tooth is not on display to the public, but during your visit you will be surrounded by thousands of worshippers making a holy pilgrimage to the site giving you a sense of their religious intensity.
Whenever I visit a new culture, I make every effort to take a cooking class to learn about the local cuisine. I think it’s one of the best ways to learn about a people. Kandy is a great place to take a cooking class because there are more than a dozen schools to choose from. I chose my school because my package included a visit to the Central Market where we accompanied our teacher while she purchased the vegetables and spices we would be using for our dishes. It was fun to explore Kandy’s vibrant and exciting Central Market.
After we had made our purchases, we went to our instructor’s house for our class. She had an extra kitchen in her house just for classes with a wood fireplace where we cooked some of our dishes. We learned 11 recipes, prepared them, and then we sat down to consume our giant feast. I can’t recommend this kind of cultural experience highly enough, whatever nation you might be visiting.
Central Region—there are so many places to visit north of Kandy that it’s hard to visit them all in a day. The owner of my hotel connected me with a local driver and I was able to instruct him on where I wanted to go and the driver also provided me with additional helpful suggestions along the way. The day was busy—if you are in Sri Lanka for a week or more you might want to devote two days for exploring the region.
Sigiriya is the most famous destination in the Central Region. Also known as Lion Rock, Sigiriya is a 200 meter high granite monolithic rock pillar jutting out from the forested plain. It served as the rock fortress capital of ancient Sri Lanka from 477-495. Some of the archeological features of the city have been preserved and Sigiriya is now a UNESCO Heritage Site.
I took a very different approach to exploring Sigiriya. Instead of spending the $40 USD entry fee and milling about the rock with a herd of tourists, I proceeded a few miles further north to the adjacent 200-meter-high monolithic rock called Pidurangala. I decided that I would rather get the best external view of Sigiriya, visit Pidurangala’s archeological features, and spend $4 for a comparable experience.
If you are in poor shape or in the sunset years of your life, you might want to spend the extra money and climb Sigiriya, because that rock has a full set of stairs that guide you to the summit. The climb of Pidurangala is over a rocky, uneven trail, then just before you reach the summit the trail ends and you are faced with an almost vertical climb of about 30 meters over large boulders. It’s a fairly challenging exercise in rock climbing that caused several older or out-of-shape visitors to give up and head back down the mountain without reaching their destination. But there was no frickin’ way I was going to give up so close to the summit, so I climbed and crawled and wriggled my way up to the top, despite the difficulty and the 38C degree heat. I’m so glad I did, because the view of Sigiriya, and the entire Central Sri Lankan forestland was fantastic.
Besides the spectacular view there are small Buddhist temples and archeological features along the way. And the herd of mischievous monkeys at the base of Pidurangala are worth a laugh or two. One warning: once you depart the admission booth at the base of Pidurangala, there are no restrooms or services. Thank God I always carry sunscreen with me and, even more important on this excursion, I am glad I was packing a large bottle of water as dehydration is a real danger in the intense heat and, especially on the top of Pidurangala which is barren and treeless and completely exposed to the sun.
This is a “must visit” attraction if you visit Sri Lanka. If I’d had more time, I would have stayed overnight at one of the many inns near Sigiriya so I could have spent the second day climbing that rock.
This is an interesting temple near Sigiriya highlighted by a gold Buddha. Worth a short visit. The more-impressive sight in Dambulla is the UNESCO World Heritage, Dambulla Cave with its ornate Buddhist temples inside. You can’t see everything in a day, so I decided to forgo the costly and crowded cave on this trip, but from all I have heard it’s definitely worth a visit if you aren’t as tired as I was after my climb of Pidurangala.
Instead, I chose to see the less-touristed Aluvihara Rock Cave Temple about 40 km. closer to Kandy. There has been a Buddhist monastery on this site since before the first century BC. I am no expert on Buddhist theology, but it is said that many important contributions to Buddhist thought have been made by the monks residing here over the centuries. From a touristic perspective, the paintings and sculptures inserted into the small caves here are the reason for a visit. Created in the 1700s, these Buddhists shrines are visually impressive and are an inspiration for Buddhists practicing their faith.
I usually don’t recommend specific hotels, but Jaye’s Homestay in Kandy is so outstanding it deserves a mention. It’s tucked away on a quiet hillside about 10 minutes from Central Kandy. It’s not luxurious, but it is reasonably priced, the views are super, and the rooms are clean, comfortable and fully furnished, with lovely AC. Jaye, the proprietor, is a friendly, helpful person who willingly assists you in setting up transportation and tours. The traditional Sri Lankan breakfast is gigantic and tasty, enough to keep your stomach full for the whole day. You have the option to purchase a dinner cooked by Jaye’s wife or mother-in-law (the same food the family eats for dinner). I ordered dinner on my first night and it was so delicious that I ate at Jaye’s my entire stay there. I can’t recommend Jaye’s highly enough. Reserve well in advance as the rooms fill up quickly.
The Train Journey to Ella is another cool activity I didn’t have time to do, but everyone I spoke with strongly recommended this excursion. All in all, my visit to Kandy and Central Sri Lanka was one of the best trips I’ve made since I moved to Jakarta.