Like taking Kandy from an elephant
It’s been an incredible 3 days since Kuwait which we’ve decided was a total yuck-fest. Since then we’ve met with monkeys & bats, visited the most sacred temple in Sri Lanka and bathed and fed an elephant. Not bad! I do not suggest taking anything from an elephant, be it candy or otherwise! This blog post is the story of our time in Kandy.
Day 1, Negombo
After our arduous and unwelcome flight delay we arrived in Colombo Airport at 1.30 AM. We experienced an incredibly tense baggage collection where the last bags to come out were ours AND everyone else’s who were in the same delay situation. We were all certain our bags had been lost and our co-delayees already had their phones out googling Kuwait Airlines customer service numbers. To a big cheer (and bewilderment from the other baggage reclaimers) the baggage finally came out. Our arranged taxi arrived after a bit of a wait and we were shuttled in darkness to Sobaya Bungalow, in Negombo. The host let us into the most beautiful room where we showered and collapsed into a comfy bed, anxious to wake up for our first glimpse of Sri Lanka by daylight.
We were not to be disappointed when we awoke! The ‘bungalow’ was on a large area of beautiful land and had an amazing garden with a pool. Hammocks and swinging beds to boot. It was heaven. We had a dip and relaxed a bit before being served the most ridiculously delicious breakfast ever, with all ingredients fresh from the garden. Much of it was coconut based. We stuffed ourselves silly and then some more and continued to relax for the morning, reading books and walking round the surrounding land/gardens. Sadly we would have spent an entire day here, plus the morning we did spend, had we not been delayed.
Suneetha, our host, then cooked the most obscenely gorgeous lunch. I cannot overstate just how impressive all the food is here. It is all I dreamed of and more, and is supplied in very large amounts. Suneetha is an especially good cook (in part why we chose to book many of the accommodations we did book), so the food was divine.
We then got a taxi to Colombo for our 15.30 train to Kandy, our next stop. Colombo was so hot and very busy. It was chaos and we were fairly glad to get on our air conditioned special observation carriage of the train to await departure.
The train journey was seriously bumpy! But somehow we both managed to fall asleep at various times, such was the jet lag. I definitely snored. There were some incredible views, and lots of villages and things to see along the way. The train wound up through the jungle and cut dramatically through cliffs to eventually reveal huge hazy jungle landscapes.
We arrived in Kandy train station as it turned dark, which happens to be when every single bird in the entire jungle comes to roost in Kandy city. As we left the station, thousands of birds lined every tree, and they’d often move in sweeping packs to find new spots. The cacophony of bird song along with the large Buddhist temple also playing out some sort of chanting prayer was quite an alarming way to enter the city!
Ganga, our host in Kandy, is the nicest person I’ve ever met. She collected us from the station, gave us tea and chocolate and sent us for showers before dinner, which we shared with another couple staying there; a Peruvian man and a Dutch woman. I’ll have to stop saying how good every meal is at this point because it’s all just so bloody delicious I’ll run out of adjectives, so unless I say otherwise, just imagine the best thing you’ve ever eaten in quantities you can’t possibly consume.
Day 2, Kandy
I made the foolish mistake of thinking we were going to the elephant freedom project this day. We arranged an early (7am) breakfast with Ganga, and were out standing on the street wondering why our pick up car hadn’t arrived yet when I realised my error. Luckily, it meant we got an early start to the day and achieved a whole load of excellent activities!
First stop was the Botanical Gardens, just outside of Kandy. We got a jammed bus that we overpaid for and then we were in serenity! It’s a huge park with every exciting tree and plant from all continents. They have the largest collection of orchids in the world as well as some really special and unique trees like one that can only be found in Madagascar that flower out of cannonball shaped… shell?
Importantly, we met our first monkeys here. We spent about 30 minutes walking amongst them as they played and groomed each other and sometimes approached us, not that warily. I was excited to try out my new long lens for the camera, which I bought specially for wildlife, and started getting used to it. Lots of dud pics but some good ones too! A pleasing photographic start to the trip.
We were idly watching some herons in a far off lake when Billie looked up and saw… bats ! Thousands and thousands of bats all sleeping upside down in the trees. The scale of it was fairly mind blowing! They would sometimes wake up and move spot, and when there are thousands of them, that makes for quite a lot of bat flying. I spent ages trying to get pics of them flying (not easy, and leaves you with a stiff neck). I was fairly disappointed with my results as I couldn’t manage to show the transparency of the wings, but when I got the images on my phone for editing, I found that by boosting up the exposure, the camera had caught the detail after all. Happy days!
We then went back to Kandy to visit The Temple of the Sacred Tooth. This is Sri Lanka’s most important temple (I think). It holds a Relic, the tooth of Lord Buddha, taken from the ashes from when he was burnt (didn’t realise he was burnt at any stage, personally…). It is very holy and there were lots and lots of Buddhists there for prayer / pilgrimage etc, more so than tourists. In addition, there is social relavence (I suppose) in that whoever ‘controls’ the tooth, technically is the ruler of Sri Lanka and has been so for centuries. That being said, I’m not sure the government would be overruled if it got nicked, but pretty cool to know!
We put on our long trousers and handed in our shoes. After paying a tourist entry fee we went into the main temple room which was beautiful and certainly had a certain holy and reverent feel to it. We had a wander around and left. It was good but not as exciting as the nature we’d seen earlier in the day.
After a dosa lunch (£2.50 for two people, too delicious), we eagerly headed to Udawatta Kele, a ‘forest sanctuary’ pretty much slap bang in the middle of Kandy. It was almost empty of people and all sounds of the city were shut off as soon as we entered. We walked about 5km around a wonderful jungle environment. We saw a whole load more monkeys which I photographed with much enthusiasm. We should have also been able to see deer and wild boar, but probably crashed through the paths too loudly for any of that business. Many monkey pics below.
We lastly went to a rooftop bar at a fancy hotel and had local beer and arrack as we watched the nightly bird migration into Kandy begin, which was again, quite the spectacle. We made our way to Kandy Station where Ganga’s son picked us up, before showers and food (yum).
Day 3, Kandy (elephants!)
Poor Ganga was up at 6.30 preparing an early breakfast for us again, in the very best of spirits. Slightly unbelievably, the Elephant Freedom Project driver had broken down somewhere and we weren’t going to make it in time for our session. They changed us to the afternoon session and sorted a new driver for 11.30. We took advantage, once again, of the unnecessarily early start and visited the Kandy Central Market where we proceeded to buy tonnes of stuff (slight exaggeration). Among various presents, we got some coconut shell bowls and I got a Sri Lanka International cricket team t shirt and some baggy red trousers.
Our driver arrived this time and drove us (terribly) to the Elephant Freedom Project an hour and a half away. We arrived somewhat car sick and were welcomed with tea and shade, which was nice. They fed us (oof, twas good) and gave us a safety brief, which was brief and along the lines of ‘an elephant will kill you if it doesn’t like you’.
We walked in our group of 8 or so down to the river where Kumari the elephant was laying in the river being given a scrub by her ‘mahout’ (carer). She was huge! We were given cocunut husks to scrub her down with and all got to work. It was pretty amazing to feel her warm skin and be up close. We all had turns doing it for the pic ops!
She got a bit bored halfway through and stood up and then the scale of her really hit me. Just an enormous and immensely powerful creature to be so near to. She swayed back and forth with her trunk to all of us, apparently searching for the fruit we would later feed her.
We then went for a walk down the road (main road with cars) most of whom gave her a fairly wide berth. I think she would do more damage to a car than vice versa. We then went off into the countryside where she found a fallen banana tree which she lifted entirely and carried with us as we carried on. She picked up the bananas themselves on our way back. We got to a bit of undergrowth off the path where we watched her devour an entire tree trunk while the guide told us a load of interesting facts… They DO hate small things because they can get in their trunks, which is awfully painful, hence where elephants being afraid of mice comes from. Bees they especially dislike.
After watching her generally crash around and find food, we all took turns feeding her pumpkin, which she loved, and we had a stroke of her trunk while feeding, which she allows due to the exchange of pumpkin. Photos aplenty were taken! After a walk back, we sadly bid Kumari fairwell and went to a dung factory where they turn the dung into paper, which works surprisingly well and didn’t actually smell at all. We bought a few pressies, had some tea and were driven back to Kandy. Successful trip!
I now sit at Hantana Homestay, our accommodation, where Ganga is cooking up another culinary marvel. Tomorrow we visit Sigiriya (I suppose the Machu Pichu of Sri Lanka, of sorts) and Dumbulla cave temple. It’s another early start… poor Ganga!
A note: the Elephant Freedom Project is pretty much the only ethical place in Sri Lanka to see an elephant in captivity, or at least the most ethical. Most other places have the Elephant in chains and actually use the sharp hook carried by mahouts (they have to carry it by law, but our guy wouldn’t have used it unless of serious emergency). They were excellent and the elephant seemed happy to us!