Kandy was our second stop in Sri Lanka. We took a cab from Colombo and drove for a few hours through the lush countryside. Before we got to Kandy, we made a couple of stops, first to take an "elephant safari" through the jungle, and second, to the Pinawalla elephant orphanage. Elephants are a popular tourist attraction, especially all of the baby elephants at Pinawalla. One of the babies we saw was just 10 days old - cute! Our last stop before reaching Kandy was for tea at our taxi driver's house. It was somewhat of a surprise to be welcomed into his home, but he and his family were very nice.
After tea, we at last arrived in Kandy. Our hotel, the Earl's Regency, was a spectacular five star hotel on the edge of town, and we had a fantastic view of the Dumbara Valley from our balcony.
Our sightseeing in Kandy included a walk around the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, which had, in addition to all of the exotic plants, thousands of huge fruit bats (3 ft. wingspans!!) hanging from the trees, rather large scorpions, and several monkeys (one of which was more than ready to aggressively defend the trash can in which it sat!). We also toured the Temple of the Tooth, which houses the Shrine of Buddha's tooth relic, dressed very stylishly in makeshift skirts to cover our bare legs. Later we ascended to the top of the hills overlooking the city to see the Bahiravakanda Buddha. On the recommendation of our hotel, we also went to see a performance of traditional Kandy dancers, fire-walkers, and fire-eaters, which was very impressive. We topped off our time in Kandy with a trip to the Pizza Hut that we spotted in town - American food had never sounded so good!
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