Kandy is up in the mountains in the center of the country. 1500 feet surrounded by mountains. Cooler there and beautiful. Take the train if possible the road is 2 lane and everyone is on it. We took the train back and you get to see the valleys, very picturesque.  1st class train with aircon and toilets. Like US rains airline seats. Well the toilets are not quite the same. 1 western and 1 Asian (squatty )

Also dump straight to tracks. Notice the plant. We stayed at Tree Breeze Inn. A great house up in the hills. Very nice lady runs it and killer breakfasts.   Quiet and a 250 lak (rupee)  $1.75 tuk tuk ride up or down to town. Small town with a mix of old and new.

The main deal is the Temple of The Tooth. Buddhas’ tooth is in a box inside. I guess they take it out every 7 years.  Not this year. Nice temple everyone praying and leaving offerings.  Nice walk along the river.  Also there is the botanical gardens started in 1371 by one of the kings. The Brits made it more organized. All broken up into areas it has 4000 different plants. There are all kinds of trees planted all over by kings, queens, presidents etc. Some are 300 years old. They have plaques tell you what kind of tree and who planted it. The huge 2-3 foot wide fruit bats hang in the trees. They also fly in the daytime. Monkeys just walk  by not worried about us at all.  Nice place for lunch in the middle of the gardens Then we went to the tea processing plant. Been there 125 years. Still doing it the old way. By Hand. The machines were over 100 years old and still working.  This tour was arranged by the hotel. Very nice driver.

Violet found a shop with Local textiles made by hand . The shop was run in the fair trade manor. We all purchased beautiful sari’s and shirts there,  Selyn  www.selyn.lk.