Sri Lanka It's Happening

April 9, 2005

Just returned from a trip to Kandy - that most phony of Sri Lankan cities yesterday. this was my first visit in three years (if you discount a midnight dash to peradeniya and back about three months ago).

Peradeniya, like Katugastota is a small town just at the outskirts of kandy. It is most famous for the Peradeniya University (the largest in Sri Lanka) and the botanical gardens. Katugastota is most famous for it's car sales. Quite a few of these cars end up double parked or parked on pavements of kandy city.

So what's wrong with Kandy? it's phony from end to end but more on that later, let's talk about the positives for a moment. Kandy has a large lake in the middle of the town. It used to be heavily polluted but thankfully has been cleaned up a bit during recent times.

Kandy happens to be a lot cooler than Colombo, not just because there are more trees in Kandy but also because it is at a higher elevevation. As for the trees, they still stand not because people like them but because with out them all the hills that sorround the city center would come crashing down.

The city is also home of the Temple of the Tooth, one of the holiest shrines of buddhism in the world. The city is a world heritage site and lots of old buildings from the days of the kandyan kingdom have been preserved in and around the city. This is a place for culture buffs, even if it's phony.

Posted by raditha at April 9, 2005 8:15 AM