This blogpost is about Kandy, the capital of the last Sinhalese kingdom that was able to withstand numerous attempts of colonial powers to conquer it until it was conquered by the British in 1815. We will advice how to spend your precious time in this sacred city.
Kandy was appointed the status of World Heritage site in 1988, mainly due to the Temple of the Tooth, or Sri Dalada Maligawa, which holds a container with a sacred relic, a tooth of Buddha which was brought to the island in the 4th century. This relic was an important source of legitimacy of the Sinhalese kingdom and was therefore always kept in the respective residence city, e.g. in Pollonoruwa in the 12th Century. The English name Kandy is derived from the Sinhalese „Kanda uḍa raṭa“, „Kingdom on the Mountain“, which the Portuguese shortened to Candea.
The Temple of the Sacred tooth
The temple nowadays is an important pilgrimage site for Buddhists worldwide. Most Sri Lankans believe they need to visit the temple at least once in their lives to pay homage to the tooth of Buddha. In the queue you see a mix of nationalities. If you believe the story of the tooth to be fact or not, before you visit the sacred temple area you should consider getting some offerings like flowers which are sold conveniently at the entrance gate.
Tickets for foreigners cost 1500 LKR and are sold inside the temple grounds only via vending machines which give no change. There is a booth where you must drop your shoes for a small fee. Remember that you are requested to wear appropriate clothing. That means your shoulders should be covered and wear a dress or trousers that are at minimum knee lenght.
Royal Botanical Gardens Kandy
If you are looking for a peaceful getaway from the hustle and bustle of the city the Royal Botanic Gardens on the outskirts of Kandy adjacent to the Mahaweli river is a very good choice. Inside the beautifully landscaped and well maintained park visitors find more than 4000 species of plants. The gardens attract >1 million visitors annually but it hardly gets overcrowded as the park covers an area the size of 90 football fields. For entrance we paid 8.000 LKR (ca. 40 EUR) for 3 adults and 1 child, 5-12 years old.
For the kids the main highlights were:
- The cannonballs trees whose name giving fruits are not as heavy as they appear on the picture below with Nisha.
- A forest of giant bamboo trees. Here you can easily imagine yourself to be a character in Gulliver travels.
- The roots of a huge mahagony tree where the kids can balance on.
4. A horde of toque macaques (German: Ceylon Hutaffen) which call the park their home. The rather peaceful bunch of monkeys live in trees nearby the river and are looking for food. Outside the park we have had bought some pealed and cut guavas which we offered to the monkeys. It turned that they loved it very much. And our kids loved feeding them.
The Botanical gardens keeps you easily entertained for 2-3 hours. There are maps given to you at the park entrance. We advice to get one so you don´t get lost.
Ambuluwawa Peak
The Ambuluwawa peak became sort of famous due to some Youtube videos which went viral on social media. It shows someone climbing up the spiral staircase of a tower which is hardly wide enough for a single human. How the hell can people go up and down passing each other? We wanted to find out. It was still raining when we left our accomodation, the Captains Lodge in Kandy but we trusted that the weather pattern of the previous day would repeat and hopefully the rain would stop and the clouds would clear in the afternoon. There will be always a chance that the peak is covered in clouds of course but the weather in the mountains changes quickly. It can be for better or worse.
How to get to Ambuluwawa peak?
Ambuluwawa peak you can reach in about 45 minutes from Kandy via taxi. Nearby is a muslim dominated community named Gopale. Before you can access the summit of the Ambuluwawa peak you need to pay a small fee (300 LKR per person, +25 LKR for the vehicle) at a gate. Tuktuk drivers offer their service from there but since we had a taxi we figured it´s not needed to change vehicles. Our cab driver dropped us ca. 1 km before the mountain top. The car was continuously going in 1st gear for 15 to 20 minutes and the engine started to get hot. The last mile we walked, it was a somewhat steep ascend, a curvy road, however paved.
The Ambuluwawa peak tower
Once you reach the top there is a platform with a temple from where you have a stunning view (provided that the clouds are not blocking it) over the city of Gopale and the surrounding highlands, including mountains such as Pidurutalagala on the Eastern side, Bathalagela (Bible Rock) on the West, Sri Pada (Adams Peak) to the South, and the Knuckles range in the North.
From the lower viewing platform the tower rises 48 meters in the sky. Your way up starts with stairs inside the tower. As one ascends the diameter becomes smaller and smaller, as such gets the space. Fortunately, the place was not too crowded so we decided to continue. Then, about halfway to the top, there is another smaller platform from where the stairs continue outside.
On the smaller platform it feels like flying above the clouds. To go further up you must not be afraid of heights. The skinnier your physical shape is, the better is your chance to reach the pinnacle. The width of the stairway is not even, I noticed. Sometimes it´s a meter wide while sometimes it´s less. That feature helps people going up and down finding spots where they can pass by each other. And there are other helpful constructions which benefit the climbers: the solid concrete rails outwards and metal handles inwards. At the last 10 m there are holes carved in the tower wall obviously made to lean in parts of the body so people can pass each other.
This video shows the last part of Lily and I climbing up the Ambuluwawa tower.
On our way downhill we chose the easy way via a tuktuk. It started raining cats and dogs. Our driver invited us to have a cup of tea at his home in Gopale which we gladly accepted. It was a perfect way to finish an adventurous day in the mountains around Kandy.
