After settling into this tropical paradise, I went for a walk around the lake, which was pleasant, but I have to say the ONLY thing to do in central Kandy. There was clearly no nightlife to be had accept a few empty pubs, so I settled on this first 5 days of my trip being about days out by tuk tuk to see nature, which is fine. What I didn’t realise was that every place I was to visit, my lovely landlord was phoning ahead and getting them to charge me double entry fee, so he got a commission, eg 5000 SLR for entry to the elephant sanctuary instead of 250SLR. It was only later I realised this.
This said, I loved all the places I went to, especially the elephant sanctuary, so before I get onto these places lets get my initial grumble out of the way. This is based on Kandy only, as I have not yet been to anywhere else.
Every time I tried to speak to Sri Lankans in Kandy about them or myself, I was ignored, and the subject was quickly changed to: “can I drive you, book you on a tour, change money, sell you something?”, I quickly realised I was not a person but simply a walking cash machine. This is sad and I hope not the case for all of Sri Lanka as I am someone who comes to places for the people and I need those people to see me as a person, not a commodity. Later I was in a tuk tuk heading to a bar and a tuk tuk in front had written on the back: PIRATES OF THE SRI LANKA. I had to laugh. Sadly, Kandy will not be on my return list.
Moving on to day one: Elephants, spice, and machines (sorry Tea).