Way back in 483BC at Buddha’s funeral, some clever dude pinched one of Buddha’s teeth – an incisor they reckon. This relic has been sacred to Buddhists ever since and been closely guarded through the centuries, give or take a few invasions by the Indians, Portuguese, Dutch and the British. The Portuguese catholics say they took it and burnt it back in India, but the Sri Lankan Buddhists say they only stolen a replica. Ha! To the Portuguese.
The real thing is still right here in Kandy! It lies inside seven caskets, inside a two storey temple, inside a compound surrounded by a moat. This is serious “cover your shoulders and legs” territory.

Entry to the Temple of The Sacred Tooth Relic

At puja (daily offerings and prayers) they open the heavily guarded inner room for 15 minutes three times a day. You file past a small window, along with hundreds of others, and quickly look at the casket containing the other six caskets and, apparently, the actual tooth relic of the real deal Buddha. It was all a bit surreal. Anyway, if you’re a Buddhist this is a big deal and a must-do pilgrimage. A bit like Haj for the Muslims.

Gifts for Buddha

All the items here are gifts to Buddha, including the elephant tusks. These are from deceased elephants that perform in an annual religious parade through Kandy that sounds bigger than Texas.
This is the exterior of a secondary temple within the complex of the Temple of The Sacred Tooth Relic. The fence is gold they say.
Most people offer flowers to Buddha which are laid out on a big table just near the tooth room. Outside the temple gates where the Appropriate Clothes Police will get you, there are numerous stalls selling beautiful flowers.

We walked away with bucket loads of good karma. How could you not?

A lesser known fact about Sri Lanka is their world leading quality sapphire industry. Or maybe I’m the only one that didn’t know they were famous for it! We visited a gem workshop and store where they cut and polish a range of precious and semi-precious stones. If you follow Harry on Instagram you may have seen pics of some of the beautiful stones on display.
The work shop was fascinating – nearly as good as the famous Lili Fine Jewellery in Torquay….

I’ve never really been into the coloured precious stones and have preferred to stick with my fave – just diamonds. But some of these beautiful creations are enough to entice me to the colourful side…

You’d have to be living under a rock to miss the fact that Sri Lanka is the third largest producer of tea in the world. Not surprisingly, we learned that Sri Lankan tea is the best in the world from the nice lady at the tea factory we visited. I guess there was no chance she would say that Indian tea was better.
The aroma was enticing in this 100+ year old building that has been processing tea leaves for, well, over a century obviously. We followed the whole process from the initial drying….

Right through to the final product…..

They use the wood from rubber trees that are no longer productive to fire the oven. The women working here earn $5 a day.
I feel rather more educated about the various strengths of black tea, and also learnt about golden tips, silver tips and green tea. We finished with a complimentary cuppa, and the ubiquitous gift shop, which was one where I actually made a purchase and didn’t feel fleeced!

Sri Lanka is well-known for its fantastic cuisine, and we’ve been enjoying numerous delicious curries since we arrived. In the up-country region there are dozens of Spice and Herb gardens to visit. We stopped into one just as the heavens opened – which is still occurring on the west side of the island, but less so in the middle. We regularly head out with umbrellas in hand “to be safe” – or so says our guide Praki. We sure did need them at the Spice Garden.

We saw lemon grass, curry leaves, ginger, turmeric, galangal, vanilla, nutmeg, cloves, chillies, cocoa beans and countless other plants growing in the lush tropical environment. Then came the demo from a lovely man called Pali, who attempted to convince me that the remedies he showed us would dissolve fat, fix heart disease, prevent cancer, restore eyesight (no kidding) and send migraines packing. Here are some of the miracle potions on display for us……..

A table of taste, plus some smoke and mirrors.

Seems to me there should be no need for doctors and hospitals in Sri Lanka.

Unlike India with its Hindu temples bursting with an endless number of gods, Sri Lanka is mainly (75%) Buddhist. So just the one god to worship. But they make up for it with a statue of Buddha on (almost) every corner, atop hills and mountains, on the street, in temples and caves and parks, in small size and mega enormous. There’s ancient stone carved ones and glitzy modern gold ones. Like this whopper below.

But some have a calming mystique to them, even for a lapsed religious person like me. We went to the Royal Rock Temple in Dambulla, just north of Kandy in the centre of Sri Lanka. Here we entered five separate caves in the side of the mountain where we saw no less than 150 statues of Buddha as well as some of Sri Lanka’s most important religious art on the walls and ceilings of the caves dating back 2000 years.

Below are the feet of a 15m long reclining Buddha still with the ancient art on the soles of his feet intact from Cave 1.

One of the caves is 52m by 23m in area with a 7m high ceiling. There’s a truckload of statues in that one.

Visiting Buddhist temples is a ritual that is essential to the training of monks from all over Sri Lanka. Below are some young boys in their early years on the road to being a monk. The different coloured robes represent which temple (or monk school) they go to.

The ticket vendors at the entrance to most important temples also act as the Appropriate Clothes Police. Both men and women must have their shoulders covered and their legs covered to at least below the knees. Given that none of the males in our family even brought long pants with them, they found themselves in these becoming sarongs. Nice.