Day 6-5/24/2010

Kandy today!! Elena and I started the day with the Temple of the Sacred Tooth. Legend holds that a fragment of Buddah's tooth is contained within the temple. The fragment was plucked off of his funeral pyre and smuggled into Sri Lanka in the hair of an Indian Princess. I saw this story illustrated several different times through a series of murals throughout the temple. The tooth itself is contained in a large shrine with a golden roof which is in the courtyard of several larger buildings containing smaller shrines and a museum about the tooth and the temple. A lot of people brought lotus flowers as offerings, and some brought food to set out. I had to go in barefoot, and I had to rent a sarong to cover my knees before I could go inside.

The view of the temple from across the lake

An elephant carving at the front of the temple

More ornamentation inside

When Elena and I were on the 2nd story of the museum, we looked out and saw a whole band of monkeys running across the street and onto the temple grounds. They were so funny, and 2 of them even had babies hanging on their stomachs.

Behind the temple was a museum dedicated to Rajah, the tusker who served the temple for 50 years. And inside is Rajah, beautifully taxidermized and preserved...it's really creepy.

We decided to hike up a hill to see the Buddah on the Hill, a statue that sits above Kandy and measures up to 89 feet. The monks here are a lot different from what I'm used to. We met one up at the Buddah statue that was really friendly and wanted to know all about where we were from and what we were doing in school. Before we left, he gave us blessing bracelets, which he blessed in Sinhala and English.

Buddha looking over Kandy

Everyone in Kandy was really friendly. They all wanted to know where we were from and where we were going and everyone was willing to show us around and help us find the things we were looking for. One guy took us to the open air market where the spice gardens buy their spices. We got a ton of tea and spices for half the price of the spice gardens! Overall it was a very successful day.