The Kandy Konnection

A few segments of papaya fruit for breakie and we were hurtling along to Fort, the central district in Colombo, to visit the Kandy man. After a wee chat with Linton and briefly dropping into an internet cafe, which appeared to be run on-the-side in an office by some workers while their boss was away (complete with ongoing electronics soldering beside you!), we were on our way to Kandyland.

Kandy is Sri Lanka's second largest modern city and in historical times was a stronghold of Sinhalese culture and, for a time, was the country's capital. The city lies in the heart of the 'Hill Country' and remained largely inaccessible until the British completed construction of a railway line linking the city with Colombo in 1867. Kandy's most treasured building is probably the Temple of the Tooth which houses the legendary Buddha's Tooth, believed to be an orignal tooth retrieved from the ashes of the cremated body of the Buddha himself.

As luck would have it we managed to get a spot in Willy Wonka's Amazing Glass Elevator, otherwise known as the Observation Carriage. This is the trailing carriage of the train with the back facing wall being more or less completely made of glass. As the seats are all arranged in this direction we were able to spend the entire journey gazing through the window at the spectacular jungle-esque landscape sailing by.

We hurtled by everything from trackside homes to small signs reading 'Danger Weak Sleepers - Max 15 kmph'. The only thing missing was Jeff Goldblum muttering something about dinosaurs and frogs.