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Srilankan Delights

Flew into Colombo one hot April afternoon. A short uneventful flight of little over an hour. We, my mother and I drove straight to Kandy. Lush tropical  trees, blue skies and green fields whizzed past our car. Green, green everywhere. But roads , narrow, winding, not much to write about. No express-ways nor state-highways. Reached Kandy after a three and a half hour drive.

We wanted to rest but as it was late evening decided to see the temple of the tooth relic of the Buddha instead. It stood gracefully beside the vast Kandy lake and totally bowled you over. Climbing up and down several broad steps, hearing the thunderous  beat of the drums, seeing the casket that houses the relic is an exhilarating experience. You forget the uneasy truce, the ambushes, and you just float into Buddhist mysticism. The casket is taken outside every July- the 'perahara' and once every four  years it is opened for people to see the sacred relic.

Next day our car climbed up the central uplands to Nuwara Eliya. A tortuous fifty kilometer drive for four hours. Again bad roads All forgotten when we reached N.E. Sitting atop emerald hills this hill-country is 'Little England' with English-type country  houses, golf courses and a vast lake. We drank several cups of Ceylon tea soaking in the cool weather. Had stopped for lunch at a tea-factory. Some varieties fetch Rs.25000 a Kg. Bought by gourmet tea-drinkers. Ten kilometers away from N.E. there is a  beautiful horticultural garden. Smaller than the one at Kandy, but with pansies. dahlias and roses 'tossing their heads in sprightly dance'. The sloping green edges and the azure, gold and crimson flowers become picture -perfect postcards of an English  countryside. For the devout there is a small Sita temple before you reach the botanical garden.

Reached Colombo after stopping at the Pinnawala elephant orphanage started in the 1970s. My grandchildren, Maitreya, Vishnu and Hari would have jumped up and down with joy to see baby elephants being bottle-fed and taken to a near-by river for a nice  long afternoon bath.

Colombo is a port-city, where you could stroll down the seafront promonade and shop at Odel and the House of Fashion. The breakfast room at our hotel Grand Oriental looked into the harbour with its quays and containers. Beyond the harbour spread the Indian  Ocean. But photography was forbidden in this high security zone.

We left Colombo the following Friday with happy memories and richer by a couple of gems purchased at a Kandian lapidary.