Welcome to Kandy!
We stayed at the Kandy View Hotel for 30 USD a night! Including continental breakfast 🙂
The room wasn’t much, as far as a good bathroom and nice bedsheets go, but it did have a great view!
Gotta say it felt good to be out of Dubai and back in shorts again 🙂
After we settled in we took a small nap and then headed out to a cultural show. The show lasted one hour. It was really nice to see some of the custom dancing, music, and clothes from natives.
Temple of the Tooth (Sri Dalada Maligawa):
The temple houses the most important Buddhist relic – a tooth of the Buddha. It is said that the tooth was snatched from the flames of the Buddha’s funeral pyre and smuggled to Sri Lanka in the hair of a princess. It was first taken to Anuradhapura, and moved through the country on waves of history before it ended in Kandy. The tooth shrine receives many worshippers and tourists. During pujas the heavily guarded room housing the tooth is open to devotees and tourists.
First you have to bring Lotus flowers for Buddha.. It gives you good Karma
yoga in a skirt.
As you can see we weren’t the only ones who had the idea of checking out this temple. It was madness… lots of pushing and shoving and long lines….You walk up the stairs and everyone is waiting in line to go to that gold door…. I really don’t know why…. it must be something important.. leave a message on the bottom if you know 🙂
You walk into this white and gold decorated main room with Buddha’s life story portrayed through paintings. Under each painting there is a Buddha sculpture with specialized hand gestures.
There are many Buddhas each with different hand gestures symbolizing different messages.
Thats me 🙂 Praying to the Nirvana Stupa : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupa
Great End to our first day in Sri Lanka….want more Buddha? Don’t worry we still have two more days of fun to share. On the second day we head North to the World Heritage Triangle…Sigiriya, Dambulla, and a spice garden 🙂
Summary of Day 1: Pinawalla, Kandy Botanical Gardens, Cultural show, and the Sacred Tooth Temple.
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