Kandy treasures its sacred tooth of Buddha

Press, 4 November 1986, Page 18

Kandy treasures its sacred tooth of Buddha

LES BLOXHAM,

travel editor, concludes his series

on Sri Lanka.

Ceylon’s early- British settlers did a jolly good job in recreating a piece of England in the midst of their equatorial island in the Indian Ocean. They really did go to great heights to find a climate like home — indeed, to an altitude of more than 6000 ft (1880 metres). Nuwara Eliya, their home away from home in the heart of the teagrowing hill country, has it all: a Post Office with clock tower, church with, lych-gate, hedges of privet, roofs with gables and, naturally, lots of rain, fog, grey skies and nippy temperatures. This certainly is gloves, jersey and hotty country, so don’t be fooled by Colombo’s stifling heat and high humidity. The settlers weren’t, and unlike the popular song of the time, only mad dogs went out into the noonday sun in Sri Lanka: the Englishmen were comfortable “at home” high in the hills 100 km to the east.

Only a few families in the area today have links with the original settlers who sailed half way round the world to make their fortune in coffee but who later’were forced by a leaf blight to switch to growing tea. Their nostalgic influence on Nuwara Eliya’s character will remain quaintly obvious for decades to come.

Alvez, my driver, called early at The Hill Club after my night there trying to extract warmth from a hotwater bottle. We were heading for Kandy, the hill capital of Sri Lanka and the last strong-hold of the Sinhala kings. The road drops steeply from Nuwara Eliya with a series of Otira Gorge-like zig-zags, but on a much larger scale. The Otira road descends a mere 500 metres, but the road to Kandy slashes back and forth across the face of the hills in broad sweeps that drop a total of 1800 metres. Just as we began our descent a lad

appeared waving a bunch of wild mountain daisies alongside the car. “He wants you to buy his flowers,” said Alvez, “Just ignore him.” And so we carried on down the road to the first hair-pin bend before we swept back to a point that must have been at least 300 metres below where we had abandoned the young flower vendor. At least, that’s where I thought we had left him until a figure crashed through the undergrowth to re-appear, flowers waving; teeth flashing in our path. Alvez shouted at him in Sinhalese and I .have a hunch that what he said wasn’t very polite. But the boy was unfazed for after we had completed our next zig-zag drop of a further 300 metres, there he was again — same face, same flowers. It was now a game. I was pretty certain we would be seeing more of him as we continued down the mountain. We did. His sixth appearance had him close to 1500 metres (5000 ft below the top of the pass. I told Alvez to stop (first shock) and gave the lad 20 rupees (second shock) for his flowers. “Too much; you pay too much,” cried Alvez shaking his head in despair. “We should not have stopped.” In my book, anyone who deliberately crashes 5000 ft down a mountain in a bid to sell me a bunch of wild daisies deserves a $2 reward. The lad departed beaming, not so. much through making a sale but because Iwanted to take his picture. He waved until we disappeared from sight. Mind you, I wouldn’t at all have been surprised to find him waiting to welcome us at Kandy, 40 kilometres further on.

On the way we made a brief stop to see the processing of tea in a Government factory. Later I enjoyed the freshest brew possible — direct from plant to process to pot. I ended up bringing home a kilogram of BOP which, to the unintiated, doesn’t stand for Bay of Plenty but Best Orange Pekoe. (Tea runners take care: Sri

Lanka. allows tourists to leave with only three kilograms of tea before export duty is applied). Kandy is ah attractive town centred round a large artificial lake. It was the seat of the Kandyan kings from the fourteenth century until 1815 when the British took over.

The lake’s frontage is dominated by the Dalada Maligawa, the Temple of the Tooth, which houses a sacred molar from the Buddha. It is said to have been snatched from his funeral pyre in 5438 C and smuggled to Ceylon in the hair of a visiting princess. The tooth has moved around since then: to India and back to Ceylon, and then to Goa when Catholic Portuguese raiders claimed to have destroyed it. The Sinhalese, however, maintain that the raiders were fooled and that they made off with a false tooth and that the

genuine molar is safe and sound in a gold casket encased within a number of larger caskets in Kandy. - Visitors to the temple can see a (the?) casket at set times during morning and evening ceremonies. Kandy offers an excellent selection of hotels to suit all budgets. I stayed at the Mahaweli Reach Hotel which overlooks the Mahaweli River about 3km from the centre of the town. First-class accommodation is available for as little as SNZ4O a night. • North of Kandy the landscape changes to a more arid, almost desert-like region that misses the benefits of the north-east monsoons in December and January, and the south-west monsoons that drench Colombo from May to July. ■ However, Matale, between Kandy and Dambulla, thrives on the hot dry climate by producing many of the world’s spices — cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, pepper, and cardamon to mention but a few. A number of smaller spice gardens cater specially for tourists with guided tours, tasting sessions, and a range of souvenir packets for sale. Dambulla’s major attraction is a temple with five caves going back in time to the first century BC. A king fleeing from Tamils sheltered in the caves and later converted them into a gilded temple. Some of the frescoes are more than 2000 years old and one of the caves has a giant (14 metre) figure of the recumbent Buddha carved out of rock. The caves are reached by climbing a long sloping rock-face that rises in a gentle gradient from the clay-dust carpark. Eager youngsters will offer to show you the way, but they will expect a tip. . The rock fortress of Sigiriya is only a stone’s throw away and provides a steeper, higher challenge to those who enjoy scorching under the tropical sun. A prince with a yearning to get away from it all built possibly the world’s first. penthouse on top .of the 377 metre rock in 473 AD. It fell into disrepair over the centuries and only the foundations remain today. Travellers interested in ancient history could spend a month touring Sri Lanka’s fascinating old cities. Don’t under-esti-mate the attractions and beauty of this beautiful island.

FACT FILE: Several airlines (including Swissair, Singapore Airlines, and Air Lanka fly to Colombo from Singapore. A weekly non-stop service is also provided from Melbourne by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.. Other air connections are possible by flying through Madras or Bombay. Hotel rates are currently a bargain throughout Sri Lanka with top luxury hotels charging as little as SUS4O a night. The hiring of self-drive rental cars is not recommended. Tailman Tours of Colombo offer an excellent range of internal itineraries.