I am back in hill country. It doesn’t get as hot here as in Mennar or Vidathaltivu and not as humid as in Panadura. One doesn’t even need aircon at night. There are tea plantations everywhere and Kandy itself is arranged around a little lake.
At the moment I am having a drink at the Queens hotel, a colonial building past its prime. The “elephant ride” seems to taste different every day but maybe that’s just me 😉

I came here after the evening ceremony in the Kandy temple of the tooth. It is said that one of Buddhas teeth (the left front tooth to be precise) is stored here. It is a very sacred place and relique for Buddhists not only in Sri Lanka. Every believer should have visited the tooth temple of Kandy at least once in his/her life. For tourists there is a quite high entrance fee and I was reluctant to pay for „just another Dagoba“. But as I missed two tourist attractions today due to insufficient guidebooks and misleading map-apps, I decided to join the opening of the shrine at 18:30h anyway.
And I didn’t regret it.
Now I know where and how Sri Lankan Buddhists satisfy their deprived senses!
The temple, holding the shrine, holding the chamber with the tooth, bursts from gold and lights and woodcarvings! Drums sound through the whole building and over the premises outside. Their pervasive rhythm is joined by the shawm. The whole building is filled with the smell of burning incense sticks and in front of the shrine thousands of lotus flowers make the fish-stand outside seem from another world. The fans and the evening breeze coming through the open roof disperse the smell over the praying people and prevent the crowded upper room from overheating. This is the room where people are waiting to cast a quick look into the chamber where a golden casket, shaped like a Dagoba, holds the tooth. Nobody is allowed to see the actual tooth but the golden, gemstone-emblazed Dagoba sparkles under the light, magnified by surrounding mirrors.

The pictures don’t do the place justice but to give you a hint…

• 

• 

• 

• 

---