Sri Lanka Day 4 - Colombo

Went back to Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka and we visited Gangaramaya temple in the morning. It's a popular tourist attraction, as well as a place of Buddhist worship and learning in Colombo. The temple is quite big and there's many interesting stuff to see. It has a library and a museum which holds numerous Buddha statues from all over the world, old watches and many other antique collectibles. The place which I really like is the courtyard area where the big Bohdi tree is and also the stepped out wall with many Buddha statues were installed in rows.

I would really like to recommend this place BUT I just found out that there's a chained elephant named Ganga in this temple and it was mistreated/abused by its handler and being used to make more money. It was until today when I googled about this temple and found a video clip of Ganga being beaten abusively then only i knew its existence. There's no sight of it when we visited so we had no idea about this, the guide didn't mention about it as well. Hope that proper actions are being taken and Ganga will get the proper care and treatment as it deserves.

Ended our day with a visit to the Independence Memorial Hall and some shopping at one of their biggest shopping malls in town. Back to hotel and it was such a bliss to have a sunset sea view just outside our hotel room window.

Sri Lanka Day 3 - Kandy

Day 3 was nothing much, we found ourselves happily trying the saree at one of their factory outlets in Kandy. They provide free saree trying and photography is allowed too. This was my first time wearing saree so i had a really hard time choosing the color and design, i think they have more than 100 designs to choose from..lol! The ladies there will help you to wear the saree so no worries! I was really amazed by how that one long piece of fabric was turned into a saree just by draping and folding here and there. So tempted to buy the saree home but it's quite expensive so i just bought a few pants so that the lady who served me can earn some commission..i think i disappointed her opps :x As we all know, one of the famous thing in Sri Lanka will be their tea plantation, we visited one of the tea plantations in Sri Lanka and got to see how the tea leaves are produced. All the tea leaves are still handpicked and the guide told us that the workers have to collect 20kgs of tea leaves each everyday..omg! We then went to the factory to see how the tea leaves are processed and also we had a tea testing session where we had different types of tea ranging from the most expensive to the most common one. Bought some tea leaves for souvenir and this conclude our day 3 in Kandy, moving on to Colombo the next day~

Sri Lanka Day 2 - Kandy

Kandy is the second largest city in Sri Lanka after Colombo but you can rarely see any tall buildings or architectures there as compared to Colombo. We were going through narrow mountain roads and alley everyday when we traveled from one place to another. The road was so narrow that it only allows one car to go at a time and the hotel/villa we stayed at Kandy were all hidden up the mountain or in the jungle so we have to go through all those super narrow mountain road almost everyday! o.o It was pretty scary because there's no barrier or gate along the side but i must say i was really impressed with our couch driver's driving skill!

We visited New Ranweli Spice Garden in the morning and were greeted by a Sri Lankan who can speak Mandarin after learning for one month..what! We were briefed by the guide on how spices and herbs like peppercorns, vanilla, cocoa, etc are grown in the natural environment and a small cup of cocoa was given to us during the introduction of their products. They also gave short massage services to some tourists using the massage oil that they made and you can actually buy all those items from its store but i heard that they are all overpriced items. We didn't buy anything though..haha! I thought the most interesting part was the curry cooking in traditional way before lunch. 

Headed to Sri Dalada Maligawa, also known as Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic after lunch.  It is located in the royal palace complex of the former Kingdom of Kandy, which houses the relic of the tooth of Buddha. The temple was beautifully maintained and it gives you a very calming and peaceful atmosphere. We visited quite a number of temples in this trip and I think this was pretty worth a visit though the crowd can be a little bit too overwhelming.