Traveling Johns

We woke up in Arizona. I had slept a little fitfully during the night, though apparently I had slept through the excitement when just a little past Palm Springs the train had apparently hit someone on the tracks. We were told that the crew and the police had search for some time to try to find out what had happened. But they never discovered anything. 

The Sonoran Desert is probably the prettiest of all the North American deserts, and when we work us the sun was glinting on the sage and cactus, casting a golden glow over the ground. Alas, a camera did not seem to be handy at that moment and before long we were instead on the outskirts of Phoenix. 

The train does not stop in Phoenix itself but in Maricopa, south of the city. It looked like one of the least prosperous areas of the  metropolitan region. It seemed odd that the train did not go into the city itself, and I wondered if conservative Phoenix just found Amtrak too socialist to enter its boundaries. 

From Maricopa, the train went south towards Tucson. If you have ever spent time in Arizona, you know that Phoenix and Tucson regard each other has parallel and foreign universes. Phoenix has well-watered green lawns; Tucson mandates desert planting. Phoenix is dominated by white emigres and retirees; Tucson is proud of its Hispanic heritage. Phoenix is resolutely red; Tucson has a distinctly blue tinge. And so it was no surprise to me that the Amtrak station in Tucson was proudly in the heart of its downtown area near art galleries, trendy bars, and a light rail line.

On the ground floor of the lovely, historic Spanish Revival station is an upscale restaurant and a wine and cheese shop.

The beautifully restored Congress Hotel is just around the corner.

We bought bottle of wine in Tucson, despite Amtrak’s warnings that no alcohol could be brought aboard. We have discovered that there is a blatant double standard on the train:  sleeper passengers are treated far better and with greater deference than the hoi polloi in coach. So we knew that even if we were caught with the bottle in our hands, nobody would say a thing.

The rest of the ride was pretty enough and quite uneventful. We passed through some of the most iconic of Western scenery — the lonely desert butte surrounded by sagebrush. Oh, where was the Lone Ranger?

As the late afternoon turned into evening, we knew we had many miles of desert ahead of us still. Almost imperceptibly the Sonoara Desert turned into the Chihuahuan, and we passed at the same time from Arizona into New Mexico.

This will be our last night on the train. We should arrive quite late tomorrow into the Crescent City. I am ready to be off, but I have enjoyed our time on the Sunset Limited.

Spring Break came late this year, and the last couple weeks have seemed even longer to me than to my students. When the bell rang at 12:35 today they bolted happily from the room and I would have thrown my hat in the air … if I were wearing one. 

I did have to wait until evening to start my Spring Break adventure, our trip to New Orleans and the Delta. We had decided after a couple of pleasant Amtrak adventures to take the Sunset Limited to the Crescent City. It would no doubt have been cheaper to fly, but there is something magical about having your own bed on the train and being lulled to sleep by the movement of the car from side to side. I remembered our first long train trip to Chicago many years ago, and hearing the conductors call the names of the stations as I drifted off to sleep:  “Pasadena!” “Cucamonga!” “San Bernardino!”

We took a Lyft to Union Station and arrived there around nine in the evening. The iconic tower of the 1939 station glowed in the night.

From between the trunks of Mexican Fan Palms, we could see the equally iconic cupola of City Hall.

We found our train and Paul, a friendly man whose twang suggested a boyhood somewhere in Central Texas, introduced himself as our cabin steward. He showed us to our room, and told us that we had about forty minutes before the train left. We decided to wander around the station for a while. I took some pictures of the train

and of John and the station.

We pulled out around ten, just as promised. Our Spring Break adventures begin!

I thought of a number of somewhat snarky titles for this final entry of the trip. I considered “Do Buy.” Less reverently, I also thought of “Allah’s Vegas.” Both captured important aspects of life in this most vibrant city of the United Arab Emirates. Yet, by the time I was finished with my visit I found it hard to be snarky. I would never want to live here, and I doubt that I would make plans for a second visit. But I found myself with a grudging respect for a country which has completely reinvented itself in the last 50 years and is continuing to change and adapt to the modern world while still holding on to many of its cherished traditions. It deserves our admiration.  

We arrived at the Columbo airport around 3:30. We cleared immigration and security with remarkably little difficulty. All of our large luggage was automatically check through to Los Angeles. Of course, we never mentioned to them that we planned to leave the Dubai airport. We spent time in the lounge while waiting for the flight to board. Once on board, I fell asleep pretty quickly. John had breakfast and then did the same. 

We arrived at Dubai International around 8:30. We were a little nervous about the customs and immigration procedures, but these proved to be a breeze. It was just a little weird dealing with the airport officials all wearing traditional Arab costume. It seemed more like a political statement than something cute to amuse the tourists. We were respectful.

We found an ATM and then caught a cab to our hotel. We had prebooked the Raffles Dubai before we left. It seemed central and they were offering a decent online advance booking price, particularly for that hotel brand. As we expected, they were not ready for us to check in, though they tried their best. We were treated to to strong coffee and those incredibly sugary Arab pastries while we waited to see if they could figure something out so early. They were very clear that we needed a room with two beds. We knew better than to contradict them here. And yet the young Egyptian man who was at the desk knew full well that one of those beds would never be slept in. It was one many times we watched the uneasy coexistence of Islamic piety and the modern world. 

John went over and talked to the concierge to get some ideas of how to plan our 24 hours in the city. The concierge suggested that we arrange it around a trip to the Burj Khalif. This is the tallest building in the world and is both a source of profound pride for the Emirate and a huge tourist attraction. There are a couple packages available to visitors. We were told that while the more expensive of the two was probably worth it as we would spend far less time waiting in line and would get to go to the highest viewing platform. We took it. John also signed up for the hop-on, hop-off bus. We have had mixed luck with these in the past, but it seemed easier than trying to master the buses and metro. We were told that the Red Line, which had most of the attractions that interested us, was not worth doing until later in the day as it was a Friday, and most of the cultural centers would be closed until late afternoon. So we decided to head towards the Burj and to see the Dubai Mall on our way there. 

We walked through the shopping mall attached to our hotel — one of the many ways in which Dubai reminds you of Las Vegas — and found the pick up spot for the bus. We jumped on just as it was leaving and we headed through the downtown area to the mall. Downtown Dubai reminds me of cities like Houston or Edmonton where the “downtown” is less of a neighborhood and more of an office park comprised of skyscrapers. This is not a pedestrian-friendly environment. But it does give the opportunity to look at the buildings better. I was fascinated by the one that vaguely looked like the bell tower of the Houses of Parliament (one of the least painful works by A. N. W Pugin).

Notice with both buildings the vague attempt to add Arab flourishes to body structure that otherwise looks like the stuff Skidmore, Owens, and Merrill has built all over the world. 

The Dubai Mall is one of the two premiere shopping centers here. The other, the Mall of the Emirates, we did not bother to visit. I found it rather disappointing in many ways. The Mall’s exterior is unappealing. I’m not sure what happened to the word “Mall” here. 

Inside, there are EXACTLY the same stories you can find anywhere in an American mall with a few British stores tossed in as well. Look on the food court. You’ll find Johnny Rocket’s, Yogurtland, and Pinkberry. John had lost his sunglasses somewhere, so we looked for a place to get him new ones and what did we find? Sunglass Hut. 

What this mall did not have, that even the Beverly Center would have, were little stalls on the floor selling inexpensive items like sunglasses. It hardly broke the bank, but I will be annoyed if he loses these any time soon. John loses sunglasses a lot, so cheap ones are generally in order.

The mall is the location for Dubai’s aquarium. Now this is not quite as serious a center for marine studies as the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, but it does have nearly 35,000 species and a large staff to care for them. Yet it is also just a mall attraction designed to amuse shoppers. 

I’m almost surprised that the stores haven’t adopted species for more branding possibilities:  the Tiffany sharks or the Carrefour manta rays.

The mall is also famous for its indoor ice rink. We did not stop by here. The Emirates mall, even more appallingly, has a ski jump inside. Even more so than in America, the mall is designed as something of a social center. 

We did like, however, the waterfall sculpture. John took a lot of pictures of this, but decided in the end he liked it better in black and white. He is a film school graduate, after all. 

We made our way through the mall to the place where we were to enter the Burj Khalif. It is a stunning building of extraordinary grace. 

Even more extraordinary, it was actually built by Skidmore, Owens, and Merrill. Who knew they had it in them?

We “first class” customers were brought into a little room where we were given hot tea and dried sugary dates. They then put us on the express elevators that we were told rose over two stories each second! In no time we were on the 148th floor. The views were rather stunning. This is downtown Dubai.

Far in the distance there are a number of small islands in the Arabian Gulf. We learned later that there are manmade and are designed so that from directly above they will form a map of the world. These are being readied for hotel and condo construction in a few years. 

In many ways, yesterday was our last real day in Sri Lanka. Today we had to be transferred from our lovely Aditya on the south coast to a hotel on the west coast near the airport. It was a long ride and there was not much to do when we arrived other than to go to bed early. Today is really just preparation for the trip to Dubai. 

We got up early, determined to enjoy our last moments on the sea coast. We saw an sea bird with bright green legs. It was a little hard to get a good photo here, but you can see that the legs are great camouflage. 

We walked down the beach a little further to a quiet spot where I splashed about in the waves. The water is so warm here. I could swim in this part of the Indian Ocean for days.

While I was swimming, John made some canine friends. Dogs run wild on Sri Lanka, but most of them appear to have some kind of caregiver and many have collars on. There are only a few that seem absolutely feral, and those are more to be pitied than feared. The two John met today seemed well-cared for.

They were young lads and one they found some cloth on the beach they wanted to play tug of war with each other. 

John went into the sea for a while. 

As he was coming out, a steady stream of young Sri Lankan came jogging down the beach. We could not figure out if they were connected to the military or an athletic team or just seemed obsessed with fitness. We encouraged them and they responded happily.

Our final day did bring a memorable culinary moments. Aditya has a fantastic kitchen. They cook a wide variety of foods with complete integrity. And they are the only hotel we have stayed at which is willing to cook the quintessential Sri Lanka breakfast, hoppers and curry. 

Hoppers come in two forms. “String hoppers” are made from rice flour noodles. They look almost like crocheted drink coasters except that they are deliciously edible. A regular hopper is a bowl like pancake made of rice flour. A fried egg is typically put in the center though if you request additional hoppers they usually do not have the egg. 

The hopper is an edible bowl. Hoppers are served with a variety of curries and dahls. 

If you look in the center of the table you can see the curries and various condiments. Although some silver was provided, it is customary to eat all of this with your fingers. And that makes it even more fun!

After we ate, we lazed around the pool for a bit, then went back to our room to finish packing. We are hoping that we will be able to pack most of our stuff through to Los Angeles and only take a couple day bags into Dubai. We have heard the Dubai customs can be really strict on prescription medication and John has a lot of that. 

We said good bye to our attentive staff. The general manager was there this morning and he was pleasant in an “I’m the boss” kind of way. John said goodbye to the daily flower arrangement. Each day this bowl of water features different picked petals floating on the surface. 

Our driver showed up in a large van. He was an avuncular older gentleman. I am sure had his English been better he would have happily talked to us for the whole five hours of the trip. 

We were dropped off at the Wallawwa hotel. This is sort of the ultimate airport hotel. It is about 15 minutes from the airport, so travel agents book you there if you fly in late or have to fly out early. We had to fly out EARLY! The government decided schedule new runway construction during the height of tourist season! As a result, a flights can only leave or arrive in the night. It is chaotic. Our hotel assured us that we would have to be there at least FIVE hours early or might miss our flight. We decided we would chance it with three hours before. That meant we had to be picked up at 2:00 AM. 

The Wallawwa is lovely. A colonial building, it features room arranged around beautiful beautiful courtyard gardens.

Grounds are extensive and lots of games are available such was croquet and cricket. 

Interior rooms are tastefully decorated.

There was a nice pool there. It would have been perfect had there not been a British family there. They were straight out of a Roald Dahl book. I just knew that the father ran a crooked car dealership somewhere in the Midlands. 

When the awful Brit Brats weren’t around, we could appreciate the thought that had gone into planning this pool The colors are awesomely coordinated, aren’t they?

I’m already passed my eight o’clock bed time. Adventures in Arabia await tomorrow. 

John arranged a bike ride through out hotel yesterday. This is one of their many prearranged tours. They promised to take us through the countryside on bicycle and then to put us on a boat through a lagoon to an island where we would have a picnic. It sounded fun!

We met our guides around nine in the morning. There were only the two of us on the tour and there were two guides to accompany us and a tuk tuk driver who would be following us. This seemed a little ridiculous, but we have learned to simply accept the attention as if we were one of the Granthams on Downton Abbey. After all, these folks need jobs. 

We had not gone far when John remembered that he had not brought along some important medication. The tuk tuk driver took him back to the hotel. I waited right by the wonderful gates of this Buddhist temple. 

John soon joined us

but we had not gone far when the gears on his bike began to malfunction. He sat down and waited while the men tried to fix it. 

They finally adjusted it so that he was perpetually in low gear. Not the best solution possible, but it allowed us to continue on. 

Our guides brought us first to a small farm where they were processing coconut shells. The fiber from the shells, called coir, is extracted first. This is later woven into strands that are made into things like rugs. 

The remainder of the shell is ground up and used as soil amendment. 

Our guides proudly told us that absolutely no part of the coconut palm is wasted.

We rode on a bit more and stopped amid a group of cinnamon trees. John sat down by this odd bit of the American Southwest in South Asia.

We have some fully grown cinnamon trees near us in Los Angeles. They are large and handsome specimens. But the trees we were shown looked like badly potted ficus trees from an office building. They seemed more like bushes than trees, each with half a dozen tiny trunks. Our guides led through the fields to a small cement building that looked something like a garage. Inside a half dozen people were working. 

The guides explained that each year one of the small trunks of the tree is cut off. The rest are allowed to grow. The leaves are set aside to dry. They will be pressed and turned into cinnamon oil. The bark is stripped off the branch. It is all done by hand. 

This bark is what we call cinnamon. 

We walked a little further and came to the plantation owner’s home. It was quite deserted. We were told that he lives in Columbo now and rarely comes here. 

John had fun exploring the almost empty home. 

In a little bit our boat was ready.

They insisted we wear life jackets which make me look even fatter than I am.

Mr. Pratt looks fabulous in anything.

Our boatman was friendly.

We landed the boat on the island. Our main guide motioned us to walk a bit up a hill to what looked from a distance to be a Portuguese church. 

But as the iconography reveals it is a Buddhist temple. And absolutely one of the most amazing ones I have ever seen. A resident monk who spoke passable English was our guide. 

The interior of the temple is dominated by a particularly beautiful image of the Buddha.

Around this inner sanctuary is a kind of ambulatory with other pictures of the Buddha and devotees

and scenes from the Buddha’s life. This one recounts a time when he nursed a monk who was ill with smallpox. 

We still do not quite understand the hand decoration iconography but it is certainly striking.

 Possibly the most curious thing about the temple is the fact that it is dedicated to the god of revenge.

Outside is the usual stupa and Bodhi tree.

 We had our lunch — not that different from the breakfast that the hotel had packed yesterday — seated on the shore by our boat.

It was pretty hot by the time we were to leave, but John found a way to stay cool.

Returning to the hotel, we just lounged around for the rest of the day. We walked down the beach and splashed in the warm Indian Ocean water. 

 And we lounged by the pool.

It has been a wonderful time here in Sri Lanka. Tomorrow we will be starting our journey home. 

Years ago we met a woman from the London. She recounted her first trip to Southern California. She checked into an expensive hotel in La Jolla. The bell boy pulled open the drapes to reveal a stunning ocean view. He told her, “You can see whales from here.” Not quite comprehending she responded, “Wales? From here?”

After our wonderful experience with the elephants I wanted to go whale watching. Sri Lanka is one of two places on the planet where it is sometimes possible to see Blue Whales, the largest animals on the planet. The boats leave from Marissa, about 30 minutes from our hotel, and they leave early. So Tharindu picked us up at 5:00 am and drove like a madman down the highway past Galle. 

When we got there we understood his haste. They really pack people into these boats. We arrived early enough to get some of the last spaces on the floor by the boat rails on the top floor. These are the prime viewing spots. But they continued to pack people in until there was barely space to move. Our hotel had packed us a breakfast, but there barely any place to put it down and eat. 

We admired the colorful boats in the harbor as we waited.

We finally pulled out before they put enough people on it to make the boat sink. We were hardly alone on the high seas. There are at least half a dozen other boats, though not all were as overcrowded as us. The people on this smaller boat looked like they could actually move.

We saw a couple of amorous turtles fairly early on.

But a long time passed until we actually had the first hint of a whale. We did not see much, and by the time I able to grab my camera the animals had retreated under water. The most we ever saw saw a fin breaking the water and the tiniest bit of a tail. It was disappointing.

To compensate for the evident disappointment the boat operator took us a bit closer to shore we he knew there would be a pod of dolphins. These animals, unlike the whales, love to play around with boats and seem to know they are being photographed. Posers, as the Brits would say.

When we returned to the hotel, it was time to bid farewell to Tharindu. He has been a great guide.

Feeling a bit tired, we decided to walk down the beach. It is surprisingly empty as the nearby streets are packed with houses, guest houses, and small businesses. The sand is wonderfully yellow, but rather coarse. There are red flag warnings up and down the beach and even sticking our feet a bit into the water we could feel the undertow. 

John posed a bit himself. 

We had a wonderful dinner at the hotel. Tomorrow we will be taking a bike and boat ride, so we are going to make sure we are well-rested.  

By the time we were ready to leave, we rather liked our tea plantation. We certainly loved our spacious new room, and we had come to like the staff quite a bit. It is a particularly magical place in the morning. The mist on the mountains was not quite as thick as it had been the day before, but the deck overlooking the tea bushes was still beautiful. Some of our fellow guests, a family from Norway, had the good sense to have breakfast out there. 

Today we were in the car for about five hours, but it felt like double that. Sri Lanka is not a large island, but it does not have a well-developed system of roads. Other than one new toll road between Columbo and Galle, all the roads are pretty much two lanes and there are commercial and sometimes residential developments on every inch of both sides of the road. Cars and buses must compete with bicycles, mopeds, and tuk-tuks. Most of the time you are lucky if you can go 15 miles an hour. To make matters worse, much of the route today from Hatton down to the coast was fairly windy. John fortunately did not get motion sickness as he often does on routes like this. 

But it was all worth it when we came to our last real hotel in Sri Lanka, Adithya in the district of Rathgama, near Galle on the south coast. We had told the travel agent when we booked this tour that we wanted to end it on the beach in a place where we could just relax. This place is perfect for that. We have a large room.

Out one window we have a lovely view of a koi pond.

Just outside the room on another side, we have a patio with a cold tub. 

We relaxed for a while and then made arrangements to go into Galle for the evening for dinner. The hotel arranged a tuk-tuk to take us there and bring us back. Along the way we passed a small procession. 

I am not sure who they were or what they were celebrating but it seemed like a very happy group. 

Galle is the largest city on the south coast. It is most well-known today for the Fort, the walled fortified area of the city built by the Dutch in the 18th century. Most of the fortifications are still in place.

But today the fort serves no military purpose. Instead, it is a old neighborhood that is rapidly being transformed into a tourist destination. But thankfully the tourists have not yet completely taken it over. Locals still wander the sea walls

and play soccer adjacent to historic structures.

We had dinner here. The most celebrated restaurant in Sri Lanka is The Ministry of Crab in Columbo. You need reservations a month in advance, and we were not going to be in Columbo, anyhow. So when we heard celebrity chef owners opened a second restaurant in Galle we decided to try it. It is not the same menu they have in Columbo. In fact, this one is basically Japanese. But they did have some of the greatest hits of the Columbo eatery. The people next to us ordered better than we did. They started with this amazing sashimi presentation.

I had some crab fried rice and John had a crab salad. They were good, but nothing extraordinary. 

After dinner, we caught a tuk tuk back to our hotel half an hour away. Tomorrow will be our first full day at the beach … but we will be starting with whale watching. Stay tuned!

I woke up early on New Year’s Day and walked out on to the terrace. The mist was everywhere on the mountains. I felt like I was part of a Chinese woodcut. 

A couple hours later, John and I had breakfast on the porch. John was bored while waiting for his omelette to arrive, so he amused himself by taking artsy pictures of the staff.

We rather like our plantation house, but we were disappointed to learn that because of the New Year holiday all the activities that are usually available were cancelled for the day. The only thing they could offer us was bicycle rental. We took it.

We headed right at the end of the road. I have no idea whether than was west or east, north or south. It just looked less hilly in that direction. We stopped to notice a school.

The school, if you look carefully at the inscription on the arch above the gate, is for Tamil children. There are two major ethnic and language groups in Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese majority lives in the the south parts of the country and are overwhelmingly Buddhist. The Tamils, closely related to the peoples of southern India live in the north. They are historically Hindu. The civil war which ended about a decade ago was fought between these two ethnic groups. In addition to the native Tamil population, the British also imported large numbers of Tamils from southern India as workers on the tea plantations. These people see themselves as somewhat distinct from the Sri Lankan Tamils although they share a common language and religious heritage. These Indian Tamils are the people were had the chance to meet today. 

Today was being observed as some kind of a festival. I have no idea whether it was related to the civil near year or not, but it was the occasion to dress up a bit.

John and I noticed a brightly color building that looked sort of like a garage. Ever the curious one, he went  to check it out.

It turned out to be a local Hindu shrine. The priest seemed a bit puzzled by the visiting Americans but hospitably anointed us on our foreheads. 

All the locals wanted to be photographed by or with the visitors. 

We stopped briefly to look at a vegetable stand.

We continued down the road, not exactly knowing where we were headed, until we found ourselves in the village of Hatton. This is the place where we left the train yesterday. It is not as depressingly ugly as many Sri Lankan towns, but it would be a stretch to call it truly attractive.

We rode through it until we decided we needed a rest to take a drink of water. We noticed a small park and entered it. An older woman came by and made it clear that we had committed some kind of infraction by bringing our bikes inside the park, but several men arrived who apparently overruled her. They insisted on getting their pictures taken with us. First we used their cell phones, then our camera. 

John woke early and decided to walk down to the Temple from our hotel. There is a lovely view from the front porch of The Secret Kandy.

The commercial stretch that leads to the center of the town is busy and interesting, but not exactly beautiful. There are little remnants of the old colonial town. I wish more of them had been preserved.

John did notice one slightly decaying remnant of colonial days, the “Old Boys Club” for the Anglican secondary school. 

He found his way down to the temple and palace complex. There is a lake in front of it created by the Kandyan monarchs. It is still remarkably lovely.

We probably could have spent some more time in Kandy, but we had a train to catch. The British loved to build railways in their colonial possessions, so it was no surprise that Sri Lanka is criss-crossed by railroad lines. One of the main purposes of these rail lines was to get tea from the highlands to the coast where it could be shipped back to Old Blighty where people could huddle by a coal fire with a “cuppa.” Now these lines carry people mostly and the line through the tea country is popular with tourists. 

Tharindu brought to the the train station. We were struck by the “uplifting” message we saw there and wondered who paid to put these up.

We wait around for a while though the train was not particularly late. Tharindu is driving to the Hatton where we will get off the train and I think he wanted to make absolutely certain that we were on the right train. 

It finally pulled in, about ten minutes late. Of course for Amtrak, that would early….

We had a seat in the air-conditioned first class car. John checked out second class and third class. They were like  something you see in movies. From my seat I watched as the country became more and more mountainous.

And one large, and not so lovely bird. 

Our room is nothing special, and John is a little disappointed there. But it is the only thing remotely close to decent wifi I have had on this trip so I am jubilant. I can finally publish all these blog posts I have been writing! There are only four rooms here and the staff to guest ratio must be about 2 to 1. Unfortunately for us, all the other guests now are an extended French family. It is awkward as we almost feel like we are crashing their New Year’s Eve family reunion. Plus, only a couple of them speak anything other than hotel check-in English. I am sure they are wonderful people and we would all be good friends if we could communicate. But we can’t. 

We had our New Year’s Eve meal early and we plan to hit the sack before midnight. Happy New Year to all!

We have grown quite fond of the Lake Lodge, so it was not easy to leave it. John will miss his balcony overlooking the rainforest. 

We loved a lot of the quirky touches at the Lodge like the bicycle tires turned into holiday ornaments.

We will miss the warm and helpful staff

and our charming Swiss German host.

Dambula is mostly a central location for exploring Sri Lanka’s “Cultural Triangle”, but it has one important attraction of its own, the Dambula Caves. This is an important historical site for the development of Sri Lankan Buddhism and it contains some extraordinary Buddhist sculpture and painting. Not so extraordinary is the modern Golden Temple built at the base of the shrine. 

The caves are actually just small indentations at the top of a two hundred foot granite outcropping. But before looking at the caves some history is naturally in order. According to ancient chroniclers, in the first century before the common era, King Valagambahu was exiled from the capital of Anuradhapura. He found refuge in the caves with the Buddhist monks who were living there. When he was finally restored to the throne fourteen years later, he established it as a pilgrimage shrine. Over the centuries various monarchs have adorned and re-adorned the caves. They are now not only centers for Buddhist piety but also treasures of Sri Lankan art.

There are five caves and each is decorated slightly differently. The most famous is Cave 2. 

But the other caves have spectacular imagery as well.

We continued on to our next destination, the old royal capital of Kandy. Along the way we stopped at a word working shop. This was not scheduled, but I had thought that John might be interested in some of the famous wooden masks from this island. But we were hit with such a hard sales pitch that both of us felt that the last thing on earth we would like to do is buy anything here. We also stopped at a small spice store with a spice garden attached to it. Here we also had a “tour” but the man was fairly low-key and and the products quite reasonable priced. We bought some curry powder. 

When we arrived in Kandy, a couple hours later, we were not instantly charmed. Like so many old cities, its narrow streets are choked with traffic and with the exhaust from cars. Ugly cheap modern architecture seems to blot out what remains from and older era, much of which has fallen into obvious disrepair. But we were charmed by our hotel which has the somewhat bizarre name of “The Secret Kandy.”

It seems to be an old colonial-era house. The rooms are large and spacious.

We had lunch here and insisted that Tharindu join us. John wanted to go an antique store and to see the botanic gardens. We decided to pass on the “cultural show” — basically a folkloric dance show for tourists — that had been part of the scheduled tourists. 

For some reason, we failed to take pictures at the antique store. We had a pleasant time here, and John bought a statue of the standing Buddha for our garden and a couple of decorative items for my new office. We were relatively charmed by the surprisingly large botanical gardens.

It is fundamentally an arboretum, and I saw some species here I have never seen before like the “Cannonball Tree,” Couroupita guianensis, a native of South America.

We walked across the suspension bridge

and looked down at the river, apparently one of the longest in Sri Lanka.

As sunset approached, Tharindu picked us up at the entrance to the gardens and we headed toward the Shrine of the Tooth Relic, the holiest Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka. A few words on the Tooth Relic itself. Not so much about relics in general as that is a subject that is best left to historians and anthropologists, but about the idea of Buddha’s tooth as a relic. According to Buddhists, after the Buddha died he was cremated. Most of his remains were interred nearby in eight stupas, but his disciples kept four teeth and three pieces of bone. One of these teeth, a left canine, was given to the king of the Indian kingdom of Kalinga. It was kept safe in a temple there, but when Kalinga was invited the tooth was taken to Sri Lanka for safekeeping. The relic had further misadventures including been stolen by Indian invaders and subsequently returned, and an attempt by the Portuguese to destroy the tooth. Sri Lankan Buddhists claim that the King of Kandy hid the real tooth and allowed the Portuguese to destroy a fake. It is obviously not possible to independently verify the provenance of this tooth. What matters is that to Sri Lankans it embodies the very presence and nature of the Buddha himself and is therefore inexpressibly sacred. 

Sri Dalada Maligawa is the Sinhalese name of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. It was built by the last Sinhalese king of Kandy, Vira Parakrama Narendra Sinha, in the early 18th century. Tharindu, who is a very devout Buddhist, arranged for us to be at the Temple in the early evening when the reliquary containing the tooth would be briefly available to viewing. The tooth itself is seldom shown, but the tooth is contained within seven nested caskets, and this is what is displayed each morning and evening. The Temple was absolutely jammed with people.

Once inside it was hard to take pictures. Tharindu pointed out a fresco showing the relic being carried by an elephant through the streets of Kandy.

It is absolutely forbidden to take pictures of the reliquary when you are right in front of it. So Tharindu put John and I into a line to come close to the Tooth Relic while he used a camera to photograph it from a respectful distance. It was not easy to do in such limited light.

As night fell, we caught a glimpse of the old royal palace behind the Temple. 

It has been an exhausting day. Time for bed!