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Gampola to Kandy
Kilometres: 24 Elevation gain/loss: 214m/167m
Two roads lead out of Gampola towards Kandy, one slightly more direct, faster and infinitely uglier, chock-a-block with garages, hardware stores, roadside restaurants and shops selling everything from furniture and kitchenware to bicycles and cheap fashions. It's congested with traffic, speeding buses, screeching tri-shaws. The air is thick with exhaust fumes and dust, litter lines the curb, and aesthetically-challenged concrete boxes pass for architecture along the route. The allure and popularity of this road completely escapes me, but there you go...
The second road, ever-so-slightly longer and with a slightly more beat-up surface, is a quiet, small route, almost free of traffic, that winds through small villages and rice fields and emerges at the edge of the Peradeniya University grounds.
The campus is extensive, serene, with huge shade trees draping themselves luxuriantly from one side of the road to the other. The cool and rarefied atmosphere of the university grounds is so peaceful and green, it came as an ugly shock when I exited and was plunged into five congested kilometres of bumper to bumper, hot, impatient traffic, everyone jostling to be one extra car-length ahead of the next. Crowds walking on either side duck in and out of the oncoming stream of vehicles, further slowing things down and increasing the annoyance of both drivers and pedestrians. But there was no way around it; all roads into Kandy are equally horrid.
Kandy is centred around a man-made lake, edged with a cluster of colonial era buildings and crammed with hotels and guesthouses, with a warren of backstreets filled with seedy bars and equally seedy characters behind the picturesque lakefront. To understate things just a tad, Kandy has an abundance of accommodation, all because, primarily, of one very famous temple. Most Sri Lankan Buddhists believe a pilgrimage here is necessary at some point in life, and it would appear all foreign tourists to the country have it on their Must Do List.
The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic is perhaps the most important Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka, housing (supposedly) the tooth of Lord Buddha himself, snatched from his funeral pyre by a disciple apparently not bothered by the macabre. Huge significance surrounds the ownership of the tooth, for with ownership follows the rightful rule of the country, or so the legend claims. The tooth never actually goes on display, but you can catch a glimpse of the box holding it twice a day. Actually, what you'll see is the box containing the box containing the box containing the box containing the box containing the box containing the tooth. Some say the Portuguese destroyed the original tooth; some claim they were fooled and instead burned a decoy. Some believe the tooth is actually inside the gilded casket; others think the real tooth has been scurried away to a more secure hiding place. Still others believe if there is a tooth, it could be anyone's but is probably not the Buddha's. This latter view is not exactly popular. Forensic dentistry aside, the temple is an icon and one of the lovelier examples of art and architecture to be found in the country, with a two-storied, gilt-roofed main shrine housing the relic, ornate decorations, intricately painted ceilings, and some beautiful statues of the Buddha.
A few more days to explore Kandy would have been ideal, but I was still only about half way along my route north wanted to get out of the bustle of the city and onto the back roads again. In the morning, I would wake before dawn and begin walking before the sun was up. Wattegama was calling.
Gampola to Kandy
Kilometres: 24 Elevation gain/loss: 214m/167m
Two roads lead out of Gampola towards Kandy, one slightly more direct, faster and infinitely uglier, chock-a-block with garages, hardware stores, roadside restaurants and shops selling everything from furniture and kitchenware to bicycles and cheap fashions. It's congested with traffic, speeding buses, screeching tri-shaws. The air is thick with exhaust fumes and dust, litter lines the curb, and aesthetically-challenged concrete boxes pass for architecture along the route. The allure and popularity of this road completely escapes me, but there you go...
The second road, ever-so-slightly longer and with a slightly more beat-up surface, is a quiet, small route, almost free of traffic, that winds through small villages and rice fields and emerges at the edge of the Peradeniya University grounds.
The campus is extensive, serene, with huge shade trees draping themselves luxuriantly from one side of the road to the other. The cool and rarefied atmosphere of the university grounds is so peaceful and green, it came as an ugly shock when I exited and was plunged into five congested kilometres of bumper to bumper, hot, impatient traffic, everyone jostling to be one extra car-length ahead of the next. Crowds walking on either side duck in and out of the oncoming stream of vehicles, further slowing things down and increasing the annoyance of both drivers and pedestrians. But there was no way around it; all roads into Kandy are equally horrid.
Kandy is centred around a man-made lake, edged with a cluster of colonial era buildings and crammed with hotels and guesthouses, with a warren of backstreets filled with seedy bars and equally seedy characters behind the picturesque lakefront. To understate things just a tad, Kandy has an abundance of accommodation, all because, primarily, of one very famous temple. Most Sri Lankan Buddhists believe a pilgrimage here is necessary at some point in life, and it would appear all foreign tourists to the country have it on their Must Do List.
The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic is perhaps the most important Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka, housing (supposedly) the tooth of Lord Buddha himself, snatched from his funeral pyre by a disciple apparently not bothered by the macabre. Huge significance surrounds the ownership of the tooth, for with ownership follows the rightful rule of the country, or so the legend claims. The tooth never actually goes on display, but you can catch a glimpse of the box holding it twice a day. Actually, what you'll see is the box containing the box containing the box containing the box containing the box containing the box containing the tooth. Some say the Portuguese destroyed the original tooth; some claim they were fooled and instead burned a decoy. Some believe the tooth is actually inside the gilded casket; others think the real tooth has been scurried away to a more secure hiding place. Still others believe if there is a tooth, it could be anyone's but is probably not the Buddha's. This latter view is not exactly popular. Forensic dentistry aside, the temple is an icon and one of the lovelier examples of art and architecture to be found in the country, with a two-storied, gilt-roofed main shrine housing the relic, ornate decorations, intricately painted ceilings, and some beautiful statues of the Buddha.
A few more days to explore Kandy would have been ideal, but I was still only about half way along my route north wanted to get out of the bustle of the city and onto the back roads again. In the morning, I would wake before dawn and begin walking before the sun was up. Wattegama was calling.
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