Some days Kandy’s skies seem perpetually bruised, with stubborn mist clinging
to the hills surrounding the city’s beautiful centrepiece lake. Delicate hill-country
breezes impel the mist to gently part, revealing colorful houses amid Kandy’s
improbable forested halo. In the center of town, three-wheelers careen around
slippery corners, raising a soft spray that threatens the silk saris worn by local
women. Here’s a city that looks good even when it’s raining.
And when the drizzle subsides, cobalt-blue skies reveal a city of imposing
colonial-era and Kandyan architecture, none more impressive than the Temple of
the Sacred Tooth Relic, one of Buddhism’s most sacred shrines.
History and culture are on tap. Yes, the city is renowned for the great Kandy
Esala Perahera festival (held annually in July/August), but its vibrant cultural life
and attractions more than justify a visit at any time of year.

                    • Kandy Lake

Dominating the town is Kandy Lake. A leisurely stroll around it, with a few stops
on the lakeside seats, is a pleasant way to spend a few hours, although dieselspurting buses careening around the southern edge of the lake can mar the peace
somewhat. The nicest part to walk along is the area around the Temple of the
Sacred Tooth Relic. Due to some past cases of harassment, single women should
not walk here alone after dark.
The lake is artificial and was created in 1807 by Sri Wickrama Rajasinha, the last
ruler of the kingdom of Kandy. Several minor local chiefs protested because their
people objected to labouring on the project. In order to stop the protests they
were put to death on stakes in the lake bed. The central island was used as Sri
Wickrama Rajasinha’s personal harem. Later the British used it as an
ammunition store and added the fortress-style parapet around the perimeter. On
the south shore, in front of the Malwatte Maha Vihara, the circular enclosure is
the monks’ bathhouse.

                    • Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic

The golden-roofed Temple of the Sacred Tooth houses Sri Lanka’s most
important Buddhist relic – a tooth of the Buddha. During puja (offerings or
prayers), the heavily guarded room housing the tooth is open to devotees and
tourists. However, you don’t actually see the tooth. It’s kept in a gold casket
shaped like a dagoba (stupa), which contains a series of six dagoba caskets of
diminishing size.
As well as the revered main temple, the complex includes a series of smaller
temples, shrines and museums.
Freelance guides will offer their services around the entire temple complex for
around Rs 600, and free audio guides are available at the ticket office. An
elevator facilitates access for travellers with disabilities.
The complex can get crowded as it receives many worshippers and tourists, and
backpackers, Chinese tour groups and Thai monks all jostle for space. Wear
clothes that cover your legs and your shoulders, and remove your shoes.

                     • Degal Doruwa Raja Maha Vihara.

Hidden away in Kandy’s leafy outskirts is the little-visited, but fascinating, Degal
Doruwa Raja Maha Vihara cave temple, constructed (with the help of some
obliging boulders) in the 18th century. The interior of the cave is painted head to
toe in slightly faded, but captivating murals. These fine Kandyan-era paintings
depict scenes from the Jataka stories (tales from the previous lives of the
Buddha).
In among these are some out-of-place paintings depicting men with guns. These
are likely to have been inspired by the first firearms to have arrived in Sri Lanka.
Alongside the paintings is a large reclining Buddha.
Visitors are likely to be shown around by one of the five resident monks.

                       • Sri Dalada Museum

This museum occupies the upper two floors of the Alut Maligawa building and
contains a stunning array of gifts donated by several presidents and Buddhist
leaders from across the world to the Temple of the Tooth. Letters and diary
entries from the British time reveal the colonisers’ surprisingly respectful
attitude to the tooth relic. More recent photographs reveal the damage caused by
a truck bomb detonated by the LTTE in 1998 which caused significant damage to
the temple complex.
The Sri Dalada Museum is located within the compound of the Temple of the
Sacred Tooth Relic and accessed on the same ticket.

                    • Ceylon Tea Museum

This museum occupies the 1925-vintage Hantane Tea Factory, 4km south of
Kandy on the Hantane road. Abandoned for more than a decade, it was recently
refurbished and has good exhibits on tea pioneers James Taylor and Thomas
Lipton, and lots of vintage tea-processing paraphernalia. A quick tour (all guides
are knowledgable, but you feel some just go through the motions) is included
and there’s a free cuppa afterwards in the top-floor tearoom.

                    • National Museum

This museum once housed Kandyan royal concubines and now features royal
regalia and reminders of pre-European Sinhalese life. One of the most impressive
exhibits is Rajasinha II’s golden crown, but for visitors the museum is let down
by poor lighting, labelling and general layout. The tall-pillared audience hall
hosted the convention of Kandyan chiefs that ceded the kingdom to Britain in
1815.
One of the displays is a copy of the 1815 agreement that handed over the
Kandyan provinces to British rule. This document announces a major reason for
the event: ‘…the cruelties and oppressions of the Malabar ruler’.
Sri Wickrama Rajasinha was declared ‘by the habitual violation of the chief and
most sacred duties of a sovereign’, to be ‘fallen and deposed from office of king’
and ‘dominion of the Kandyan provinces’ was ‘vested in…the British Empire’.
The museum, along with four devales (complexes for worshipping deities) and
two monasteries – but not the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic itself – make up
one of Sri Lanka’s cultural triangle sites