We are catching the train today to go north to Kandy. It’s reported to be one of the lost beautiful train rides in the world, and a must do in Sri Lanka. So we decided to see what this 7 hour adventure was all about. There’s been lost written about which class train car to sit in, even which side of the train is best. So we hoped we were well prepared.
Breakfast in the room one last time on our balcony. Then we walked into town. The train station is small but cute. Ty was blown away by the price of the tickets.
Only a few dollars and you can travel around the entire country!
Ty was able to choose which train car we rode in but didn’t get to pick anything else.
The train arrived and after some hustle and confusion we were on! Only one problem. Our window seat didn’t exactly have a window.
We had that awkward seat right in between the windows. Ugh that fact was super lame! So we squish in to the window right in front when we could and craned our necks back to see. We made the best of it. It didn’t hamper our ability to take a ton of beautiful photos. As you can see.
After 7 very long hours we arrived in Kandy!
We decided to walk the 1k to our hotel just because we’d been sitting for so long. But we’re now in a big city so we got hassled the whole way by tuk tuk drivers. Apparently two white people dragging three suitcases looked like an obvious fare.
Giant Buddha’s are everywhere! I was wondering how would that go over in the US if we tried that with Jesus statues?
Well of course the signs for the hotel we facing the opposite way we walked. So we added a few extra hills to our sweaty adventure.
This is the sign on all balcony doors at the hotel. Now I just want to see some monkeys!
All we knew about Kandy was you go to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth. They apparently have a tooth from Buddha here and there’s a ceremony around it once a day. We had an hour till the ceremony so we walked around the lake over to the temple.
Good thing we’d read ahead of time about shoulders and knees must be covered. For guys and gals. Ty brought some pants to put on and I had several security ladies determined to help me tie my scarf correctly. Since my skirt was right at my knees. They also make you take off your shoes to walk through the entire temple. Thankfully the floors were extremely clean!
The grounds were neat to walk around. I also learned the story of how Buddha came to be. But it was getting late and we were ready to see the tooth and get some dinner! When the drumming started we got excited. Thinking it would be soon.
placeholder://However then we learned it would be another 20-30 minutes of waiting before they opened the doors on the tooth. Then all you can see is the fancy casket. So we decided to take off.
There wasn’t really a dinner area where we walked. Not a lot of restaurants or shops open. So when we saw a giant empty restaurant with a guard out front we went for it.
Dinner was food to fill our bodies. Nothing good or bad at least. Then we walked to the hotel and tried to swim in the pool, since they have one. It was FREEZING! So one quick lap and we were done. Back to the room to call it a night.
