View of Kandy

Our first stop of the day was at the top of a hill for a very good view of the city of Kandy, the present capital of the Central Province of Sri Lanka and which was the last capital of the ancient kings. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site mainly because the Temple of the Tooth Relic is located in it. The lake in the photo is Lake Kandy.

Sri Lanka Gems

Our next stop was at a gem lapidary and store. The gem industry in Sri Lanka dates back to before the 2nd century. It has the highest density of gem deposits for a country of its size––nearly 25% of its land mass.

Sri Lanka Gems

The gems of Sri Lanka include sapphires, Ceylon sapphires, rubies, alexandrite, star stones, chrysoberyl, cat’s eye, quartz, amethyst, citrine, aquamarine, garnet, tourmaline, spinel, topaz, moonstone, zircon, tsavorite, and peridot. A good site to look at to see what many of these gems look like is at https://lanka.com/about/interests/gems/

Sri Lanka Gems

The sales floor. It was very crowded with customers and had a very large display of jewelry.

Kandy

We had free time now in Kandy for shopping and lunch. Our meeting place would be across from the Kandy Clock Tower which was built in 1950 by Haji Mohamed Ismail as a monument and in memory of his son who died in an accident.

Marketplace

I went with a tour mate to the marketplace across the street. Today was the Duruthu Full Moon Poya day in Sri Lanka, marking the first of Buddha’s three visits to Sri Lanka. Full Moon Poya days are once a month and are civil and bank holidays. However, the market was in full swing today. One of the special things to buy in Sri Lanka are batik cloths which come in many different sizes for various uses such as wall hangings or tablecloths.

Marilyn Chairs

My tour mate and I went to the wrong food court for lunch––wrong since we were supposed to meet for lunch at a different one. But we had a very good lunch at the “wrong” place and very good conversation. The restaurant was quite big and quite empty and its kitchen workers could be seen cooking up a storm behind a glass partition. There must have been a big event that evening at the restaurant. In another room of the building, we walked past these chairs with a picture of Marilyn Monroe on them. There were more of these chairs than the ones in the photo. In almost every country I have been in, I have seen a picture somewhere of Marilyn, so I was really thrilled to be making my Marilyn sighting. She must be the most publicly pictured person who died during most of our lifetimes. From my travels, the second most one is Elvis, but I made no Elvis sightings in Sri Lanka.

Temple of the Tooth Relic

The Temple of the Tooth Relic was our last stop. I took this photo of the complex that the temple is in from the hill we were on to get a view of Kandy. The temple is located in a royal palace. According the Sri Lanka legend, when Buddha died in 543 BC, while his body was being cremated on a funeral pyre, his disciple retrieved Buddha’s left canine tooth. The tooth was smuggled into Sri Lanka from India by a prince and princess and first was enshrined in a temple in Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of Sri Lanka at that time. Since it was believed that whoever holds the tooth relic of Buddha controls the government, temples containing the relic were built near a king’s residence, which changed as the capital of the kingdoms were changed. In the photo, the Temple of the Tooth Relic is to the left of the building with a white/yellow roof, the Queen’s Bathing Pavilion is in the front, and the Royal Palace is at the left. Other buildings in the complex are the National Museum of Kandy, the Temple of the Tooth Museum, the International Buddhist Museum, and the Udawatta Kele Sanctuary.

Temple of the Tooth Relic

The Temple of the Tooth Relic was damaged two times by terrorists, first in 1989 by the JVP, a communist and Marxist–Leninist party and political movement in Sri Lanka and, second, in 1998 by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Tamil, a militant organization that waged a secessionist nationalist insurgency to create an independent state of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. After each attack, the temple was restored.

There are other Temples of the Tooth in other countries, such as in China, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and Myanmar (Burma). I had visited the one in Myanmar.

Temple of the Tooth Relic

The entrance to the temple had some very steep steps plus water on the pavement from where you left your shoes and the steps. I decided not to go into the temple. You can see photos of the inside of the temple by going Googling “Temple of the Tooth Relic Sri Lanka Photos.” After looking at the photos, I am sorry now that I didn’t take the offer up of helping me up the steps, so I add this to my list of travel sights missed, some of which I have actually gone back to and seen. This evening, there was a home–hosted dinner which I also didn’t go to as I didn’t want to get back to our hotel as late as we would have.

I have put my photos of Kandy and the Temple of the Tooth Relic on a slideshow. Go to http://www.peggysphotos.com/kandy–city–temple–of–the–tooth/    (Slide Shows, Asia–2, Sri Lanka, “Kandy”).