Buddha's tooth & tropical gardens in Kandy

Kandy is a very special place for Sri Lankans, being the ancient capital, second city, and home to Buddha's Sacred Tooth Relic. It is quite a holy place, and the local nightclubs mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide have been closed down in the last year in efforts to retain the city's spiritual focus. At first it was exciting to be back in a city, but after a few days, having had enough of the smog, we escaped to the hills.

Before we left...

We met a couple of guys at 'Slightly Chilled' bar overlooking Kandy Lake and discussed the Dharma

Saw some traditional Kandyan dancing, which included walking on hot coals. The dancers that is.

My mum made an appearance.. (sorry Sal)

We had a gander at a pelican sitting on Kandy Lake

Visited the Royal Palace Park...

 Rich had a swing

This fountain was pretty

Hung out with some baby monkeys 

We visited the main attraction in Kandy, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, to see the shrine holding the sacred tooth. It is a beautiful place to walk, worship and learn about Buddhism.

We viewed the Temple from across Kandy Lake

The inside was decorated with statues of the Buddha and told the story of how the tooth came to be in Kandy

The International Buddhist Museum was fantastic, with each room dedicated to the history of Buddhism from every Buddhist country around the world

We also had a stroll around the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens just outside of Kandy. This amazing collection of flora from all around the tropics includes an arboretum, spice garden and herbarium.

The 60ha gardens in a loop of the Mahweli Ganga have some amazing palm lined avenues - my favourite photo of Sri Lanka so far

The cannonball tree has fruit up to 25cm wide

The young shoots of Burmese Giant Bamboo can grow up to a foot a day

  

A giant Javan fig covers 2,500 square metres on the Great Lawn

This tree has a funky shape

This isn't a tree

Next we take an epic train journey deeper into the Sri Lankan hill country...