Sri Lanka - Day 5

Left the Kandalama hotel, stopped at the massive bhudda in Dambulla, then headed south towards Kandy for the next stage of our journey. Scheduled stop at a 'spice garden', which was more a timeshare style hard sell of various spices that we pointed out were cheaper in Sainsburys. The pushy salesman made a sharp exit when he clicked we weren't buying anything. All a shame really as it was actually quite interesting to see how stuff was grown, but that fell by the wayside in the attempts to sell us some tumeric....

Made it to Kandy and went round the Tooth Relic temple, which was actually quite good and a vast improvement on previous temples (and have we seen temples...) Went off piste again when we suggested we'd like to go to the market in Kandy, so off we went, alone, with our guide offering his mobile phone number, so concerned he was for us. Nice idea, but we don't have mobiles. Anyway for 45 mins we wandered the streets in the city centre, and great fun it was too, seeing the real Kandy and not the tourist trail stuff. He's starting to understand us.

Then to our new hotel for a few hours by the pool (winning water polo against J 3-0). Evening spent at a dance cultural show with our German tour group friends, then a very odd buffet dinner (for a change) in our hotel, which is a bizarre 80s style establishment with lots of unintentionally hilarious touches. Classic.