D67 Sri Lanka - Kandy

What can we say about today...

We did absolutely nothing.

Seriously. For the entire day. And no, we are in full health.

We enjoyed a breakfast of fresh fruit and other goodies at the buffet, sat by the pool alone for most of the day and ordered coffee when we needed it, and then slightly exerted ourselves by wandering through the local village.

This walk turned out to be the best part of the day - it was just a 2km loop but in that time we stumbled across a local temple, and then spotted a local brassware workshop directly across the street. It looked like we were walking into someone’s private property but a lady in the front doorway saw us approaching and called out to her husband, who greeted us in the local greeting by bowing his head and raising his hands in a prayer like motion. “Ayubowan” means Long Life, and is almost commonly used in rural area whilst “Hello” and a handshake is preferred in bigger towns.
Upali and his wife had both been taught the skill of brassware from their fathers (their trade went back several generations), and he told us proudly that she was “The best female brassware worker in the region”, due to her father being head teacher in the trade. We followed them into their workshop which was pure organised chaos (Dad you may or may not relate to this) with tools, sheets of raw material, machinery and finished products lying everywhere. Upali’s wife sat herself down at the workbench and started to carve a small elephant into a sheet of brass while he gave us a full (and very enthusiastic) run through of the manufacturing process. Later on they kindly offered to make us tea, and so while we sat on their front patio with cups of delicious ginger tea and Maliban crackers (“the best in SL”), Upali offered to teach us about the temple opposite.
I asked about the youngish man who had been sitting on the temple wall for awhile smiling at us - Upali explained that this man was ‘weak minded’, but was generous and kind, and would always hurry to tell him if people were visiting the temple so he could offer assistance. It was a nice way to end the afternoon, stumbling across a local trade and meeting some lovely and hospitable people in the process.

The rest of the evening was quiet as there are only 5 rooms booked out until tomorrow! We enjoyed another dinner at the restaurant but no buffet tonight, that is only reserved for busier weekends.
Shona - there is a girl staying here with her partner and we can’t stop staring at her as she’s your dead set doppelgänger. However there is no photographic evidence purely because I don’t want to be labeled as a creepo.

Goodnight!Read more