Kandy

We finally had an easier day in Kandy, the second largest city in Sri Lanka. We started with a walk in the Royal Botanic Gardens. Next was a visit to a tea factory where we saw how leaves are turned into various types of tea before we tasted one of the teas. Back on the bus our guide told us we were going for lunch but when we stopped he tried to get us to look through a wood factory/shop first. He faced a mutiny because there was a batik shop across the road and 7 out of our 9 passengers were female who preferred to go there. He had the last laugh though, as we still had to go through the wood place to get to the restaurant. Four of us had elected to attend a cooking class in a private home so we were dropped off at the bottom of a steep hill while the rest of the group went back to their hotel for a free afternoon. We finally made it to the house and had a fantastic afternoon helping (sort of) to make some delicious food including kokkis, oil cakes, a chicken curry, potato curry, sambal, pittu and string hoppers and then sat down to eat it.Read more