Driving past villages around Kandy, it is evident that there is at least one school in each village. Used cars from Singapore are doing the rounds and are far cheaper here than Colombo.
There are roadside shows of vintage cars where Bentleys, Buicks, Rolls Royces and an odd Beetle or Austin can be seen on display.
This tusker had stepped on a landmine in Jaffna - Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage.
Temple of the Tooth Relic.
Sanmar treated the winners of the Brand Equity Contest to 5-day exotic holiday packages. The first prize was a holiday with spouse to Thailand. The third prize winners chilled out on the sands of Goa. The second prize winners went to Sri Lanka. Here is a glimpse of Sri Lanka, as seen by a Sanmarite.
1500 stories of Budha at the temple.
Kandy countryside.
The Indian blue blood and rich merchants of yore apparently didn’t have a clue of the joint venture or offshore model for business and trade.
Deepesh Jr at Kandy.
They simply applied the land-acquisition model for expansion. These Indian princes and earls took over villages and hamlets in Sri Lanka and made them their fiefdom. The Kandy lake and parts of Kandy were so developed, it seems.Uphill route to the misty hills of Nuwara Eliya, have Australian pines that hold the soil on the mountain side and lines of avocado trees. The roads are interspersed with good stretches contracted out to Chinese and South Korean firms and the erstwhile Sri Lankan made ones that would keep churning the breakfast you had in the morning. The rain causes landslides that block the roads and the Chinese firms appear to be sitting on a lucrative deal that includes maintenance for 20 years. White tendrils of mountain falls and rivulets that cascade down the rocks relieve the curves and hairpin bends.
Nuwara Eliya – As English as a Gainsborough work of art.
Sri Lankan bride and groom.
In and around the mountains of Nuwara Eliya, the chapters out of Sundara Kaandam in the Ramayana unfolds before you.
The place where Hanuman stopped to look around to locate Sita now has a temple. Ashoka Vaatika, where Sita was kept in detention is still, unending mounds of
Divine footprint on the granite of time.
dense forest that stretch as far as eyes can see. The Sita Eliya temple is a bleak testimony of the sadness of that chapter of Sita’s life.
The Botanical Gardens at the foot of one of the hills of Ashoka Vaatika and the ‘Humbugs Restaurant’ a shanty eating
place draws you back from your time-travelling reverie.
Way back to Colombo:
The gushing natural water falls, the sounds of the forests echoing all around and the freshness of the air makes you float on the wisps of cloud visible everywhere until you spot the tin roof tenements of the plantation workers on the mountain side. One wonders, was colonialism short-changed for capitalism? But then, even the mountain villages boast of schools with good attendance.
Tea estates at Nuwara Eliya.
The Kuloni river meanders parallel to the road, and the drive is a tango in step with the twists and turns of the agile river. Here is a little village made famous by the shooting of the Hollywood film, ‘The Bridge over River Kwai’.
If you plan well you can go white water rafting, which is a f Four-hour trip downstream. here
are beautiful little lodges with a good view thrown in if you opt to stay and brave a tumble down the river. Mind the leeches, though.Colombo brings you back to reality. The Sri Lankan soldiers speaking into their radios, is a visible testimony to the Jekyll and Hyde existence of this strife-ridden island.
There was an uneasy calm in the air as the citizens awaited the outcome of the Geneva talks. At the shops and malls, with the slightest clue to your ethnicity, the frustrated outpourings begin.
Deepesh Jr on the
‘Bridge over River Kuloni’aka Kwai.
Yet, the place is so awesome that for once, an argumentative Indian couple like us trailed off mid-sentence while the beauty of Sri Lanka had the last word!