Week 6 – India – Ajanta to Chitrakut

On Monday morning we caught the local bus from Ajanta to Jalgaon (it was absolutely jam-packed) – to catch the overnight train to Jhansi. This time we were travelling in AC3 – this meant that there were 6 beds in our berth (as opposed to 4 beds in the same space in AC2). We saw a small boy pee on the floor which his mother soaked up using the brown paper wrapping from the bedding – but not before a few people had walked through it!

We arrived at Jhansi at around 4 am on Tuesday morning and caught a rickshaw to Orchha in the dark – it was really nice and cool. We arrived at the Hotel Sheesh Mahal and had to wake up the night boy to let us in. The lobby was full of real antiques as the hotel was contained in a wing of the Jehangir Mahal palace. Unfortunately our room was a lot less impressive than the lobby. It seemed to be in the stables and the doorways were really low, so we kept bumping our heads!

When it was light we went for a walk around the palace grounds. We took some great photos of the Jehangir Mahal palace which was in surprisingly good condition with some outstanding Islamic architecture. It also had some large grey vultures circling and landing on the domes. There were lots of friendly but very mangy thin looking dogs and the grounds were full of cow dung.

In the afternoon we decided to have a haircut – not very happy with the results. Suzie's "hairdresser" told her in the middle of the first snip that she was a "computer operator" and her haircut took less than 5 minutes. Suzie has a very short fringe (much like childhood haircuts from mum) and Keith has a kind of asymmetrical tonsure. Oh well – it will grow back!

Wednesday was really busy for us – we purchased an entry ticket which allowed us to visit all of the sights in Orccha – but the ticket was only valid for one day. First we visited the Raja Mahal palace. On the ground floor the caretaker showed us the maharaja and maharani's bedrooms which were lavishly painted with Hindu religious scenes, hunting and dancing scenes. Apparently the maharaja had 6 wives – and the dark skinned ones were allocated bedrooms without any decorations. Then we went to the Jehangir Mahal. There were still lots of good turquoise tile detail left and we saw a vulture shielding its baby from the sun with its wing while perched on top of a dome. There were absolutely no safety rails which meant that sometimes you were leaning out over huge drops hoping that the stone balcony would not give way. There were great views of the town, the Chataburj temple, the Betwa river and the surrounding countryside. We walked back through the town and caught a rickshaw to the Lakshmi Narayan Temple. We walked around the inside admiring some lively paintings that were very clear in some sections. We walked around the top and climbed up some steep stairs to the central tower. Afterwards we walked back to the Chaturburj temple where we got the caretaker to take us up onto the roof which was spectacular. We were the only ones up there (except for the vultures).

We headed back to the palace grounds of the palace to see the camel stables, Khana hammam (bath house) and the Raj Praveen Mahal (pavilion and formal Mughal garden). The pavilion and the remains of the formal Mughal garden were peaceful and quiet. The views from the top of the camel stables were really great at that time of the afternoon.

At dusk, we walked around the Chhatris (fifteen cenotaphs to Orchha's rulers) along the Betwa river. We walked around the back of the complex, where we had to go through a gate into a field where they had harvested wheat which was lying in sheaves. We'd seen the golden fields of wheat surrounding the town. We caught the last of the light, the river, the Chhatris and the vultures roosting on the Chhatris.

That evening we got ready to leave for Khajuraho, famous for its Kama Sutra carvings.

On Thursday morning we got up at 6 am and caught a rickshaw to the train station. Suzie was up all night on the toilet so she did well to make it at all. There were people sitting in the corridors and doorways so it was difficult for us to get on with our back packs. The train started moving and Keith had to jump on to the stairs and hang on until some room was made. Luckily some people got off at the next couple of stops so it wasn't long before we got a seat. It was 2 pm before we arrived after passing endless small wheat fields baking in the sun.

The next morning we headed out to the Southern Group of temples. We visited the Chaturbhuj temple which contained an impressive 4 armed statue of Vishnu and the Duladeo temple which had very detailed sculptures including sculptures of couples in various erotic poses – but you had to really look carefully to see them. After that we drove through the potholes and over the vicious speed bumps of Khajuraho village to the Eastern group of temples. Our first stop was the Jain temples – there were three of them within a walled enclosure. All the temples had incredibly complex patterns on the exterior and then large sections covered with extremely beautiful figures, some human, some gods and some combinations eg human body with elephant head. There were common themes – jet black sculptures of seated Buddhas, apsara dancers, erotic figures having sex in various positions, a bearded man with knotted beard, and dragon headed demons. We left the Jain temple complex and headed off to the Vamana temple with elephant figures on a platform off the roof corners and a beautiful archway of dragon heads twisting over the entrance. We saw the Javari temple, the tiny Brahma temple with 4 faces on the lingam. Lastly we saw the ruined Ghantai temple which had exceptional bell and chain decoration on the columns which were all that remained of the temple.

We set the alarm for 6 am on Saturday so that we could check out the Western Temple group while it was still cool. The temples in this group were much better preserved and some of them were much larger than the temples we had seen on the previous day. There were a couple of notable sculptures – a garlanded Nandi (Bull God), a woman caressing a lion and a giant Boar (one of the incarnations of Vishnu) with tiny beautiful carved figures all over its body. Around the outsides of the temples were bands of carvings and sculptures featuring gods, goddesses, musicians and animals (real and mythological). The main themes seemed to be war and sex. There were some beautiful carvings of sensuous female nymphs (with impressive vital statistics) dancing, carrying flowers and looking into mirrors. There were many carvings of acrobatic couples in various erotic poses (some of them looked improbable and positively dangerous – eg handstand position). There was even a carving of a man performing unnatural acts with a horse while a shocked nymph peered out at the scene from behind her hands! It took us a couple of hours to view the 10 temples within the walled enclosure, after which we visited Khajuraho's only working temple just outside the enclosure.

Suzie was still feeling dodgy so went back to the room for a rest while Keith went to collect our laundry, find out about buses and visit some museums.

The archaeology museum was small but full of terrific carvings. The best was a complete dancing Ganesh (elephant god) standing about two metres high. Unfortunately no photography was allowed! At the Tribal Art museum saw some good art including carved wooden doors, carved wooden stools, masks, metal carving of woman with babies on each breast, large pottery elephant, metal crocodile with men on its back, and the best of all was the paintings on canvas the attendant rolled out at the end. One showed a mongoose eating a snake and the other showed a cat catching a rabbit with exquisite birds in each corner.

On Sunday morning we set the alarm for 5 am, packed up our stuff and walked across the dusty paddock at the rear of the hotel to the bus stand to catch our 6 am bus to Chitrakut – a small town of particular religious significance to Hindus. When we got there we were told that the bus was cancelled due to "technical difficulties" and directed to another bus which dropped us off 11 kilometres away at Bamitha. From there after about a twenty minute wait we caught another bus to Satna. Three and a half hours later the bus dropped us off at the Satna central bus stand where we were able to get straight on another bus to Chitrakut. We were lucky to get on early and get a seat because the bus was soon packed to the rafters. The landscape was incredibly flat and dry for the most part with much of the vegetation appearing to be dead and the remaining trees suffering heat stress had dropped a lot of their leaves. There were long stretches of dry stone wall which must have taken an enormous time and effort to build. We arrived at Chitrakut bus station a little after midday – exhausted and covered in dust.

After a rest, we decided to go for a walk to the Ram Ghat (stone steps down to the water from which people wash themselves and their clothes). We walked along the riverside where small boats were moored with white rabbits on board. There were loads of scrawny looking pilgrims wearing robes in various shades of orange robes walking along the banks and bathing at the Ghat. A giant statue of Hanuman the monkey god and an old white mughal style palace topped the white and red ghats on the far side. Shops, temples and old buildings in various stages of decay lined the near side which sloped up steeply from the ghats. We walked around taking photos and saw a lot of spiritual paraphernalia for sale but none of the usual tourist rubbish. We found out that because Chitrakut is a holy site, there was no alcohol or meat available. No one appears to speak any English and we did not see a single tourist!

The people here were very friendly and prices extremely low, but it is very hard to communicate or to easily enjoy yourself without a certain amount of infrastructure. We decided to try to leave for Gwalior by the 11 am train tomorrow.

Week 5 – India – Hyderabad to Ajanta

We caught a rickshaw to the Golconda Fort on Monday morning, which turned out to be quite a distance away from Hyderabad. We spent a couple of hours wandering through the ruins of old palaces, mosques, wells, defensive walls and then climbing up to the Citadel from which we had great views of the fort complex and the nearby town. We could also see the brown domes of the Qutb Shahi tombs.

We left the Fort and walked 1½ kilometres along a dusty road to the Qutb Shahi tombs. These domed structures housed the remains of several Qutb Shahi kings and were set alongside some landscaped gardens. We wandered around them for a couple of hours taking photographs before getting a rickshaw back to town.

Our trips around Hyderabad in the rickshaws were interesting as this was the first Indian city we had been able to have a good look at. Very busy, very colourful and full of contrasts eg the delicious and the disgusting.

The next day we caught a rickshaw to the Paigah Tombs. The tombs were in a quiet neighbourhood and made of marble with limestone stucco. They were surrounded by beautifully carved walls, geometric patterned screens, topped by turrets and there was some marble inlay work evident on some of the tombs. We caught a rickshaw to the hotel to collect our bags and on to Secunderabad train station to catch our train to Aurangabad.

We shared our berth for the first 2-3 hours with a nice couple and their toddler (who was a handful). We also talked to an older couple in the berth opposite us. The lady was a well spoken English teacher and was a "healer" – she was very enthusiastic about "gurus/healers" (eg Sai Baba) and traditional healing methods. She must have mistaken our incredulous silence for interest because she proceeded to give detailed explanations about chakras, auras and their various colours and how knowledge of such allowed her to treat many ailments (non-surgically) with much more success than western medicine. Luckily at this point the couple with their baby got off the train and the diversion that this caused enabled us to make up our beds and close the curtains so we could go to sleep.

We arrived at Aurangabad at 4-30am and we decided to stay in Aurangabad and have a recovery day before getting a rickshaw to Daulatabad fort and Ellora the next morning. After a rest we went to the Post Office so that we could post our Sri Lanka Lonely Planet home, where we found out that our parcel needed to be specially wrapped in linen with wax seals on all seams!! Luckily there was a shop across the road and the man was able to wrap up our parcel really quickly with the aid of a hand operated sewing machine. We visited the Bibi-qa-Maqbara (replica Taj Mahal). The Bibi-qa-Maqbara was a large square complex with a tomb in the centre - a domed building surrounded by four minarets. There were ornate brass and wooden doors carved with geometric patterns at the entrances. At the front of the tomb there was a long rectangular pool (just like the real Taj Mahal).

Our laundry was returned to us that evening and as we were checking it we noticed that our clothing was taking a beating (probably literally). On one of Suzie's tops, 1 ½ buttons are missing and the remaining buttons have great chips and cracks in them, one pair of cargo pants were returned minus a metal press stud closure and Suzie's bras look like an elephant sat on them. We are really hoping that our clothes are not being washed in the polluted stinking river!

On Thursday, we visited the hilltop fortress at Daulatabad – 15 kilometres from Aurangabad and half way to Ellora. It was a very impressive fort with sheer walls carved out of the hill in basalt rock. The fort was protected by a series of defences – doors studded with spikes to prevent elephant charges, a moat and a spiral staircase through a dank and dark bat infested tunnel – lucky we had our torches. On the way up to the bastion, we walked past a 60 metre tall red Persian style minaret - a tower of victory known as the Chand Minar (Tower of the Moon). There were great views from the bastion at the top of the citadel.

Our next stop was the Ellora Cave Temples. There are a total of 34 temples. The first 12 were Buddhist and a few of them were under restoration so we weren't able to visit them. Cave 10 was the best with a large statue of Buddha, ribbed ceilings and wonderful acoustics. Caves 13 to 29 were Hindu temples – the best of these was the Kailasa temple at Cave 16. This was different because it was no longer contained within a cave – 200,000 tonnes of rock had been removed and the temple was chiselled out of the remains. It was decorated with magnificent sculptures and the temple contained several intricately carved panels.

Our driver took us in the rickshaw to caves 30 to 34 which contained the Jain temples. It was 4.30pm by the time we finished these and we went back to the Kailas Temple. We walked up the steps at the side of the temple and along the top perimeter so that could admire the temple from above.

On Friday morning we went to the central bus stand where we jumped on a bus to Ajanta. The bus took a while to leave and more and more people piled on until there was barely any standing room. The bus trip took around 2 ½ hours and you could see the scenery change as we drove north. There were different crops – no rice anymore. The bus driver was pretty gung ho and we spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the road overtaking. The bus got totally packed so we were lucky to get a seat. There was a noticeable increase in temperature as we drove down from the Deccan plateau with spectacular views of the escarpment and plains below. We checked into the MTDC Holiday Resort and we were given a nice cottage complete with "kitchen", fridge, living room and resident guest giant geckoes.

Later that afternoon we left the hotel room, and caught a rickshaw to Fardapur to have a look around and to organise some dinner. After dinner we walked back to the hotel. When we got back the power was out so we went and had a chat to the Indian family (from Kolkata) in the next cottage. We started talking about Saris and when the lights came on they gave Suzie an impromptu Sari lesson.

On Saturday morning, we got up after a very pleasant night's sleep. Due to our location near the caves, away from the village and away from the main road, we were not disturbed by any traffic noise. At the caves we joined a group of Australians with their guide and visited the most notable caves where he pointed out the most significant details. After the guide left us, we viewed caves 30 to 16 before going to lunch. After lunch we headed back to the caves to view caves 1 to 15. A lot of the frescoes were very badly damaged which is not surprising, given their age and there was also a fair amount of water damage. The caves were discovered when an English hunting party saw a tiger disappear into one of the caves. There was enough in the remaining paintings to show that the caves would have been outstanding when fully painted and coloured. There were graceful elegant figures used to tell the stories of the Buddha and his various incarnations – for example the prince leaving his wife and son to become a monk and returning to beg from them, the six tusked white elephant who sacrificed his tusks and his life to the hunters and the elephant who sacrificed himself to feed the hungry people. There were several frescoes and carvings depicting the thousand Buddhas, the war between the cannibal demons against the king and his army, and Buddha resisting his wife's temptations to return to material life. The caves were in a spectacular location – a horse shoe shaped gorge. After we had seen all the caves we climbed up to the lookout to view them. Then we hiked up to the lookout from where the English first saw the tiger disappear into a cave.

We caught a rickshaw to Fardapur for dinner again that evening. There was one waiting at the rickshaw stand at the front of the complex – and the driver offered to take us for Rs 10 each. However, there were already two ladies and three men sitting there. The driver insisted that we could all fit in and so off we went with the three men in front with the driver and Keith and Suzie in the back with the two ladies – a total of eight in all!!

We had a relaxing Sunday in the comfort of our air conditioned room before our next big leg from Ajanta to Jalgaon and on to Jhansi, and then Orchha where we have hopefully booked into a hotel in the wing of a palace!

Week 4 – India – Chennai to Hyderabad

We arrived at Chennai Airport at 12.30am on Monday morning – more than 4 hours late. As soon as we arrived you could tell that we were in a different world – the airport was really dirty. We organised a prepaid taxi (a vintage car of British origin) into Chennai. As it was after midnight the streets of Chennai were devoid of traffic however there was an extraordinary amount of people sleeping in the streets and all the people that were standing up seemed to be urinating. It was 2 am by the time we reached our hotel opposite Chennai Central Station. In reality the Hotel Central Tower did not look like the luxurious place it did on the internet!! The first sign of this was our porter – he had no shoes on and told Keith that he had been working at the hotel for 10 days!! The complimentary toiletries that were mentioned on the internet turned out to be a miniscule bar of soap and a single sachet of shampoo. We had to make a special request for toilet paper!

We set the alarm for 9 am and had breakfast at the hotel before heading out to the train reservations building next to Central Station to organise the first leg of our trip to Hampi. As the train was fully booked we were only able to reserve a seat in a sleeper class berth (no air conditioning) on the Mumbai Express which was leaving Chennai at 11.45 am.

The train set off on time and the entire trip was absolutely flat with bananas, sunflowers, mangoes and coconut palms all being cultivated along the way with irrigation. It got drier as we headed North West and we saw mountains occasionally in the hazy distance. We saw water buffalo, goats, cows, dogs and pigs!

The train was filled with vendors who walked continuously up and down the aisles, selling coffee, tea, cold drinks, fruit and a large variety of Indian short eats. There were also beggars and a hijra (eunuch/lady boy) who got on at each station when the train stopped. As the day progressed and more people got on the train the seats in our carriage filled up with people who did not have reserved seats. Our berth was soon littered with coconuts, peanut shells and other food debris. We saw an enterprising mouse darting around under the seats in the train feeding on the crumbs! An old guy sitting opposite insisted that we throw our rubbish out of the window so that we could keep our berth clean!

9 hours later we arrived at Guntakal Junction hot, dusty, dirty and sweaty! That night we ended up staying at the Lepakshi Hotel, a real dive with no toilet paper, no shower, but taps, a bucket and a pail instead! On the plus side the air conditioning worked well.

The next morning, we left the Lepakshi Hotel without even bothering with the deluxe bucket and pail shower and walked to the bus station where we got straight on a bus to Bellary. In the morning light Guntakal looked like any other small Indian town – dirty, dusty, smelly, busy – but not the sinister place that it seemed the night before. As we drove out of town we saw a giant white statue of Hanuman, the monkey god. The roads were sometimes good and sometimes appalling. The highways were single lane and you were always overtaking or being overtaken. We arrived at Bellary and jumped straight onto another bus to Hospet. We arrived at Hospet after another bone rattling journey and jumped on another bus to Hampi. At Hampi Bazaar we caught a tuk tuk to the river crossing and caught the boat across to Virupapur Gaddi and walked a couple of kilometres with our back packs on before settling on the Shanthi Guesthouse for a bungalow room. There was a beautiful view out the front over a rice paddy and coconut palms.

If you want to know about dirt, dust and grime, travel on the buses and trains of India and you will become an expert!

Hampi is the ancient boulder strewn capital of the Vijayanagar Empire. We spent the next few days exploring ruins of temples and ceremonial buildings the most notable of which were the Elephant Stables, the Lotus Mahal (Lotus House) and the Vitala Temple. The Lotus Mahal was a very pretty 2 storey pavilion and the Elephant Stables were topped by 11 domes of different styles. This was all surrounded by an impressive wall with watchtowers. The Vitala Temple was an impressive complex of stone temples with well preserved stone carvings. The most amazing piece was the stone chariot.

We also visited the Virupaksha Temple, a "working" temple right next to the Hampi Bazaar. We walked though the massive Gopuram (tower) where we bought some bananas from a vendor to feed Lakshmi – the 21 year old temple elephant. We walked into a huge square and then through an arch on the other side into the inner temple where we fed Lakshmi. We were lucky enough to see Lakshmi enjoying her daily bath in the river on Saturday morning just before we left Hampi.

Our train journey to Hyderabad was a totally different experience to our first train journey. This time we had a three bed berth that was curtained off from the rest of the train – and it was air-conditioned. When we got on the train we were each issued with a brown paper wrapped parcel containing two sheets and a hand towel. There were four firm pillows in our berth. It was so comfortable that we were able to go to sleep.

The train stopped at Hyderabad station a little after 5.30 am on Sunday morning. We checked into our hotel and had a shower and breakfast and then headed out for the day. We visited the Charminar, the Mecca Masjid Mosque (which seats 10,000 people), and the Chowmahalla Palace – the residence of the last Nizam (King) of Andhra Pradesh. The palace contained collections of photographs, China, bejewelled clothing, swords, and vintage cars. There was also an unusual antique clock containing figures of the Nizam smoking a hookah and moving his head and being fanned by a couple of servants. We walked back towards our hotel through the busy Laad Bazaar and the Mozamjahi Market. After a rest at our hotel we caught a tuk tuk to the Birla Mandir Temple on top of a hill overlooking the Hussain Sagar lake. It was a magnificent Hindu temple carved from white marble with some black statues dotted around the white buildings with detailed carvings of deities and scenes from Hindu mythology. There were hordes of chanting Hindu kids entering the inner sanctum with a deity covered in flowers and painting themselves with sandalwood and eating sugar chips on the way out. Great views over the lake far below as well.

We finished our day with an excellent meal at The Waterfront Restaurant and headed back to our hotel for some TV and a much needed sleep. Finally, we have scored somewhere with air conditioning, a hair dryer and satellite TV.

Week 3 – Sri Lanka

We arranged for our driver to drop us off at Haputale where we planned to catch a train through the scenic tea plantations to Ella. We bought our ticket and were told that the train would be leaving at 12.15pm (scheduled departure 11.25am), however it was after 2pm before the train arrived. It was a picturesque journey in wooden carriages past vegetable gardens, tea plantations, and green valleys. We arrived at Haputale three hours late! We went to the Rawana Holiday Resort to watch the friendly chef cook a selection of vegetable dishes including garlic and tamarind curry, beetroot and coconut, kang kong, deep fried bittermelon, mashed potato with onion, mint & chilli, sweet and sour eggplant, lentil dahl, spicy coconut fried rice. We enjoyed all of this for dinner, plus a lotus root curry, pineapple chutney, lime pickle, chilli sambal and coconut sambal.

From Ella we went to the beach resort of Unawatuna. We drove down the Ella Gap, past the Rawana Falls enjoying the lovely scenery, stopping at the bottom at Buduruwagala Temple where we saw Sri Lanka's tallest standing Buddha. Then we checked into the Happy Banana at Unawatuna and spent a pleasant afternoon on the beach. Suzie had an encounter with a giant centipede (10 cm long) in the bathroom. We think that it crawled out of the drain in the bathroom and marched over her foot!! Luckily it didn't bite her. The next day we caught the bus from Unawatuna to Galle – the buses barely stop, they kind of slow down and you need to leap on while they're still moving. We walked to the Fort area (old town) past a bustling fish market and the cricket stadium while a match was in progress. We walked around the Fort walls admiring the crumbling architecture, including the Dutch Reformed Church, All Saints Anglican church, the District Court and the massive fort walls and many huge trees. We visited the Historical Mansion Museum, which was a 350 year old Dutch house constructed from coral and mud. It was filled to the rafters with old cameras, antique china, old surgical instruments, spectacles, antique jewellery and new jewellery (and gems). It was more of a shop than a museum – entrance was free and many of the items had price tags on them. We headed out towards the new town after that and wandered along the main street. We also walked a block behind the main street which was a bit like walking through a slum, with corrugated iron shacks and open drains.

The next day we set off back to Negombo with a new driver. We drove up the West coast and could see some Tsunami damage to old houses. We crossed some big rivers before we got to Colombo where we drove past Victoria Park and saw the White House (Town Hall). We stopped at the Independence Memorial where Keith got photos of a python and a cobra before heading out of Colombo to Negombo. This morning we walked a couple of kilometres along Lewis Place to the Clock Tower, fish markets and Old Fort (now a prison). We walked around to the bridge over the lagoon and then to St Mary's Church where we had some water and some shade from the sun before catching a tuk tuk back. We've arrived at Colombo airport only to discover that our flight to Chennai (Madras) is delayed for 4 hours!

Week 2 – Sri Lanka

We arrived at Bandaranaike Airport 30km north of Colombo on the evening of Monday 22 February. We stayed at Negombo overnight as it was closer to the airport than Colombo and the next morning organised a car, driver and guide to take us around the island. We left after lunch, driving along the coast road to Putulam before heading east to Anuradhapura the ancient capital. We spent the next day visiting crumbling temples and ruins, large dagobas and Buddha statues. In the late afternoon when the heat had gone out of the day, we visited Mihintale – this was where Buddhism was introduced from India in 247 BC. To get to the site, we had to climb 1,840 granite slab steps. Our next stop was Polonnurawa where there were some more ruins to visit. We stayed overnight in Sigiriya – a rock fort with stunning frescoes and spectacular views from the summit. After tackling Sigiriya Rock, early the next morning (to avoid the heat, hornets and pilgrims), we returned to the guest house, had a shower and headed for Dambulla where we visited the Cave Temples with spectacular Buddha statues. Then we headed off to Kandy (Sri Lanka's second biggest city), stopping at a Spice Garden tourist trap on the way. We were shown all the interesting plants for ayurvedic medicine and cooking eg sandalwood, cardamom, ginger, pepper, cocoa, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves etc. After listening to the man bang on about all the ailments that each herb and spice treated, Keith commented that he didn't realise how many of the ailments applied to him – flatulence, psoriasis/eczema, snoring, obesity, hair loss, kidney malfunction etc etc. Unfortunately, all the medicines and ointments were really expensive – so he continues to suffer.

At Kandy, we walked to the Buddha's Tooth Temple only to discover that Keith's shorts and Suzie's short sleeve shirt were not considered appropriate attire. We bought a towel from a street vendor to cover Suzie's shoulders, then we went to a couple of menswear stores and then to the local market where after much haggling, we were able to buy Keith two pairs of cargo pants for Rs 3,000 (AUD30). We headed back to the Temple of the Tooth only to find that Suzie's denim skirt was not good enough. It was only after Suzie put on Keith's second pair of cargo pants on under her skirt and we were able to get in. Later that afternoon after our visit to the temple, we walked around to the Kandyan Arts Association Hall on the lake side of the temple to see the Kandyan dancers. The dancers wore very colourful costumes, were very acrobatic and there was lots of good drumming.

The next day we left Kandy for our trip to Nuwara Eliya stopping at the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens outside Kandy. The Botanical Gardens were excellent with fantastic orchids, cycads, and a giant Java Fig (Ficus Benjamina). On the way, we stopped at three waterfalls which were really spectacular, and then a tea plantation where we had a tour and a free cup of tea. We found out that green tea, black tea and white tea all come from the same plant!

Nuwara Eliya (also referred to as Little England) is Sri Lanka's main hill station and with its cool climate , we spent a pleasant couple of days here, away from the heat.