Holiday pics, part 3
Feb. 10th, 2013 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
graculusNext stop: Kandy, which is a nice little city with a lake right in the middle of it - another option for capital city, the last before the current one (Colombo) took over. It's a real mixture of all sorts of influences, with a lively shopping district right in the middle including one shop that only sells umbrellas.
This is the view from my hotel room some of the time:
Though unfortunately some of the time it was more likely to be this:
At this particular hotel, the monkeys were a real nuisance, to the point that all the balcony doors had notices on them reminding you to lock them, and that they had to have someone standing around with a broom at breakfast to chase them away. The hotel was also partly open-plan, which meant the monkeys had free rein of the corridors too and I know a couple of people in our group had a bunch of the critters rush at them.
In terms of wildlife, Kandy was also home to the biggest bats I have ever seen. I'm used to little bats that zip around, but these were big lumbering things (they had the same silhouette as pterodactyls, pretty much), fortunately all fruit eaters. We got into the city just as they were waking up for the evening and it took a lot of persuading for some of the folks on our trip to believe they were bats rather than birds!
The cultural centre of the city is the Sri Dalada Maligawa, otherwise known as the Temple of the Tooth. Essentially it's a massive shrine built round a reliquary containing the Buddha's tooth, with various other (often extremely loud and drum-accompanied) rituals going on. We got to see the reliquary itself, but sadly my camera didn't cope well with inside pics so I only have a couple worth sharing.
Yes, those are monkeys - there is a troop of about 50-60 living at the temple as the food used in the rituals gets given to them and any stray dogs in the vicinity afterwards. They clearly knew it was food time when the drums started and came en masse.
After that, we went to the botanical gardens and I ended up taking a load of pics in the orchid house...
In our next installment, I promise lots of pics of elephants...
This is the view from my hotel room some of the time:
Though unfortunately some of the time it was more likely to be this:
At this particular hotel, the monkeys were a real nuisance, to the point that all the balcony doors had notices on them reminding you to lock them, and that they had to have someone standing around with a broom at breakfast to chase them away. The hotel was also partly open-plan, which meant the monkeys had free rein of the corridors too and I know a couple of people in our group had a bunch of the critters rush at them.
In terms of wildlife, Kandy was also home to the biggest bats I have ever seen. I'm used to little bats that zip around, but these were big lumbering things (they had the same silhouette as pterodactyls, pretty much), fortunately all fruit eaters. We got into the city just as they were waking up for the evening and it took a lot of persuading for some of the folks on our trip to believe they were bats rather than birds!
The cultural centre of the city is the Sri Dalada Maligawa, otherwise known as the Temple of the Tooth. Essentially it's a massive shrine built round a reliquary containing the Buddha's tooth, with various other (often extremely loud and drum-accompanied) rituals going on. We got to see the reliquary itself, but sadly my camera didn't cope well with inside pics so I only have a couple worth sharing.
Yes, those are monkeys - there is a troop of about 50-60 living at the temple as the food used in the rituals gets given to them and any stray dogs in the vicinity afterwards. They clearly knew it was food time when the drums started and came en masse.
After that, we went to the botanical gardens and I ended up taking a load of pics in the orchid house...
In our next installment, I promise lots of pics of elephants...
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Date: 2013-02-10 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-11 08:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-11 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-11 08:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-15 03:06 am (UTC)Also -- bad monkey, no biscuit.