Kandy

Kandy Trips

Full of character, in Kandy memories of times gone by seem to hang in the air. Wander through the streets and you see fruit vendors with coconuts, jackfruit and pineapples piled high. Peeling paintwork clings to ramshackle buildings. Women in bright saris sell tasty treats from roadside stalls. Old boys chatter away on street corners as clapped-out cars honk their way round town.

Kandy is the laid-back centre of Sri Lanka's hill country and was once the capital of a powerful Buddhist kingdom. It's home to the country's most sacred Buddhist relic – a tooth of the Lord Buddha. Said to have been snatched from the flames of his funeral pyre, the tooth is housed in a golden casket inside the Temple of the Sacred Tooth. Every day there are ceremonies at the temple, where barefoot worshippers carrying lotus blossoms and frangipani file past the casket in reverence to this important religious relic.