Sri Lanka’s best-kept secrets. Playing in Paradise. Kandy.

Sri Lanka’s best-kept secrets. Playing in Paradise. Kandy.

It’s Friday evening and darkness, a thick blanket has descended on Kandy. The only sound is the steady trickle of rain usually common to any late Kandy evening. We roll into home and my nephew springs out from the car to open the gate to our house. The spotlight brightens the gravel on the driveway, shining black stones shimmering. My mums rose bushes glimmer invitingly with dewdrops. Getting down from the car and stretching as the fresh mildly cold air hits you, refreshes you.

The kids run into the house screaming in youthful exuberance in anticipation to the week ahead. The dog jumps at you in welcome, pawing at you in impatience to be petted. Your home, in the city called Maha Nuwara (Big City) during the days of the Sri Lankan kings. Best known as Kandy, 72 miles from the commercial capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo. With evening traffic Kandy is about a three-hour absolutely wonderful scenic mountainous drive that really tests the skills of any adventurous driver. I usually successfully attempt to do in two hours.

Kandy, life is slow, uncomplicated there. Mountainous Terrain. Home to Sri Lanka’s dubious descendants of loyalty, sons of the soil. There is plenty of rain, so agriculture and rolling fields of paddy are common. The mornings hot with blazing sun and days that cools from the afternoon with a steady trickle of rain turning to majestic thunderstorms during the monsoon. Fresh produce in everyone’s backyard, an abundance of natural food, and a lifestyle very different from the rest of Sri Lanka, chilled would be the best word.

My friends in Colombo would always wonder why in the wide world I descend to this part of the world of perceived boredom every single weekend. But the secrets: the sights, the sounds and places of Kandy are many, waiting to be discovered, enjoyed.

I worship the statue of Buddha in our living room, then kneel in worship to my parents, say hi to rest of the family and go to my room to change in to Sri Lanka’s preferred choice of relaxing wear, the sarong. The domestic is awaiting my arrival and has a huge simmering cauldron of hot water heated by wood fire by the well in the back of our house. As I draw the first bucket of water and pour it on my head all the worries of the week from life and work in Colombo just wash away. I scrub the dog on his weekly bath and myself hard with Lifebuoy soap while chatting to the domestic. The dog loves it and splashes water all over us. Finishing with icy cold water drawn from the well and drying in the icy cold of the night outside feels wonderful with the terry cloth towel washed and dried in the sun. I head inside in anticipation for the night. Call my half Brit-half Sri Lankan gentile friend to check if he has made it home from Colombo too. Quick dinner and off to his house on the high mountains of Pitakanda, Kandy. About five minutes drive from our house in Wattapuluwa, Kandy.

We sit in his verandah overlooking the rolling mountains right above the Nittawella rugby grounds, home to the Sri Lankan champion team, Kandy Rugby Club. Infamous for its credentials of importing players from as far as Fiji and Samoa for an unfair edge in the national rugby league. A spliff is rolled, vodka poured into tall glasses filled with ice and we finally lay back on the antique long arm chairs famous only to Sri Lanka. The first sip of vodka with the spliff sends an incredible feeling throughout my body. We can’t help but smile. My friend’s partner is sitting on the cool tiled floor using his legs as a rest for her body.

We finally get out of our chairs lazily and head out to our favourite watering hole in the Kandy town, the Bake House. The feeling of euphoria and freedom is incredible as our trail bikes thunder around the Kandy lake to our destination, I can hear my friends partner screaming as we try to out do each other too see who corners the best. After the beers at Bake House we set off to one of the hotel discos or to hear live music in a hotel lobby. The choices are many but Mahaveli Reach, Earl’s Regency or the Tree of Life are personal favourites. Couple of hours in town and we are back at my friends winding down from the evening and weeks trails and tribulations of hot and humid Colombo. I am finally off home in early twilight to collapse on to bed for dreamless much needed sleep. Fresh cotton sheets, large white pillows filled with natural cotton all dried in the sun cocoon me in comfort. The dog flops into bed at my feet and I am too tired to push him away. I sleep by myself in the ground floor of our house in the annexe, the large Alsatian dog does give me a sense of comfort and security.

Wake up late next morning to hear the house hustling and bustling upstairs. A cup of coffee lies on the nightstand beside my bed, discreetly brought in by the male domestic. I open the door of the bedroom that opens out to our garden, quietly light up the first cigarette for the day and enjoy my coffee sitting on the step. My mothers jealously guarded visitor, a King Cobra glares at me from behind a rock in the garden. I acknowledge him nervously and hug the dog close to me. The Cobra is a venerated animal in Sri Lanka and it is believed that the gods send them to your home to guard you but also test your belief. Believe you me I have actually seen this Cobra come really close to my mother and just chill out when she ventures out to the garden.

I then use the bathroom; change in to shorts and t-shirt and head on upstairs to be greeted excitedly by my niece and nephews waiting for me to rise for the day. We eat a delicious breakfast of rice and mung beans soaked overnight and cooked in coconut milk with fresh-grounded chillie and onion paste and fresh river fish curry. Finally we all pile in to the car and head out to the Tree of Life hotel where we rent mountain bikes and go for a vigorous ride on the trails especially built by the hotel for hikers and bikers. Back after an hour and the kids all splash into the hotel pool. The Tree of Life hotel’s main section is over 100 years old and used to be the British Lord Mountbatten’s jungle hunting retreat and bungalow where as well as hunting for wild boar and deer, he sowed his oats as any good colonial sod did in Sri Lanka during the late 1800’s and as far as 1948 when Sri Lanka finally gained independence from British Colonial rule. Although much debated and unaccepted the bony Kandy lasses are amazingly beautiful. The tanned local heritage mixed with British blood and toned down over generations give these local lasses golden skin which contrast amazingly with their long dark tresses. It is not unusual to see some of them with light brown almost hazel or blue eyes. Beautiful is an understatement.

While the kids splash around, I head off to the hotels Ayurvedic centre for Herbal Treatment. Head, Face and Body Massage ‘Snehana’ (Oil Massage), ‘Swedana’ (Steam Bath), ‘Shirodara Kutisweda’ (Herbal Sauna), and Aroma Therapy. The hotel offers a genuine, reliable and traditional Ayurveda in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Ayurvedic therapy comes from an age-old formulation passed down from generation to generation of Ayurvedic families in Sri Lanka. After a good couple of hours I emerge a new man, now finally all the worries of the week massaged away.

All of us then head to the hotel buffet lunch. I stick to the traditional rice and curry from the buffet as the hotel maintains it’s Ayurvedic credentials by offering a range of Sri Lankan vegetables that sadly do not feature in the regular fare of Colombo’s home meals.

Afterwards we drive to the Kandy town for the afternoon. First visit is to the Dalada Maligawa, the former palace of Sri Lanka’s last king, Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe and now a Buddhist temple that houses the scared relic of Buddha, one of his teeth. Outside the palace the regular showpiece before entering the temple a huge tame elephant awaits the brave. It is believed that going under the elephant’s stomach and circling three times builds bravery and courage in children and also wards off evil! After offering the traditional araliya flowers and incense in the inner sanctum we head off to explore around Kandy town.

Kandy offers a labyrinth of streets more complex than those of New York City. Around every corner awaits a surprise, always pleasant. All though buyers must be aware as you may end up purchasing a useless trinket, for the discerning eye antique jewellery shops abound in Kandy. From genuine antique bracelets, earrings, and rings worn by the nobility of ancient Sri Lanka, one will find small shops selling silver rings woven with elephant hair for luck, leopard tooth pendants made from real leopard teeth from hunters of the past and various intricate jewellery items made from ivory. The elephant is a venerated animal in Sri Lanka largely, so buying ivory although needs to be at one’s beliefs and discretion, most ivory items are antique and obtained from elephant graveyards of old. I still remember the large leopard skin that adorned the games room wall at my grandmother’s home in Kandy. Gemstones and jewellery made from precious gems such, as rubies, sapphires, garnets and moonstones are a plenty. Unless you really can identify gems, I would advice a visitor to only purchase jewellery made from moonstones. These are really cheap and won’t be more than 10 to 20 British pounds maximum. All this and more such as local handicrafts made from brass, devil masks, and Sri Lankan drums and in the main though fare of Kandy, a Cargills supermarket and a KFC for a quick snack of chicken! Even a Pizza-Hut!

If visiting Kandy in July and August one has to book early to avoid disappointment as these months herald the beginning of the world famous Kandy Dalada Maligawa procession. A parade of over one hundred elephants in ball gowns brightly lit up very alike a Christmas tree with thousands of dervish dancers, firewalkers, whip crackers and traditional drummers. These processions are held to give thanks to the gods for life, gifts of nature that nourish and good health.

After our walk-about in town we finally head home early evening to beat the drizzle that gradually starts as small drops to steady. Fresh cups of tea for the adults and Milo for the kids, everyone crashes in bed for a nap. The kids head out to the garden for a noisy game of cricket. I switch the TV on and drowse off to the news and woken up again only when the domestic brings me a cup of coffee.

Darkness falls early in Kandy. It’s twilight when I wake up and refresh myself to head to Pitakanda to my friends house again for dinner. I have my dad’s driver drop me off as I plan to get properly sloshed at my friends. More spliffing, loads of vodka and a refined dinner. My friend’s family were restaurateurs in England. So we enjoy a refined meal of pasta with a lovely mushroom sauce all washed down with red wine. Chatting for hours with coffee made from freshly ground beans, the sun’s rising as my friend drops me off at home.

Awake unusually early for a Sunday morning and fast drive to the picturesque Victoria Golf Club for a couple of holes of golf, ride around the club complex on a trail bike and some much needed exercise. The English breakfast at the clubhouse later negating the benefits of the previous exercise. Then I head back to set off with the kids to the Polgolla dam a five minutes walk from our home in Wattapuluwa, Kandy. We have on our bathing suits underneath and carry fishing rods, as beneath the dam, in the flowing calm waters of the Mahaweli River is a perfect secluded spot for bathing and if one wishes to even fish. Not the hectic sport fishing, but the type that calls for calm patience with a line cast in the water and watching the world go by, not counting the seriously adventurous and curious Monkey families living on the trees by the banks of the river that glare at you for invading their territory.

The kids I take along with me as they provide the perfect credentials to my status as an uncle, therefore harmless to parents looking for prospective bachelors for their bony Kandyan female offspring. An insight to life of the people in Kandy, the girls are beautiful, respected and protected. Culturally with no real fuss or bother, they usually head off to school, socialise mostly with the family, an occasional chaperoned movie with friends. Otherwise home. On a Sunday the proud parents allow these girls to hang out by their front gate in the garden in their Sunday best. It is a very subtle way for parents to almost show off their offspring. Be proud. Believe you me the concept of an untouched virgin still exists in this part of the world. This was and still is the best eye candy I have seen any where in the world! And an important part of what makes Kandy, Sri Lanka what it is. One of it’s most jealously kept secrets.

Sunday evening dawns. Early dinner, worship parents and its time for the mad drive back to Colombo. This time more fun as driving in you climb, going back is downhill and much faster!

It’s early Monday morning. I am in office in London. The room is just 10’ by 10’, but I do have a large window that looks out. The winds howling outside, dark clouds make it seem like night, rain beats incessantly on the window as I type this post. The office tower blocks are foreboding, a Range Rover parked illegally is clamped as the owner runs up to it screaming. Traffic was especially bad this morning on the school run, the Jubilee line running late with the tube station closed and I had to get off and walk six blocks to work in the rain. Forgot my raincoat. Inside my mind the parrots with their lime green plumage and bright red necklaces call out to each other from the Mango tree in my parents garden in Kandy. I wipe the tears falling down my face, I imagine my clothes and my face is soaked from the fresh tropical rain of my country of origin, my Paradise Isle. I am OK.