Day 8
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Elke
18 Oktober 2016 | Sri Lanka, Kandy
The funny thing in my tummy that started the day before, had turned out to not be very funny anymore during the night. Irrespective of whether it was Ayurveda or something else that initiate these problems, after unsuccessfully trying to fix it with Coca Cola alone, I reverted to good old Western medicine to solve the problem, which did not let me down. During the dinner later this day I also decided to leave the spicy local dishes as they were and go for the Italian pasta instead (thank goodness for Italian corruption!).
I woke up to honking horns from the cars in the valley. Short honks here are used to 1) kindly bring it to people’s attention that you are approaching someone or 2) that you are both approaching something that will force one of you to stop, 3) to request people to move slightly to the side so that you can pass, or 4) to thank them for moving so that you could pass. It seems to be an essential part of the mores of road participation, except in a few dedicated areas where signs indicated it is not allowed, for instance near hospitals, police stations, court rooms etc.
After breakfast, we walked down to the Temple of the Tooth, which is (for now) the final resting place of a tooth of Buddha and a very active place of pilgrimage. We were warned for the security check, which was intensified after a Tamil attack in the nineties, that also doubled for a decency check, as they were also very strict regarding the “temple clothing”. Men and women were separated and directed into small stalls for this check. The stalls were probably there for privacy, but I was called into the stall while the previous girls was still in there. She did not have her shoulders properly covered and when my bag was opened and the first thing they saw was a scarf, it was taken out probably with the intention to give it to her, but when it became clear that I did not know here, they told me to cover my covered shoulders with it, proving yet again that cranky people with too much power are annoying everywhere. Anyway, that was all there was to the entire security check.
The temple complex was very large, probably to accommodate the big parades with elephants that they have here during important celebrations. The building with the actual tooth was the most important part of the complex. The honor of actually getting to see this tooth is granted to very few people, each holding one key of a set of multiple keys that is needed to open the door. This is done daily during a ritual when food is offered to the tooth. I feel like there is a joke in food being offered to a single tooth, but somehow I just cannot come up with something good. Anyway, during this ceremony people can also hand over their offerings to the monks through a small window (somewhat resembling a drive-through window). The line of people with offerings was very long and because many of these people had to spent all their savings on this pilgrimage and the ‘opening hours’ of this window relied on the mood of the monks, tourists were directed to another line and encourage to pass this first line quickly.
I would not have minded to stay at the temple complex a bit longer and have a look around the larger temple area, but we moved on. Since there was some time to kill before lunch, we first went to a gemstone company, that showed us a video of how they mine the gemstones. After seeing the movie “blood diamond” I already decided to never ever buy or wear real diamonds and after this movie a grew more reluctant about other stones as well. To preserve the landscape, the Sri Lankan government does not allow large scale mining (which is a good thing I guess). Instead small shafts are dug and build by hand, looking neither very safe nor very healthy for these workers. After the movie we got to see the diamond cutters at work and of course we were also directed past the shop.
Since there was even more time to kill, we also went to a shop that sells sari’s, the traditional clothes for women. All ladies from our group picked one they liked and then we took a pictures of us wearing them. I was in fact also interested in buying some light cotton pants and they had some nice ones for sale. Unfortunately, this store mostly served local women. For the sari’s this did not matter as these are 6 or 8 meters long and bigger women just wrap it around their waist less often than the smaller women. For pants this was however another story. Half the personnel helped looking for the largest pants in the store, claiming without a doubt that it would fit, yet I was proven right, that it did not. Then, since they all tried so hard, I felt slightly obligated to at least buy a T-shirt that did fit.
After lunch some of us followed Sammy to the botanical garden of Kandy. These gardens are quite big and had some plants, trees and flowers that I had never seen before. Sami could provide the necessary information with the gardens as well, at one point however it got too much and too warm for us white people, so we went back for some relaxation at the hotel.
I woke up to honking horns from the cars in the valley. Short honks here are used to 1) kindly bring it to people’s attention that you are approaching someone or 2) that you are both approaching something that will force one of you to stop, 3) to request people to move slightly to the side so that you can pass, or 4) to thank them for moving so that you could pass. It seems to be an essential part of the mores of road participation, except in a few dedicated areas where signs indicated it is not allowed, for instance near hospitals, police stations, court rooms etc.
After breakfast, we walked down to the Temple of the Tooth, which is (for now) the final resting place of a tooth of Buddha and a very active place of pilgrimage. We were warned for the security check, which was intensified after a Tamil attack in the nineties, that also doubled for a decency check, as they were also very strict regarding the “temple clothing”. Men and women were separated and directed into small stalls for this check. The stalls were probably there for privacy, but I was called into the stall while the previous girls was still in there. She did not have her shoulders properly covered and when my bag was opened and the first thing they saw was a scarf, it was taken out probably with the intention to give it to her, but when it became clear that I did not know here, they told me to cover my covered shoulders with it, proving yet again that cranky people with too much power are annoying everywhere. Anyway, that was all there was to the entire security check.
The temple complex was very large, probably to accommodate the big parades with elephants that they have here during important celebrations. The building with the actual tooth was the most important part of the complex. The honor of actually getting to see this tooth is granted to very few people, each holding one key of a set of multiple keys that is needed to open the door. This is done daily during a ritual when food is offered to the tooth. I feel like there is a joke in food being offered to a single tooth, but somehow I just cannot come up with something good. Anyway, during this ceremony people can also hand over their offerings to the monks through a small window (somewhat resembling a drive-through window). The line of people with offerings was very long and because many of these people had to spent all their savings on this pilgrimage and the ‘opening hours’ of this window relied on the mood of the monks, tourists were directed to another line and encourage to pass this first line quickly.
I would not have minded to stay at the temple complex a bit longer and have a look around the larger temple area, but we moved on. Since there was some time to kill before lunch, we first went to a gemstone company, that showed us a video of how they mine the gemstones. After seeing the movie “blood diamond” I already decided to never ever buy or wear real diamonds and after this movie a grew more reluctant about other stones as well. To preserve the landscape, the Sri Lankan government does not allow large scale mining (which is a good thing I guess). Instead small shafts are dug and build by hand, looking neither very safe nor very healthy for these workers. After the movie we got to see the diamond cutters at work and of course we were also directed past the shop.
Since there was even more time to kill, we also went to a shop that sells sari’s, the traditional clothes for women. All ladies from our group picked one they liked and then we took a pictures of us wearing them. I was in fact also interested in buying some light cotton pants and they had some nice ones for sale. Unfortunately, this store mostly served local women. For the sari’s this did not matter as these are 6 or 8 meters long and bigger women just wrap it around their waist less often than the smaller women. For pants this was however another story. Half the personnel helped looking for the largest pants in the store, claiming without a doubt that it would fit, yet I was proven right, that it did not. Then, since they all tried so hard, I felt slightly obligated to at least buy a T-shirt that did fit.
After lunch some of us followed Sammy to the botanical garden of Kandy. These gardens are quite big and had some plants, trees and flowers that I had never seen before. Sami could provide the necessary information with the gardens as well, at one point however it got too much and too warm for us white people, so we went back for some relaxation at the hotel.
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
