Kandy Kingdom

I know it makes me a horrible person but I had real difficulties taking a place called Kandy seriousl. As soon as I realised I was staying in Cinnamon Citadel in Kandy Kingdom then the poor town had no chance.  It was like I was staying in a level of a computer game unfortunately that meant I treated everything with roughly that level of respect.

I went to Tooth Temple in Kandy Kingdom. As temples go it was pretty good, and it takes only very minor changes to the name to get a good alliterative, candy-related name to fit my video game nonsense. There were a lot of references to King Kandy throughout, which didn't help the seriousness. So when it came to the point where they shut down the city for ten days each summer to parade a tooth on the back of an elephant, well...

I saw some Ves dancing. Apparently that's a thing. Imagine if Ronald McDonald put on all his mum's jewellery and then improvised a dance show after spending too long on a crosstrainer.

I also went to Gobstopper Gardens. That's not their name but they were chock full of fruit bats so I wrang dry the pointless joke that has clearly run its course. I don't know, I go to the prettiest City in Sri Lanka - a Unesco-protected pilgrimage site - and all I do is make Wreck-it Ralph jokes. Hashtag Keeping it highbrow.

I hit up two more of the big Sri Lankan Unescos on the way to Kandy: Cave Temples of Dambulla (Some Buddhas in a hole - m'eh - It's like Pindaya only with worse caves and less Buddhas) and Sigiruya.

Had you heard of Sigiruya? I hadn't. Apparently it's known as the Eighth Wonder of the World (but then so was Andre the Giant). It's a big old rock in the middle of nowhere. All round the rock is the ruins of a fifth century fortress, which in itself is pretty cool. You climb (by which I mean queue) up the side of the rock past some frescoes (good) and some really old graffiti (erm...) before getting to the top of the rock where there is more ruined fortress up in the clouds. And that is all kinds of awesome.

How had I not heard of that?