Kandy: Temple of the Tooth, Drumming and Dancing

Another very early start, which is always fun when travelling. We got up at 4.30 am and left at ten past 5 to walk 20 minutes down the road and along the lakeshore on the dark to visit the Temple of the Tooth, which opened at 5.30 am for the first puja (blessing) ceremony of the day.

We were virtually the only tourists there, and after buying tickets and going through security and leaving our shoes, entered the main building where drummers pounded out a rhythm in front of the interior two-storey shrine. We joined a packed queue of white-clad locals holding offerings of flowers or bowls of rice, and shuffled upstairs.

A very friendly man (now living in Canada) gave us part of his flower offering to take up with us. Upstairs was a relatively plain hall where the queue of people was squeezed into a narrow aisle to very quickly pass by the open shrine door. I caught the very briefest of glances of the golden casket shaped like a dagoba that supposedly holds the Tooth (look, I hate to be cynical, but if there’s an actual tooth of Siddhartha Gautama in there I’ll eat a shop-full of hats) over the shoulder of a a busy and efficient monk manhandling and directing offerings.

Despite the bizarreness of the entire exercise, there was certainly a lot of sincere faith on display, with people chanting and praying everywhere (not to mention the fact they all got up at 5am in the first place).

After a look outside, we re-entered the building and looked at a nearby hall which featured an elaborate golden Buddha in front of which, sitting on the floor, a group were being led in chanting by an orange-robed monk. Two students sat in a comer chanting in unison from a book. A series of upper-wall-mounted illustrative panels described the unlikely history of the tooth, from being rescued from Buddha’s funeral pyre to being destroyed by the Portuguese and shooting up into the sky and transforming into a star, to re-appearing in Sri Lanka, to ending up in Kandy in 1592.

I could be wrong, but I’m not sure this kind of thing is what Gautama had in mind…

Anyway, we moved on to the nearly Museum of World Buddhism – two floors of Buddha-related info, the top floor divided into country-specific rooms. We were both a bit Buddha-d out by the end of it, though it was enjoyable re-capping how many of the Sri Lankan sites we’d seen on this trip. In the gift shop on the way out we bought some small presents.

Somewhat footsore we got a tuk tuk back to the hotel in time to catch their excellent breakfast served on the terrace.

Afterwards we headed out again, this time to visit an obscure Buddhist cave temple whose murals we’d seen in the museum – the Degaldoruwa Raja Maha Vihara, completed in 1771 AD. This place is not mentioned in the guidebooks so there was not a soul there (an old man and a monk showed up to ring the bell and drum for puja just as we left) and it was remarkable – like one of the Dambulla caves, with a reclining Buddha and walls and ceiling covered with intricate and colourful murals. It was so nice to have it all to ourselves. 

The tuk tuk driver dropped us back at the Temple of the Tooth and we walked back to the man entrance and had (pretty average) smoothies at a cafe in an old Colonial-era building. Then we wandered deeper into the busy part of town – the traffic and pollution wasinsane – and eventually to the Central Market, a run-down two-storey building around a grassy courtyard.

I was waylaid at a tiny tailor’s shop and ended up buying a pair of loose Iinen trousers (which the older man in the shop shortened a bit for on the spot) and an elephant-print shirt. I didn’t bother haggling as they were so nice, and of course they were very happy with my patronage!

On the way back I stopped at an ATM and Carol bought a light bedspread (which we ended up using several times on the rest of the trip). 

A long walk back to our end of the lake, bought some chips, and caught a tuk tuk up the hill to the hotel. There we collapsed on the terrace and then in our cool room for a while. 

About 4.30 pm we headed out again, this time to a local drumming and traditional dance show, in a smallish venue at the far end of the lake. It was excellent; incredibly energetic, flamboyant and colourful costumes, constant wall-of-sound drumming. Before the show I talked to a young couple from the north of England who, strangely, just upped and left after the show without a word (sometimes younger people have such poor social skills!). But anyway, we really enjoyed the show and it even ended with an unexpected bit of fire walking and breathing outside the venue.

Then we went back to the Hideout Lounge for the third night in a row. The guys there were very nice and chatty, especially one guy who was a drummer, so we talked music for a while at the end of the evening. The guitarist who was playing and singing was pretty good too. Great place.