Honeymoon Week 1: Sri Lanka - Kandy Part 1

The next morning, after another lovely breakfast, we piled into the coach and headed towards Kandy. On route we made a couple of stops, the first at the Dambulla rock caves. We made a quick stop at the golden temple at the bottom, where our guide got the tickets, before we were taken as far up the rock as the coach would go. From there we had to walk the last bit up to the main rock temple, and you could see the rock fortress Sigiriya that we climbed the day before.

The temple is made up of five separate caves, each with loads of statues and images of the Buddha inside. You are never allowed to stand with your back to the Buddha, so you cant take pictures of people standing in front of any of the statues, only photos of the actual statues are allowed.

The five caves were all different sizes and in some there was lots of water dripping through cracks in the ceiling.

On our way out we had to pay the man who looked after our shoes and our guide joked that that's the way they found better shoes! The charge of 25 Sri Lanka Rupees was only around 14p.

Our second stop on route to Kandy was at a spice plantation called the International Spice Walk in Palapathwela, near Matale. We were told all about the types of spices they grew there, given a taste of ginger tea and a cake before being told all about the medicinal treatments they also produced there. They had students from the massage school to give us all a head, neck or face massage using some of their products. The visit was really interesting and we stocked up on curry powder and some tea, as well as some sandalwood oil which is supposed to help your skin. We also bought a little book telling you all about the basics of spices, written by the owner.

Back on the bus we arrived in Kandy and to our hotel, the Chaaya Citadel. Since both the standard and superior tours were at this hotel, we had deluxe rooms. The rooms were lovely and again since they knew it was our honeymoon, we had some extra decorations in ours!

After some lunch in the hotel open air bar, we spent some time in the massive pool!

Then it was time to get ready for the evening visit to see a Kandyan dancing and culture show in the centre of the city. The show was good and we saw traditional dancing and costumes before the finale of walking on fire. We came back to the hotel for a couple of drinks and dinner before calling it a night.

The next day we stayed in Kandy...