The long and lovely road back...

To make the most of our time before a late evening flight back to Dubai, we decided to make a few tourist stops en route back to Colombo.

Our first stop was to the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy.  This UNESCO Buddhist temple is one of the most famous landmarks in Sri Lanka because it houses the country's most famous relic - the tooth of the Buddha.    This relic has played an important role in local politics as legend has it that whoever holds the tooth holds the power!

The tooth itself is not actually on display for the public but is instead cased in a gold casket, brought out on certain occasions to be cleaned with herbal waters.

Nonetheless, the tooth has made the Temple one of the most important in the Buddhist faith and, as a result, draws millions of people each year to its grounds.  During our visit, there were thousands wandering around the Palace Complex and hundreds of people sitting and standing to pray in the room where the relic is laid.

After the buzz of the Temple, we headed to the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens for a little bit of serenity.

Originally created for the Kandyan royalty, the gardens are now open to the public.  Although accessible for all, there are still some hierarchies in the gardens, with the "Foreigner Toilets" seeming far nicer than the toilets for the locals.  Can we argue this would be only because we paid a much higher entrance fee?

The gardens itself were exquisite, with an impressive avenue of palm trees, (enormous) coconut trees, bamboo trees, grasses and herbs from around the world and likely every other plant and flower you could imagine.  Funnily, its claim to fame and what we were most excited to see - its orchid garden - was perhaps the only disappointing part.  The rest was just so majestic and inviting.

After a long wander and a relaxing coffee (and perhaps banana split, Geoff?) (edit: in my defense, it was called a Banana Spirit on the menu - I thought I was just ordering fruit essence. :-) ) at the Garden Cafe, we gasped at the realization that we had been there for over 2 hours and were now well behind schedule.

Cutting out one of the temples, our driver hurried us over to our final stop before dinner -  Lankatilaka Vihara -  one of the best preserved examples of traditional Sinhalese temple architecture.

We almost didn't make it as we encountered a very long funeral procession that spanned the entire small road.  But, unable to turn around due to the hordes of community folk that were now swarmed around our car, we embraced the experience and took the chance to learn more about the customs from our very helpful driver.

We finally made it to the temple, shed our shoes at the entrance and did our best to calmly rush around the complex to soak it all in.  Turns out that the heavy rains made sure that our socks got soaked and, with few explanations in the complex or online as well as many locked doors, we didn't last long before heading out to hit the road again.

A very long drive later (edit: once again Beth fell asleep. In fact we visited two other temples during the drive - though seeing them from the car only due to the tight timeline) and in the pitch black of the evening, we turned down a bumpy road towards our dinner stop.  A touch nervous that our internet research had failed us, the car sunk into a ditch before jerking out and around the corner to arrive at a beautiful boutique hotel tucked into the brush.

The Wallawwa Hotel, a converted colonial manor house (Wallawwa meaning in local dialect “Rich Person’s House”), is a serene retreat just 20 minutes from the Colombo airport and known for its impressive spa and tasty curries. No time for a massage, we headed instead to the restaurant where we devoured a table full of Sri Lankan specialties.  Satiated and exhausted, we headed to the airport to catch our flight and some zzz's after an awesome day and even better trip.