The Kandy Visit

Greetings from Kandy, Sri Lanka! Where? It's in the interior of the country, used to be the old capitol when the country still had a king.

Let early Monday morning with an overly ambitious driver that got me here in what must have been record time. It was very neat to see the landscape change so much, especially to see the presence of mountains.

The company put me up in one of the older colonial era hotels here, The Hotel Suisse. The room is somewhat locked in the 70's, it even has an rotary dial phone!

I am working at a trade show of sorts. I was told 4 million people would pass through and judging by the crowds I certainly believe it. The line of people entering and leaving stretches for what seems like miles, although I'm sure it's not.

I am working the evening shift and after our first night we went to a hole in the wall restaurant for traditional Sri Lankan fair, egg hoppers, rotti and of course curry. It was SO spicy and good!
There was a TV in the corner and I saw people get up and pay attention to something being said on the TV. The general who was opposing the president in the recent election had been arrested.
I won't make any comments about that.

Today the driver took me to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth which is probably the most famous thing here in Kandy. Basically it is a huge temple that holds what is supposed to be a tooth of Buddah. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_the_Tooth
it's a pretty big deal here as people from all over the world come to the temple for all sorts of things, mostly healing. There are Buddhist monks everywhere.

I'll post more about the visit soon. I have one more night here.