Day two in the beautiful place that is Kandy. We'd met a tuk tuk driver the day before who made us a fairly decent offer for a whole day's transport, including the Botanical Gardens 10 mins drive from Kandy, and Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage, over half an hour away, all for 2000rs/£10. You probably could get this cheaper but for us, this saved a whole lotta hassle and planning, plus the added pit-stops for photo opportunities in between and a local's insight of the area.
The Peradeniya Botanical Gardens are only 5km from Kandy, and supposedly one of the best in Asia, which is probably why it costs 1000rs/£5 entry. So we got there early-ish around 10am and had breakfast in the café overlooking some of the grounds. It turned out to be a lovely place to walk around, there were some beautiful trees, plants, and flowers to see. We even saw some bats and this horrific spider...
It took us a whole 2 hours to wander around the gardens, reading all the little plant descriptions and letting one of the gardeners show us nutmeg and soapy bubble plant for a small tip. One of the best parts was walking across the rickety bridge overlooking the muddy river, which was scarily like a scene from Jurassic Park. Niall started singing the theme tune and swinging the bridge, nice.
Bamboo with names carved into the trunks, cute
Taking a stroll through the Botanical Gardens
Niall shaking the bridge like an ape
Jurassic Park style view from the bridge
After this, we drove all the way out to Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage, hurrrayyy! Except the monsoon came down and the ponchos came out as soon as we got there. Entrance was 2000rs/£10, again the pricey fees of Sri Lanka, but to be fair you do get to see a hellofalotta elephants. Baby ones too. We caught them all waddling back from their bath by the river, which we missed because of the stupid rain! This didn't stop us having a good time though, and the elephants were running about in the mud. We did noticed, as mentioned by other people, that the staff tended to use the spear stick on the elephants quite a lot, and some of them had chains too which was a shame, but most of them were roaming around freely. It's something to keep in mind if you feel strongly against this though, as it can dampen the mood, as well as the staff asking for extra money for everything. The elephants were all absolutely adorable, especially the little ones, and we were able to stroke them for a small tip.
For some reason, it felt completely normal being around these beautiful things, though there was one lone elephant that stood swaying on a hill for the entire time we were there. That was quite strange, but he/she seemed to be enjoying having a little dance.
After this, we were knackered and our tuk tuk guy (Sanj) took us back to our hostel and we walked up to 'The Slightly Chilled Bar'. It was one of the recommended places to eat, but we weren't really digging the Chinese food we ordered, and preferred to sit with a beer and look at the city lights twinkling from the balcony. There aren't many street lights in the area, so we felt our way home after and got a good night sleep.
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