Journey to Kandy

Leaving Colombo early we crammed ourselves and our rucksacks into the little tuc tucs that sped us through the rush hour traffic to Colombo Fort Station.  It can be a little scary in the tuc tucs as they are so small and vulnerable amongst the cars, buses and trucks.  It is sometimes better not to really look around you but just to enjoy the experience.  We arrived at Colombo station in one piece and on time.  We had booked the observation carriage at the vast sum of around £5.  I had visions of the observation carriage having a big domed glass roof like the pictures I have seen of Canada's Rocky Mountaineer.   Well this train was nothing like that. The observation carriage was a rather old and tatty carriage which is attached to the back of the train so you are sitting going backwards for the journey.  There was no glass dome but there was a big window at the end of the carriage although it had huge great cracks in it.  We had hoped for air conditioning but instead a helpful local showed us how to open the windows fully!  And then we were on our way.  It was a lovely journey as we saw the city of Colombo dissappear and the lush grreen of Sri Lankan countryside emerge.  We were  also lucky enough to have almost the entire carrriage to ourselves apart from a group of young Sri Lankans who entertained us with their singing, laughing and screaming through each tunnel we went through.  All too soon our 3 hour journey was over and we had arrived in Kandy.

Our first impressions of Kandy is that it is a busy and buzzing town with a popular local market but its  most redeeming feature is the beautiful lake in the middle. Our walk around it was rudely interrupted by the all too familiar 4 o clock storms.  We are now getting bettter at looking out for  cafes to retreat into at this time of day.  Today our retreat was Hotel Suisse, a very elegant looking hotel that was hosting a very beautiful and elaborate wedding party.  I wished we could slip in unobtrusively with the weddding guests but no chance of course. 

Good places to eat do not seem to be in abundance here and even the Lonely Planet seems to list only 4 or 5.  We took the LP advice on a restaurant called the Empire whose food could be described as pleasant  but not outstanding.    The next question was as to whether to walk back to our guest house in it's  tranquil but quite uphill location or to get a tuc tuc.  As we came out the restaurant,  the tuc tucs were there, so no choice, tuc tuc it was!