Frakkin' Ceylon - Day Seven

The screaming of a murder of crows is one of nature’s more unpleasant wake-up calls, but as the sun rises and Kandy’s fruit bats finally shut up, the birds announce the start of their day. On the plus side, the mosquitoes are nowhere to be seen.

We load up on breakfast for a long day of walking around the city. Tuk tuk drivers seem baffled by our consistent refusal of a lift, especially as there’s light rain. It’s impossible to explain to them that we haven’t seen rain in Dubai for 8 months, so are quite enjoying the shower. We walk on, along the perimeter of the enormous lake around which the city is built. Of course all the cloud means it’s a pretty dire day for photos, but some monks at least brighten the place briefly.

The first thing we stumble across is a shopping mall. Here, in the hilly jungle, it’s a strange site. Only about 20% of the units are filled – almost all of it with shit. We soon leave, disappointed that the last place on the island to be conquered by invaders is the first place to have an ugly shopping centre.

Conveniently, there’s a real market outside, teeming with people, all buying and selling second hand clothes. Most of them are charitable donations from abroad that are only just finding their way to street level. Somewhere along the way, they fell into hands looking to get a little taste for themselves. Still, as almost everything is going for about 50p or less, it’s hardly a big scandal. Old tops, football shirts and promotional t-shirts tumble out of black bags; a hawker squeals to announce their arrival.

Another bag opens: “Shoes, shoesshoesshoesshoesshoeshoes!”

It’s chaos, but we can’t really enjoy it before being hassled again. By this point we’ve taken to lying completely when people ask where we’re from.

“Me? Oh I’m from Honahlee.”

“Good people in Honahlee.”

“The best.”

Wee Mo goes next.

“I’m from New Caprica.”

“New Caprica – nice place.” [A friend tries to correct him, believing she actually said South Africa.]

We move off laughing and bump into someone who speaks dangerously good English. They can be the biggest help or hindrance. They can answer straight questions, sure, but they can better disguise their dishonest too. This guy probably just verges on the right side of virtue and takes us to a spice souk.

We’re in there for a few minutes, there is noise and flashes of colour and we leave half an our later, £20 lighter than when we went in. We have a bag of swag in exchange; we went in wanting about 30% of it.

We move on, into Kandy’s narrower streets. As soon as you move away from the major tourist areas, you travel back in time. Everywhere there are people practising trades, using tools that are a good deal older than they are.

Some time – and innumerable conmen – later we’re close to the Temple of the Tooth, the UNESCO site that sets Kandy apart from Colombo. Inside, they say, is an actual tooth from the last Buddha. It was rescued from his funeral pyre and has been guarded here ever since. Its popularity is hardly surprising: if someone claimed to have one of Christ’s toenails, I have no doubt all manner of devout motherfuckers would travel the globe to get a whiff of it.

We’re near the entrance when a tall man with crooked teeth comes over.

Him: “I recognise you.”

Me: “I doubt that, my friend.” I try to move away.

Him: “No, no, I’m the night chef at the Sharon Inn.”

Me: “Oh. Right.” The Sharon Inn is where we’re staying. There’s no way he could know that unless he was genuine, right?

Wee Mo is more sceptical and some awkward moments later, I’m also telling this guy to get tae. He’s just a bit too pushy, a bit too insistent that he show us around and takes us to the Temple. We move off, all the more wary for the encounter. [We later talk to the owner of the Sharon Inn, who apologises and explains that there are spotters around the city who watch tourists from the moment they leave the door of their guesthouses.]

Next we buy more tat from a Kandyan craft shop, buy tickets to see the Kandyan dancing mentioned to us by the Angam Pora fighters and head out to the Botanical Gardens in the piss pouring rain. The tuk tuk driver’s attempts to take us to a gem store are easily batted away, but the fool thinks he might have a better chance of getting us on the way back, so waits outside. We take three hours, enjoying the strangeness of the place in the gloom, taking pictures of whatever we find colourful.

Amazingly the guy is still outside when we’re done, and as predicted tries again with different gem stores, spice gardens and even to try and buy us tickets for the Kandyan dancing, even though we already have them.

Still, we get to the theatre in one piece – or two pieces, to be more accurate. The dancing starts and right enough there are some movements that do mirror those in Angam Pora. For the most part, though, it’s just bad singing and some pretty average dancing. On the plus side, the fire breathing is pretty cool.

Our last stop of the day is the Temple of the Tooth, just round the corner. Of course there’s an entrance fee there too, with some guy even trying to get money for throwing bits of cardboard on the wet floor while Whitey takes off his shoes.

The scenes inside are altogether bizarre. Shoulder to shoulder with the poor devout souls who have travelled a long way on a pilgrimage here, there are fat, disgusting foreigners, talking shit, taking pictures and generally cluttering the place. The oddest moment comes when an American (or possibly Canadian) walks away from the sacred site, having queued next to dozens of Buddhists to have a peak into the sanctuary that houses the tooth, and loudly complains that they didn’t see anything.

No wonder people want to rip us off. We’re fucking idiots.