Temples, tea and tucker. What a day!

Being in the town considered the centre of Buddhism, a World Heritage site, we had to visit the Temple that holds the left canine tooth of the buddha which was bought to Sri Lanka in the 4th century ad. 

The shrine itself in built inside a rather interesting building with a traditional ornate Sri Lankan roof style and further along a simpler roof made of real gold. Value immeasurable!  

Many people were wearing white to show equality and purity and many carried offerings of flowers. 

We were lucky enough to see a blessing ceremony opened by musicians with drums and a flute. The room containing the casket with the tooth is opened for monks and the musicians to enter. The doors a closed behind them and the ceremony ends. 

Hundreds of people have gathered to watch the ceremony. Most of them appear to be locals. Most of them are short but each has a smile from ear to ear and has an absolute belief in their religion and associated traditions. 

Our next stop a tea processing plant where we are introduced to the different types of tea. Sri Lanka is one of three biggest tea producers in the world (with India and Kenya) and are the biggest exporter. 

Black tea and white tea come from the same plants and same leaf type but with black tea the leaves are fermented (white tea is unfermented)

Tea bag tea is the most inferior and made from bigger leaves and stalks.   The smaller, newer leaves make the highest quality tea. Mr google wont let me find a link to describe the process but it’s worth reading. Fascinating. 

The tea tour done we arectreated to a cuppa and some jaggery (unrefined sugar basically and super sweet) which I polished off in a sec. Give me sweet and I am in heaven. 

Free time!  Yay!  We are in Kandy so I make a bee line for the coffee shop. My espresso immediately gave me as boost and made me sort of human again. 

I’ve given up with my Esim so off I go to buy a real sim. 

Entering the shop you collect your number at the door from the machine. A guy looks as I do it. He does nothing but has an assistant who does the same. 

Seems a lot of people have assistants. Theres a lovely guy on our bus who is an assistant. He helps us on and off the bus, helps with luggage and fills our water bottles. Maybe he is an assistant to us. If so he does it really well and with a massive smile. 

The lady that gave us the tour through the tea factory also had an assistant. She did nothing but was available and busy when it came to us buying stuff. 

I’ve given up with using my Esim. It has a mind of its own so am now sitting waiting for my number to be called so I can get a physical sim and hopefully fix the photo issue. If you can see photos in this then it worked. If not I just wasted $10. 

Done and I head to the loo passing a band playing live music. Oh how special. 

A wine before dinner was needed and as we sipped we watched the monkeys heading along the power lines next to the hotel. They all seemed to be going in the same direction - maybe heading home for dinner?  Whatever they were very cute and much more docile than some I’ve seen. 

Tonight we are going to a wealthy persons home for dinner.  On arrival we are given betel leaves as a welcome offering. 

The home was beautiful with lovely furniture, a couple of dining tables and a real kitchen. A far cry from the previous home we had been to at the coconut processing place. 

Our evening revolved around making food so I’ll just quickly go through the different things. Once the trip is over I will try to share all the recipes in full. We already have a pdf of them all so we can salivate in advance. 

Making rice flour. Rice gets soaked and then ground in a giant mortar and pestle with until its fine like flour then sifted to remove the larger pieces. It is used in most of our recipes tonight. 

Coconut oil. Is golden and liquid. 

Athirasa - Coconut molasses, salt reduced to a syrup the rice flour added and stirred its now a cloudy tan colour and a stretchy dough which gets rolled into a ball with oiled hands and flattened. The next step they are fried in hot coconut oil. 

Kokis - Rice flour, seasoning, coconut milk, mix to a runny dough. 

Hot iron dipped in the mix and then placed in hot oil. Once cooked it falls off the iron. 

In the distance I hear the call to prayer. A sense of calm comes over me. The one sound I love waking up to; haunting, gentle and welcoming. I realise how much I miss the Middle East and suddenly want to be in Istanbul. 

We started chatting about marriages here. Seldom do couples live together before marriage and arranged marriage does still exist to some extent. There is an element of intermarriage but not always accepted readily by parents. 

We drink tea and eat the sweets we made before dinner - customary here. 

Next we (well not me) help to make a chicken curry. I am struggling with the heat and the thought of being close to a fire is too much for me but I can smell the deliciousness. 

Next  we do string hoppers, rice flour with water to make a paste which is then put through a ricer to make the vermicelli like cakes. They are in a small bamboo basket that then get steamed. 

Pittu Fresh grated coconut, rice flour, salt. Mix together and put into pittu steamer. 

Dinner is served. As well as what we made we also had a jackfruit salad, a fiery tomato/chilli salad, potato curry, red rice and pol sambol. 

Each was divine. The chilli coconut mix of pol sambol is divine everywhere we go and this was no exception. There is something about it that makes me salivate at the thought of it passing my lips. But tonight there were other flavours that had me wishing for more. The jackfruit salad was absolutely delicious as were both the curries. The gravy over the Pittu made it tolerable but that was about it. 

Desert was Kitul talapa -a jelly from the fish tail Palm tree with a coconut milk sauce. I took one bite of the jelly and struggled to swallow it so the first thing I have left alone. 

Sadly our visit came to an end. Our hosts like all the people we have met have smiles from ear to ear. So gracious, kind and accommodating. I love this place. 

A shot of Chivas and a magnesium pill ended my night on a high. A very busy but great day.