The challenge was :- Take in the daily pujas near The Temple of the Tooth. Puja is the entire ceremony where worshipers bring their gifts and offerings and lay them on the altar. This ceremony starts at 5.30 am. While we were standing in line without an offering other worshippers in the line gave us these locust flowers to use as offerings. They had a wonderful smell.
It is believed that one of Buddah's teeth now resides in this temple, the ownership of this "tooth" has been both political and religious through Sri Lanka history. Whichever city had ownership of the tooth had control over the country. Once a year the tooth is paraded through the streets on the back of an elephant with lots of pomp and circumstance. We had visited the first home of the tooth in Polounawara.
We then went out of Kandy to visit the Elephant Orphanage. This is where they take hurt elephant and help them get recovered, they are not rereleased into the wild because they are too friendly to people. There are many wild elephants in Sri Lanka, their biggest enemy is the human and visa versa, every year many villagers are killed by elephants and many elephant hurt and maimed by villagers. One old boy was called Simari, he only has 3 feet as he stepped on a land mine and blew off the other. He looks very old and some of his skin looks like it got scorched but he is there in a safe home with 80 more elephants in his pack. If you look carefully you can see that Simari's front right foot is missing his toes and the bottom part of his foot. He does not put weight on it, he limps along.
We were there for feeding time of the baby elephants and got to hold the bottles and feed them. How cool is that ?? This is Zoe feeding the baby with an enormous bottle. This was definitely a highlight but anything with animals always is for me.. It is so unbelievable we will be driving down the road and coming towards you is an elephant or swimming in the rivers below the bridges is an elephant. It's all so neat!!
We took the train down to Nuun Olyb which is very close to Nuwara Eliya. This town is also called Little England. It is amazing in the middle of nowhere in Sri Lanka is an English village with red double decker buses, Tudor house, strawberries and potatoes growing and acres and acres of tea. We are in the Ceylon Tea section of this island. We visited a Pedros Tea factory and the guy showed us which tea leaves to pick.
We posted a card at the post office and had tea at the Hill Club. To be allowed in we had to buy membership for the day.
They were a little reluctant to allow these rassy people in especially Lily as she is under aged. But with a little persuasion in we went to the Old English sittingroom decorated with a fireplace (which they offered to light for us) and pictures of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip hanging on the walls between stuffed and mounted animal heads. Again a very surreal experience. The temperatures up here at very much cooler and it is damper just like England. 
Collect another TAXI to drive us to Adams Peak, which is a mountain about 3 hours away. When the TAXI driver discovered he had to travel so far he asked if he could pass home. He needed to get some supplies and a warmer jacket for the drive. He was a Tamil (one Hindus, this country has been in turmoil for many years as the Tamils and the Buddhist fought, I always thought that the Tamils were scary) in a Buddhist country. When we got to his house he invited us in (I did not know that Yoga was a Tamil until after we left his home) and gave us some dinner of rice and some kind of chopped up meat and vegetables.
There was no running water in his house but it had electricity and an older TV set and a sewing machine. They cooked on a wood stove in the corner of the kitchen. His family were so lovely and gracious. We were sorry to leave but we have to be at Adams Peak by 10.00pm because we are not allowed any intercity travel between 10.00 pm and 5.00am so we have to be in place in a rest house at the bottom of the mountain before 10.
We are to climb Adams Peak tomorrow. I am terrified, it is 4800 steps both ways. You have to climb it before dawn. I hope to get to the top. We have just spent hours on a train getting down here with all the people around us telling us the horror stories of climbing this beast. The climb is worth 400 points and we are going to give it a try. I hope I live to tell the tales of this scavenge. I think I am crazy to take Lily up there but she is determined that she can make it and wants to try. So it is Adam's Peak tomorrow in the middle of the night. Pray for me.
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