Checked out of our hotel at 8.30 am and started the 4 hour drive to Kandy, the second largest town in SL. First stop off was at a wood carving factory. Got shown how they use shavings from (?) tree, giving yellow bark crumbs. The guy put the crumbs in a glass and then added water, then lime juice on metal, then chalk - the water changed to Pink, blue, yellow and purple - this is used to paint the wood carvings. All natural! Then came the hard sell in the shop. We decided we could escape by buying two spoons made from coconut. Got the price £15!! Put them back and then got harangued all the way out the shop saying we should go and buy plastic, etc etc etc!
Drove on. Next stop a spice garden and market. Met again by a guide and shown to the first plant. Having lived in Cameroon and use spices daily, I kind of put the guy off his stride by knowing the answers to what the plants were and their uses. Then got taken to a hut and shown a variety of creams. Was NOT expecting the guy to jump forward and rub the cream all over our faces!
The final karate chop to the back of the neck was a bit of a shocker!
Then we were given a sinus rub with sandalwood and Aloe Vera, followed by an inhalation. Through the shop next and had to buy the potions to give us eternal youth.
The drive continued with the traffic getting more and more chaotic the closer we got to Kandy. Tuktuks, motorbikes and buses competing with the cars for a bit of road space. Hearts in mouths for a few miles! Checked into Hotel Suisse, a large colonial building, with shades of Raffles. Mahesh gave us an hour's downtime before our next excursion. This time we were going to another World Heritage Site - the Temple of the Sacred Tooth built in 12 th century. Again, enormous, again, busy.
Beautiful statues, paintwork etc. 
Hundreds of people bringing offerings, mostly lotus flowers. In the absence of having a piece of cloth to tie in prayer or any flower to give as an offering, I did say a little prayer for Pete and hope he's soon well enough to read this blog! Xxx
Choice of getting back to hotel -walk the 30mins or go in a tuktuk? Chose the walk option (though crossing the road was crazy!)
Rush, Rush, Rush through the Temple and onto a Sri Lankan dance show. Very bright, colourful and elegant. This lasted about an hour.
View of Temple on walk home. 
Back to hotel about 7pm. Mahesh says, "8.30, tomorrow?". Gulp! Fine, we say. See you tomorrow.
Dilemma now - dinner or sleep?
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