Sweet as Kandy

TASTE SENSATION: SRI LANKAN FOOD HAS BRIGHT FLAVOURS AND SHARP SPICES

Lucas Peterson

It’s common while travelling to be approached by locals trying to make a few bucks by offering to show you around. typically respond with a polite “no”, but on this particular morning in Kandy, a city in the centre of Sri Lanka, I was looking for someone to show me the sights.

Santha, a small, middle-aged man with a big smile, must have sensed it, because he made a beeline for me as I approached the park near the Kandy Municipal Market in the centre of town.

After a quick negotiation we were crammed into the back of a blue tuk-tuk, zooming down streets slick from the morning’s rain and smelling of wet leaves.

Santha yelled over the buzz of the rickshaw’s engine: “I was born in Kandy, raised in Kandy and married in Kandy... And I will die in Kandy!”

I could easily have spent months in the small island nation off the southern tip of India. Full of fantastic food, kind people and astonishing natural wonder, Sri Lanka is a place best seen slowly.

The train was my preferred means of transport (when I wasn’t in a tuk-tuk), winding from Colombo to Kandy, in the middle of the country, before taking another train down to Ella, on what was one of the most beautiful and scenic train rides I’ve ever experienced.

And I was able to keep my expenses comfortably under control. Some logistics: A train trip requires planning. Many popular routes, including the one from Kandy to Ella, can sell out reserved seats weeks in advance.

The Sri Lanka Railways website isn’t going to help. You can reserve tickets only in person or through your local mobile phone.

My ticket in the observation car from Colombo to Kandy, with comfortable seats and a big picture window, cost £11 (about R195) for the 2½-hour ride.

I snagged the last reserved second-class seat on the Kandy-toElla route – booking 20 days in advance – and paid £13 for the nearly seven-hour jaunt.

I picked up my ticket at Colombo’s Fort Railway Station and had enough time to stop at the Highland Milk Bar for a snack. A creamy chocolate milk from a glass bottle and a bag of chips cost me 120 Sri Lankan rupees (about R9).

The first part of the ride was unexceptional, but things changed around Rambukkana. Suddenly the air seemed heavier and the vegetation became thicker and denser.

Pelting rain greeted us as we entered Kandy, once its own independent kingdom until it fell victim to British colonial power in the early 19th century.

I put on a poncho I’d brought for the occasion and walked down William Gopallawa Mawatha Street in search of my lodgings.

“Gamage?” I asked passersby, unsure how to pronounce the name of the family who was hosting me. Eventually, someone pointed me toward a fluorescent light inside a small grocery and I sloshed toward it.

A woman peered out the door and waved. “Peterson?” she yelled from across the street.

The Gamage family (pronounced GAH-mah-gay), consisting of parents, children and extended family all under one roof, put me up for two nights in their home for about $10 per night, booked through the site hotels.com.

My room was basic but comfortable, and came with breakfast: curried mango, daal, beans, beets, rice, eggs and tea.

When I found Santha the next day near the park, we quickly agreed on a price for a tour of the city: 2 000 rupees.

“We have very good history

A kingdom until the British seized power in 1815.