Kandyan Dancers

Mask Dance

Once again, we thought Chris was on the mend when we rose this morning. Inspired, we walked into town to grab breakfast and as we walked considered getting food for a picnic at Peredeniya Botanical Gardens. When I came out of the supermarket to find Chris had removed the bottom half of his zip-off pants and was hunched over, the picnic plan was put on hold. We made it to the lake to buy some chopped mango and pineapple in the hope that some sugar would help. It did, until we were about half way home. Chris required that we hail a Tuk Tuk for the remainder of our journey. I've never seen him so sick or sad. Chris forced down some food and took some drugs and began to feel slightly more normal. Learning from our mistake of venturing out this morning, we spent the rest of the day indoors resting, going out only for some lunch snacks at our favourite local shop at the bottom of Saranankara Road.

Feeling sick and sorry for ourselves we did what any person in their twenties would do...contacted our mums and dads. With a combination of helpful advice, generous offers and mockery, they had us both feeling better.

Cheeky Monkeys.

Lauren's response to the Cheeky Monkeys.

Come evening time, Chris was feeling well enough to go and see the Kandyan Dancers at the Kandyan Art Association and Cultural Centre. To avoid another mishap like this morning, we took a Tuk Tuk to get there and made sure our bag was stocked with drugs. Arriving early, we took the time to check out the masses of monkeys at play by the lake and to be told about how they bite people. We moved on.

Panteru Natum Dance.

Kandy Lake by night

The show made its way through cobra and peacock dances, a mask dance, fire walking, fire dancing and more traditional dances accompanied by traditional instruments. Set in an old auditorium, it was quite a sight. Afterwards, we wandered into town past the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic to the sound of chanting monks and ended up back at The Pub for yet another feed of Western food and drink. This time, the walk home around the lake went more to plan and Chris made it home under his own power.

Cobra Dance.

Raban Dance

Getting to sleep over here is hard, especially for someone like me who can't even sleep if she can hear someone breathing. Sri Lanka has so many noises I don't even know where to start. And because there appears to be no noise restrictions, such noises happen at all hours. Dogs, kids, fireworks, construction, reversing trucks, shouting, furniture assembly and so many noises that we still haven't been able to work out the source of. Eventually, we got to sleep and were sleeping well until about 11pm when a man came into our room unannounced through a door which joined his room to ours. With both parties equally surprised, he quickly backed out of our room leaving us a little shell shocked. After double checking the door was locked, we tried our best to sleep again. Chris reassured me he had stumbled in not realising it wasn't part of his own room but I still slept a little uneasy.

 

Fire walking.