Kandy

Kandy

Kandy in a sweet nutshell geared to fast food mode

Kandy, then called Senkadagalapura, had been the Medieval Royal City of Sri Lanka during the period of 1469-1815 AD. In the year 1988, the sacred city of Kandy was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO organization. Today, the lovely city, also called Maha Nuwara (Great City) is officially designated as the "Cultural Capital of Sri Lanka" in spite of the undying glories of the ancient cities of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa.

Kandy, day-in and day-out with an aroma of medieval history in the air, is also home to numerous Buddhist temples that proudly showcase Medieval Kandyan Architecture and Art, including the holiest temple of the world of Theravada Buddhism, Holy "Dalada Maligawa" Temple of the Tooth Relic. The temple houses the palladium of Sinhalese Buddhist nation, "the sacred tooth relic of Buddha".

Kandy, home to the one and only decorative lake of Sri Lanka, complete with a motorable road and walker's pavement surrounding it and topped with an island in the middle to the boot, that too in the very heart of the city, built in 1807 by the torch bearers of ancient reservoir engineers of Sri Lanka, as Sir William Gregory, the Governor General of Ceylon (1872-1877) put it "the loveliest town in the loveliest island in the world."

Kandy, located 116km west of Colombo, at an altitude of 500 meters, a city of mountainous terrain, greenery and Mediterranean climate is also the gateway to the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka that rises to 1800 meters at the valley of Little England Nuwara Eliya, the British colonial sanitarium of salubrious climate.

Kandy, the once impregnable natural fortress secured by rings of mountains and River Mahaweli, today is accessible by main road from Colombo, a triumph of military engineering by Major Thomas Skinner (1804-1877) and Captain E. F. Dawson of Royal engineers in the year 1821. That was during the enterprising governorship (1824-1831) of British Colonialist General Sir Edward Barnes in Ceylon. Barnes narrated with immense relief, that with the opening of the road to Kandy, a first-class macadamized road, 'one of the great military barriers on which Kandyans greatly relied was broken.'

Kandy, the cockpit of Sri Lanka in the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries till the capitulation, can also be ascended by British Colonial Railway line (originally built in stages to transport Ceylon Coffee and then Ceylon Tea) Colombo to Kandy (1867), Nawalapitiya (1874), Nanu-Oya close to Nuwara Eliya (1885), Bandarawela (1894) and Badulla (1924). Today, the city of many splendors that can be reached by domestic air passage too, in the backdrop of its central geographical location has become a major road transportation hub of Sri Lanka Holidays.

Kandy. The name couldn't get any sweeter, unless you are Honey Rider: that is Ursula Andress of magnificent pair of legs emerging from Pacific singing

"Underneath the Mango tree" to the bewilderment of Bond, James Bond. Honey: What are you doing here, looking for shells? Bond: No, I'm just looking. Looking cannot get any better either: Kandy's location over the river, Mango trees, the man-made lake right at the centre of the town, the surrounding hills, the nature reserve, the temple, the ambience, the royal history, botanical gardens, and cultural attractions around the city; everything about the town is beautiful. Look to the content of your heart & play. Golf too in the Mediterranean climate.

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