Day 13, 5 October 2013

Our R&R started today.Finally after all the hardwork and a the great job we have done, it was a well deserved break.

One group photo before we leave. Bye elephants!

First thing we did after we left the hotel? Shopping!

The shops were nearby the hotel so we decided to look around.

Vidya doing quality checks.

After spending some time walking around, it was time to visit a university. University of Peradeniya is one of the top 5 universities in Sri Lanka. Sadly it was a saturday and the university was closed. Sam our tour guide told us about the university. It was built by the British. There are about 11,00 students doing various of courses in medicine,agriculture, arts, science, engineering,dental sciences, veterinary medicine and animal science and allied health science. The buildings there were really old but were well maintained. It felt like as is we went back into time when we were walking around the premises of the school.

Look at the cool tree!

Well most of were walking around except for Kenny.

The mail box. So cool!

After walking around, it was time to head back to the bus. And Kenny was still being carried around.

We then headed to watch a cultural show. The shows are performed by traditional familes and products of dancing institutions. The traditional Kandyan and Sabaragamuwa dances are performed.Sam told us that the Kandyan dancer is symbolic to the Kandyan people. They perform in temples,religious festivals and weddings. The performers take their craft very seriously. We were treated to many dances, drum performance and also fire walking. It was really interesting and kept us at the edge of our seats.

Before the performance could start, Sri Lanka national anthem was sung.

Drumming and dancing.

Red hot charcoals. We could actually feel the heat from where we were seated.

Fire walking. He did it so slowly like as if he did not feel a thing.

The last place we went was the Temple of the Tooth Relic.The shrine,which is considered to be important to the Buddhists,house the relic of the tooth of the Buddha. The temple was extremely crowded as it was a Saturday, we could not take many photos.

A section of the temple.

Some of our Buddhist friends praying.

The story about the tooth relic in paintings.

Super grand.

Story

The tooth sanctuary.

No place to walk

Sam explaining to us about the temple. The LTTE did not spare a place of worship, in 1998 Prince Charles was supposed to visit Sri Lanka and the tooth relic temple. Three LTTE suicide bombers blew themselves up in a massive truck bomb. The front section of the temple was completely destroyed but the tooth relic was safe. Prince Charles did visit Sri Lanka but he did not go the temple.The restoration of the temple took almost 3 years.

What surprised us was the fact the the president of Sri Lanka urged the Sinhalese community to not retaliate against the Tamil community which the LTTE claimed to represent. And the Sinhalese community did not do anything to the Tamils. This is what we call tolerance. The LTTE wanted to separate both community even more through violence but they failed.