Every city has some hidden gems that normal tourists are unaware of. Every city also has a fabulous history whose all aspects are not known to us. What you need to do is to travel like a local and let yourself soak in the atmosphere. Many a times, while travelling to some secluded, not so popular places, you might not find tourists around you, at least not as much as you would find at popular tourist destinations. But that would be a good chance to know about the insights of culture and history of a place. That’s what happened to us in Colombo. Sri Lanka or erstwhile Ceylon shares a lot with India, in terms of culture and history. Britishers, after controlling whole of India, also occupied Ceylon in early 19th century. They controlled the whole Indian sub-continent as a single territory.
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Well, India shares a lot of its history with Sri Lanka - since mythological times! Ditto with Buddhism, which spread from India to Sri Lanka. As a traveler Indians will often feel home there. Kandy is beautiful place to be for the tourists for elephant orphanage of Pinnawala near by and also for its Royal botanical garden. Kandy is in heart of Sri Lanka - virtually as well as actually. Geographically it is in the centre of the emerald island nation. Kandy is also famous for Dalada Maligawa temple known also as the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, which houses the relic of the tooth of the Buddha (image below). The temple is located in the royal palace complex (image below) of the former kingdom of Kandy. In the buddhist nation, this relic was held in such a high esteem that it w
Read MoreNuwara Eliya is not the name that automatically pops up in your mind, when you talk about Sri Lanka. One keeps talking about Colombo, Galle or Kandy. But Nuwara Eliya is an important tourist place in central Sri Lanka. Its very close o Kandy. One can assume the importance of this place by the fact that it finds place in three of Sri Lanka's tourist circuits- the tea circuit, the colonial circuit and the Ramayana circuit. Indian tourist will certainly find the last one very interesting. What's more interesting is that Nuwara Eliya is the coolest area in the Sri Lanka, a sort of hill station for the emerald island at an altitude of 1868 metres. Nuwara Eliya is very picturesque with a temperate climate. The city is overlooked by Pidurutalagala, the tallest mountain in Sri Lanka. Surrou...
Read MoreWe Indians have been associated with Galle more because of the cricket, as it had been one of the three major centres of cricket in Sri Lanka, besides Colombo and Kandy. More recently, we felt the pain of an insulting defeat just on the eve of the Independence Day in first test match at Galle. Well, but to Sri Lanka Galle is more than just cricket, a slice of its colonial past and a monument of its cultural heritage, even listed in UNESCO World Heritage sites. Being surrounded by sea from three sides adds to its beauty. Galle Fort is robust and even withstood 2004 Tsunami which caused a catastrophic devastation in the area. Built by Portuguese, it was later on fortified by Dutch. Still, many Dutch people own properties inside fort. A 18th century Dutch mansion is now a very popular luxu...
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