Our mission in Kandy: Fix the car, Sounds easy? Well it was a quest that was destined to fail from the start. There were two main difficulties in getting the car fixed.

1. My lack of mechanical skill. (I once tried to rescue a bogged car with beach towels)

2. Our complete lack of Sinhalese, our clumsy attempts to explain not helped by the language barrier, it's like playing "charades" when the answer is "muffler".

So having failed in our primary mission (on about three separate attempts), we spent most of our time hiding on the veranda of the Old Empire Hotel, watching the scams unfold down below (elephant hair bracelet, sir, genuine, you can't buy these anywhere). We were staying right over the road from the Temple of the Tooth, the Holiest of Holy' and the traffic out the front was entertainment in itself. One guy seemed to consider himself the unofficial traffic guide and spent his day franticly waving his arms left and right helping countless pilgrims park their vans. One time he guided us straight across the road to where our car was parked, with a satisfied "This is your car sir". "Yeah thanks, hmm right where I left it.... funny that". Another interesting part of staying near "The Tooth" was the drumming and chanting that began (piped through loud speakers) around 5 a.m every morning. The tooth itself has a colourful history, rescued from the Buddha's funeral pyre, it found it's way to Sri Lanka with a prince sent by the Buddhist Indian King Ashok (who is pretty much responsible for the spread of Buddhism throughout the East). According to the Chronicles the tooth performed some impressive pyrotechnics on it's arrival, jumping high into the air and spouting flames and multicoloured lights, before settling down and granting whoever controlled it the right to be King. The tooth (or possibly a decoy) has resided in the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy for the last 500 years or so and has survived many attempted kidnappings and holy wars, as well as a couple of attempts to destroy it by Christian Zealots and Tamil Tigers. We visited the temple very early in the morning (well we were awake anyway), the atmospheric chanting and drumming constantly building the tension to a conclusion that never came. The tooth remains behind closed doors, the closest you can get is to view the outermost of the 6 silver and gold caskets that contain the relic, through a tiny window. In fact it was such a build up that Emily walked straight past it, not realising that this is what we'd been lining up for the last half hour for. We also checked out the impressive gardens down the road at Peradenniyah, where we saw a fig tree that covers 1600 square metres and met a nice local family. Our walk around the grounds finished up in the beautiful orchid room where Emily got her macro fix, snapping close-ups until the card was full. Tomorrow we would be back on the road (with the exhaust still held on by a belt, some wire and shoelaces) to explore "the Cultural Triangle" to the north, a collection of ancient sites including some old capitals and former homes of the Tooth.