3 Weeks in Sri Lanka - Day 6 - Train Trip to Kandy

Sri Lanka's second city, and the access town for the country's incredible hill country is Kandy. We have discovered that this town is equally popular with foreign and local tourists -- this small town feels much bigger than it actually is with the crazy crowds that have converged on it during this holiday season. It's popularity lies in the fact that it is a cool escape from the hot plains below and that the Sinhalese culture is alive here perhaps more than in any other place in the country. Kandy was the final capital of Sinhalese Sri Lanka and the city, due to it's mountainous location, even managed to fend off the British colonizers for several decades before finally giving in. Still it's independence well into the 19th century meant that the arts, religion, and culture of Sri Lanka have been developed and preserved here better than anywhere else. We haven't had a chance to get to know the city too well yet but we do know that the rail journey to get us here was an amazing trip. One hundred and eighty years after it was built by the British, this rail line is still a marvel of engineering and the views as the train climbs higher and higher into the hills are incredible and, luckily (as we will be here for four nights) the boys settled right into our lakeside bungalow -- it's a place with some real history!