The Temple of the Tooth and Kandian dance

 

Feb. 18 

            We got up early so that we could see the morning puja at the temple of the tooth.  Our tuktuk got us there in plenty of time but there was still lots of traffic happening in Kandy at this early hour.  We checked our bags in security, removed our shoes and followed the packs of tourists into the temple.  Soon, temple officials were walking around in groups and some musicians came out and started playing.  It was quite slow and drawn out which allowed us to slowly move to the front of the group as other tourists moved on.  There was an inner room that we could glance into as monks came and went but we weren’t allowed near it.

Tooth temple puja performance.

            After a while we joined the lines heading upstairs.  We first waited in the slow one but then switched to the quicker one as we were more interested in seeing what people were doing rather than waiting half an hour to get a closer look at a tooth.  Apparently, the tooth belonged to the Buddha.  I thought that keeping holy body bits was specific to Catholicism but Buddhists do it as well.  Devi and John said that the tooth doesn't look human, more like a horse's tooth, but we didn't verify this observation.  The slow line snaked into an opening to a room that we could only slightly glimpse from the hallway.  The locals seemed to outnumber the tourists in this line and many offerings of flowers and fruit were piled up in the area. 

            We poked around and joined another line that slowly took us to a high room that was full of documents.  Another hallway took us to a high-ceilinged room full of shiny Buddhas from all over the world.  The temple itself was well-constructed but more functional than ornamental.  We poked around for a bit longer and then headed to the on-site museums. 

            The museums had many crafted pieces of sculpture, weaving, calligraphy and other items used in temples.  Many had excellent work but the rooms felt like they were more piles of stuff in glass cases and most of the curation wasn’t worth reading.  A weird display involved two walls covered with photos of the damage done by a Tamil Tiger bombing and the work taken to repair it.

            A more interesting museum was the history of Buddhism building which devoted one or more rooms to every major Buddhist country’s interpretation of the practice.  Here the presentation was interesting with a variety of media and many contrasts visible in what they chose to focus on.  It felt like an expo with each country trying to put its best foot forward and show itself off.

            On our way out of the museum we saw a working elephant and its handler and wondered if it was really used for regular work or mainly was putting on a show for the tourists.  We let John and Devi know we were done with the temple complex and met them at a big hotel a short walk away to enjoy some lime sodas.  The bar had an old colonial feel to it and one could imagine it full of walrus-mustached Brits wearing pith helmets.

With our spice vendor.

            We walked around downtown and grabbed a simple lunch before heading to their favourite spice vendor in a surprisingly quiet market area.  He lets us sniff and check out much of his stock and it did smell amazing.  Devi had vouched for the quality of his stuff so we stocked up on powders, peppercorns, vanilla beans and cinnamon.  I was surprised to learn that most of the cinnamon that we use in Canada is cassia cinnamon from Indonesia, not true cinnamon from Sri Lanka.  You can read lists of health problems linked to cassia and benefits linked to Sri Lankan cinnamon but I'm not sure that we eat enough for either of these effects to be substantial.   Next, we went to the hotel where Devi and John had a workout membership.  We paid for day passes and enjoyed a long swim at the top of the hotel with excellent views of the city.

            We grabbed tuktuks back downtown and walked by the water before they left us to our Kandian dance and drumming performance.  We had gotten tickets that morning but wanted to arrive early to grab good seats.  There were few people there but we soon found that all of the good seats were reserved for large tour groups and we could either be at the back of the ground floor or the middle of the balcony.  We opted for the balcony and grumbled as the good seats filled up just before start time.

Plate spinning at the Kandian dance show.

            Everyone’s attention was grabbed when the first rain we had experienced in Sri Lanka came down in sheets on the metal roof, making an impressive noise that let up by the time the show started.

            The drummers came out first and rotated on and off the stage for varying solo and dance accompaniment work.  They seemed together and skilled but we only saw what they could really do when they took turns doing solo work at the curtain call.  The dancers came out in different costumes, almost always with the men and women performing separately.  The women were less together and had less striking dance moves.  We were told that this was because traditional dances were almost exclusively male and the troupe had just come up with its own, underwhelming, female choreography. 

            The men did fire waving and eating as well as show-offy flips.  They let a woman join them for the plate spinning and everything was accompanied by a driving drum score.  The tourists had programs briefly explaining things but otherwise we had no context for the dance origins.

            At the end the dancers spilled out into the audience for picture ops so we took the opportunity to beat the rush in the parking lot and grab a tuktuk back to our place.  We went to Le Charcoal again and had more excellent chicken and mojitos and hung out with the owner for a bit.  A busy but satisfying day.