Six weeks in Sri Lanka: the small town of Kandy offers more than the temple with Buddha’s tooth, above all also beautiful surroundings. We drive past the cave temples of Dambulla to the impressive fortress of Sigiriya, perched on a rock. In Polonnaruwa we admire the wonderful semicircular moonstones that mark the entrances of the temples. Between the many white stupas of Anuradhapura are machine gun nests. After all the culture in the “golden triangle”, we have our visa extended in Colombo, then we head for the mountains: sunrise with thousands of pilgrims on Adams Peak. Funny that the European explorers at times considered this mountain to be the highest on earth, it is not even the highest on the island. We found the Horton Plains a bit disappointing (what did we expect?), we enjoyed walks through the tea plantations much more. On the train ride through the mountains, however, we see nothing, we are stuck in a mass of people the whole way. After a safari in Yala West, we relax on the beach and finally visit a gemstone mine in Ratnapura.
