Without a visit to Kandy, Sri Lanka’s cultural center, no trip to Sri Lanka is complete. In addition to a lively town feeling, you will also have access to world-renowned religious places, delicious food, king gardens, and fascinating cultural experiences you won’t be able to find elsewhere in Sri Lanka. Here is Kandy Sri Lanka’s top eight stuff!
To be fully frank about it, I based most of my attention on other aspects — the jungles, the beaches, the safaris— of my journey to Sri Lanka, but did not expect very much of the region. I was shocked to see how much I liked Kandy and would like to spend more time exploring and visiting all the lovely places, roaming through the streets, mountain walking, and enjoying food and religious culture.
You may want to explore Kandy for at least two full days, but three are better according to the activities that you are interested in. Make sure you prepare some of the activities in your Kandy route on this page!
1) Take Kandy’s Walking Tour
Kandy is the cultural capital and an exciting place to visit. It’s the cultural capital of Sri Lanka. Take a walking tour to Kandy to reflect on the area.
Or take a street food ride to taste some (pun), so you can get a tasteful experience of the culture of Sri Lanka and the city of Kandy. Most of the food trips take you to local markets, introduce you to important sights, engage in discussions with local people, educate you about the history and culture of religion/family in which you can sample some local specialties.
2) Visit the Sacred Tooth’s Temple
To visit the Sacred Tooth Relic Temple is one of Kandy’s most famous items, and it is not going to be missed! This roof temple, with its white walls, houses the most important Buddhist relic in Sri Lanka: Buddha’s tooth. While you can’t wander around the gigantic complex with many small temples, shrines, and museums (it’s held in a gold stupa shape basket)
Go to stop crowds early in the morning and wear appropriate temple clothes. Ticket is 1000Rs (10 USD).
3) Walk through the Botanical Garden of Kandy Royal
Kandy Royal Botanical Garden in Sri Lanka’s biggest and most beautiful botanical garden and you can walk through it for a couple of hours. They once were solely reserved for the Kandy Monarchy, but luckily now we can visit common people too. It is a huge plot with 60 hectares of orchids, royal palm trees, and other magnificent flowers and trees, including the famous Javan fig tree. Fruit bats and monkeys are also present.
A few restaurants/cafés are in the city, but they are mediocre and expensive, so it’s a better choice to bring snacks with you for a picnic.
It is 6km from the center of Kandy and you can reach it from the clock tower of Kandy by bus (line 644). The entry costs 1500Rs (15 USD) a little expensive, but it’s worth the price if you have a few hours to spend it.
4) Visit one of the museums in Kandy
A visit to one of the Kandy Museum is an excellent way of spending time, particularly on a hot day. With access to the Temple of the Tooth Relic, the World Buddhist Museum is open.
The National Museum of Kandy, which houses an impressive 4.000 artifacts, particularly from the Kandyan era (1592-1815 AD), is much less costly compared to the World Buddhist Museum for history in the Kandyan royalty, palace life, and other aspects of Kandy historical culture.
You can take a look at a Ceylon Tea Museum in a former tea company that tells the history and development of tea in Sri Lanka if you have more time to kill, along with a lot of curiosity in Sri Lankan tea.
5) Take a class in cooking
Some of the curries I still dream of and the roti and samosas I ate in Sri Lanka while I was there. Inspired by Thai and Indian cuisine, the cuisine nevertheless possesses its special aromas and preparing techniques. If you love me (or are just curious about it), take a cooking lesson in Sri Lanka.
Kandy, because it is, after all the national cultural center, is a perfect location for a cooking lesson. Airbnb Experiences offers you a range of highly regarded cooking lessons, including courses by 5-star chefs and government-licensed cooking instructors. This is a perfect way to support local businesses directly and to get an exceptional taste of Sri Lanka culture (with these phrases).
6) The Traditional Dance of Kandyan
A cultural dance show is the Kandy Lake Club most famous. This venue brings together all traditional Sri Lankan styles of dance, including firefighters that you will probably find nowhere else in the world. The performers typically wear complicated costumes and headdresses, singing lyrical texts on the animals that reflect each performance.
Every night the shows begin at 5:30 pm and last a few hours. Tickets can be booked on-line or by the door for 1250Rs ($12.50).
7) Look at the Big Buddha’s view
Lying on a hill overlooking Kandy is a white giant statue, which can be seen almost anywhere in the area, Bahiravokanda Vihara Buddha. Bahirawa Kanda hill (or “gnome mountain” or “devil hillock”) is characterized by some dark legends, with virgins sacrificing the evil “gnome” that lived on the hill to appease it.
The Sri Maha Bodhi Viharaya Temple is now open to adorers and visitors and sits beside the 88-meter high statue, one of Sri Lanka’s tallest Buddha statues.
8) The Ella Train Trip
You won’t go from Sri Lanka if you don’t ride on the famous blue Ella train that crosses old stone bridges, lush green hills, and cliffs. It may be chaotic, to say the least, but it is an amazing experience and one of the best things to do at Kandy to sit on open train doors, with your feet pressing outside and the wind blowing in your face.
It’s not only unbelievably scenic but functional and cost-effective! From Nuwara Eliya or Ella to Kandy, or from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya or Ella, you can fly to Kandy. There are about 3-4 hours for each leg (therefore a total of 7 hours) and less than USD 1.50 for the whole trip from Kandy to Ella.
9) Watch Hillside Bar Sunset Watch
The mountainous territory of Kandy ensures that on its surrounding hills you can see the sunset from Kandy. the town has some excellent sunset views. Little chilled lounges (with more relaxed flair) and Bommu Bars (with more modern/stylish atmosphere plus pool) are two good choices to have a drink at the end of the day, located on the roof of the OZO Kandy Hotel. The food and drinks are good, but the show is robbed of its very epic sunset views of the city.
