『Kandy Central』のカバーアート

Kandy Central

Kandy Central

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 Welcome to an episode of Island Stories: The Sri Lanka Podcast, brought to you by The Ceylon Press._________________________________________________________________________________________Very close encounters in Kandy Central is the subject of this guide - a travelogue fixed on those attractions found in the heartland of Kandy city central an easy ride from Sri Lanka’s Flame Tree Estate & Hotel.Surprisingly, the city is barely 500 years old, an adolescent in Sri Lankan terms, given that the country’s recorded history goes back with stylish ease for at least 2,500 years.Not that anyone dares tell Kandyites this particular fact. For the city regards itself – and to be fair, is greatly regarded by much of the rest of the country – as its true and real soul. Its heart.This characteristic is not something acquired merely by the fact that it houses the island’s most precious possession – the tooth of Lord Buddha. It is also down to the fact that Kandy withstood wave after wave of colonial invasions. It was the very last island kingdom to fall to foreigners. By the time of its formal capture, in 1815, it had already resisted and survived over 300 years of colonial rule that had engulfed the rest of the island.Through all this time it was able to foster, protect and develop the distinctive Singhala culture that had once permeated the entire island before European soldiers, administrators, vicars, businessmen and planters arrived, their gimlet priorities starving the island’s culture of all that was most needed to sustain it.Kandy was the Sinhalese citadel, offering its protection to the rest of the country for all but the 133 years that it was occupied by the British. And this, more than anything else, is what makes Kandy so very important across the island. In a multicultural country still working on how best to present itself, this particular legacy is enduringly important.It is, all the same, a city that demands your full attention, if you are ever to get beneath the interminable traffic jams, edifices inspired by recent Soviet style planning decisions; traffic plans that could be bettered be dead civets; and armies of unnecessarily stressed people forced to talk on tiny or invisible pavements as the cars go sluggishly by on wide roads, which once were shaded by gorgeous trees – before health and safety got to work.If ever there is a city weeping for love and attention; for common sense and decent urban planning, it is Kandy. It is a city that has fallen victim to the grim priorities of businessmen and women, bureaucrats, traffic warlords; and the largely unfulfilled promises of passing politicians.So before setting off the explore the city, take a seat at the Royal Bar & Hotel, an old walawwa that dishes out welcome bowls of chips and frosted glasses of lime juice. It is a good place to contemplate all this before seeing it for yourself. The hotel walawwa is typical of many of the buildings that haunt the city’s tiny, crowded streets, betraying with hints of bashful sorrow, the still remaining traces of striking 17th, 18th, and 19th century vernacular architecture. Balconies and verandas, screened windows and opaque courtyards hide behind shop hoardings that have yet to be bettered anywhere on the island for their chronic ugliness. Even so, to the discerning eye, beauty is there to be glimpsed; there to remind you that all is not yet lost, architecturally. For Kan dy is nothing if not the most secretive of cities: its wonders reveal themselves best to those who look most. It is said that nearly 500 historical buildings hide in plain sight in this way along city streets that still follow the medieval grid that first encompassed this island capital.One such building is the Kataragama Devalaya, a Hindu shrine built by an 18th century Buddhist king. It is a perfect example of just such a surviving treasure – its architecture enlivened by the most intricate carvings, and colours chosen to forever banish grey. Still more dazzling is the nearby Pillaiyar Kovil, a Hindu temple dedicated to Ganesh, the elephant-headed son of Siva; and built by a Buddhist king for his Tamil Dobhi. Its Muslim equal is the arresting Red Mosque, built around 100 years ago with a candy striped façade in reds and whites. Spotting hidden wonders like these is like playing hide and seek with a particular naughty child. You eventually get the hang of it. It is like coming out of a major cataract operation and seeing the world as once it was. For Kandy has plenty of beauty to reveal to the patient eye. And if shopping is your thing there are three ways to best do it. Either throw all your chips in at the Kandy City Centre, a ten-storey mall built to an almost inoffensive architectural style in the centre of the city.Or hit upon the scores of tiny hops selling everything from bananas to bags, batiks to bangles in the old Kandy Bazaar. Or wander up and down the many streets in the centre in the hope of coming ...

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