Having woken up without a New Year hangover, we set off to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth in the centre of Kandy.
It was very busy and the crowds were packed in like sardines. It would have been madness to join the queue as we would have burned to a crisp in the hot morning sun so we went to have a coffee and decided to go to the Elephant Orphanage instead.
About an hour away, it was a sanctuary for orphaned elephants which sounded like a good thing.
We arrived at 3pm in time for bathing and went to watch the elephants in the river. It was such an incredible experience to see thirty elephants wading.
When bathing was finished the elephants were herded back to the orphanage back up the shop and tourist-lined road. They were very close.
It was an incredible experience to see these beautiful creatures so near and be able to make eye contact with them.
We went back to the sanctuary for feeding time as the baby elephants were being bottle fed and then we were heading back to Kandy for our final evening before heading to the mountains to the tea plantation
all about gem 