Botanical garden Kandy - Sri Lanka

Botanical garden Kandy - Sri Lanka

When you travel through Kandy exploring city and nature do not miss Peradeniya botanical garden and don't forget your camera.

The gardens of Sri Lanka have a rich history. The beginnings of gardens date back to the 14th century. Peradeniya garden is famous for its rich collection of orchids, which should have been over 300 species.

A major expansion of Botanic gardens was in the 19 century. In the garden was first grown exotic fruits, vegetables, coffee, tea and rubber, which have all become very important products for the domestic economy.

In year 1844, George Gardner, as first professional gardener became a supervisor in the park. He began to travel around the island and different places of world and bring the plants into the garden. . The garden spreads on more than 60 hectares with over 10,000 trees. Among them is bamboo from Burma, who grows up to 60 cm per day.

Peradeniya garden - Kandy

Botanical Garden is located in the Central Province of Sri Lanka 5 km away from Kandy centre.

Peradeniya Botanical Gardens is best known for its collection of orchids. The orchid section was established in 1950’s to maintain a collection of orchids and to produce novel hybrids.. The production of orchid plants dramatically increased and sales expanded. A new orchid showroom was also established during the 1970s and is still functional.

Walking trough the park

Park is also home to an amazing variety of medicinal plants which are used in local Ayurvedic practices.

Many people visit garden simply to enjoy hiking and watching birds or to take a photos of the peaceful views.

Botanical garden is also host of numerous species of butterflies. The humid atmosphere and many f flowering plants makes garden as an ideal location for butterflies. The most commonly sighted butterfly species are the crimson rose, common mormon and the blue mormon.

There are two must see points in the garden: a huge Javan fig tree which covering 1600 sq. meters

and Cabbage Palm Avenue which was was planted in 1905. Walking along the stately avenue of Royal Palms (1885) we find fruit bats in large colonies hanging in the trees

Sigiriya

Few kilometres from Dambullah in the middle of the forest and lakes is postioned impresive rock named Sigiriya - Lions rock.

It's only a 30 minute drive from the Dambullah to Sigiriya. When we talk about Sigiriya, then we mostly think of the "rock," - but Sigiriya has also well preserved ancient site with city from the fifth century. Trip to Sigiriya started with walk through gardens and pools, and parks..

Climb to Lions Rock

We climbed up Lions Rock which was a fortress, built from 477-485. It's a steep climb more than 1000 stairs and ladders. The highlights are the frescos which are still so colorful and a highly polished rock with original graffiti - verses written between the 7th and 11th century.

About half way up, the Lion Terrace marked by a staircase between Lion's Paws, starts the remainder of the climb up to the ruins of the summer palaces. There are just crumbly ruins at the top and the visibility isn't too great. Sigiriya Rock itself consists of a large area with ruins of houses, pools and some caves. The centerpiece of course is the rock Today a lot of the old buildings and sculptures are not in good shape, but you still get the feeling that you are in a very special place built on alone rock in the middle of forests and lakes is something you don’t visit every day.

About history of Sigiriya

Sigiriya was a monastery belonging to 1-2 centuries B.C. with caves surrounding the rock Caves with and without dripledges belonging to this period are found close to Sigiriya rock. King Kassapa I (473-491 A.D.) transferred the administrative centre from Anuradhapura to Sigiriya and ruled the island from Sigiriya. He built Sigiriya fortress with the palace, gardens and other royal buildings. After the decease of King kassapa I his brother King Mugalan (495-512 A.D.) donated Sigiriya to the Sangha. Literary sources mention abut Sigiriya during the regns of King Dala Mugalan (535-555 A.D.) and King Sangatissa II (618 A.D.)

 

According to the graffiti of mirror wall Sigiriya was crowded by local visitors from 6 century A.D. to 12 century A.D. Paintings of Sigiriya are one of the most significant pieces of classical paintings of Sri Lanka. There is no argument that the honor for constructions of the most important structures of Sigiriya as moats, parapet wall, gardens, palace and tank goes to King Kassapa I though buildings belonging to 6 century A.D. onwards found here.

Sigiriya has 2 palaces, one at the ground level, called Summer palace and other one on the top of this rock called Winter palace. King Kashyapa had 500 women servants. He painted each of their images on the walls of caves with natural paint. Currently only around 18 are remaining and rest have been destroyed either naturally or by Buddhist Monks.

Travel to kandy Sri lanka

Arriving to Kandy - Sri Lanka

..we continued our travel towards second biggest city in Sri Lanka - Kandy. Todays town was the ancient hill capital and domain of the king of Sri Lanka. The city of Kandy lies in the midlle of Sri Lanka island about 150 km far away from Colombo, on the foothill of the hilly country at about 500 metres above sea level.

Our target and base for trips arround Kandy was Amaya hills hotel wich is really situated on the hill. The hotel is actual about 7 km far away from the city. The view from the hill to the town of Kandy an surrounded country was splendid. The Amaya Hills Hotel is surrounded by the verdant greenery and carfully cultivated park with flowers, bushes and trees. This hotel offers 100 guest rooms that have been elegantly in english style furnished with an array of in-room amenities to ensure you a comfortable and pleasant stay. There is also a swiming pool .

Hiking through the streets of Kandy

The city of Kandy is easily explored by foot. The climate is a little cooler and less humid than in the capital, Colombo. The altitude about 500 metres above sea level gives the area a cooler climate than on the coast. The area and hilly surrounding of Kandy gets two monsoons a year.

Kandy is also known for its precious and half precious stones. Our first visit in the city of Kandy was famous goldsmith. We saw different working methods for precious and half precious stones. Goldsmith was very neat and tidy, we have seen so many stones, which they dig out from mines and later they make out a wonderful jewelry.

The collection of their crystals and minerals is really rich. In the next room we  watched how workers were making jewelry and how they grind precious stones. After short look of those mostly hand skills, we admired the jewelry shop. A true paradise for women (and hell for men's wallet), there were precious and half precious stones all shapes and colours. Prices were pretty solid, but far from what we expected. We haven't bought a lot in this shop, so our tourist guide was a little bit shortened for his commission.

Kandy's history in short

Historical name of Kandy was Senkadagala Pura - by a hermit named Senkada. Todays name came from the word kanda which means Mountain - the town lies in the middle of the hilly region.
The Sri Lanka Kandy “Kandyan” kingdom withstood European invasion for more than two centuries. It was the last part of Sri Lanka which in year 1815 fall to the Britain.

Portuguese was first newcomers who arrived in the early 16th century and signifying the arrival of the Europeans. Between years 1604-1635 Senarth had established the kingdom of Kandy. The relationship between Portuguese and kngdom of Kandy cancled in the begining of 17th cebtury with formation of alliance with the Dutch but Kandy maintained their independents.

However in 1796 Dutch rule gave way to British. Britain annexed Colombo, Jaffna and Dutch rule was extinguished. The British were keen to conquer Kandy. They gained their opportunity in 1815, and the last of the Sri Lankan Kings was sent to be imprisoned in Wellor, India.

Country of Sri Lanka

Country of Sri Lanka

The country of Sri Lanka ( Ceylon) has 22 million inhabitants and is approximately big as three Switzerlands. Official there are two languages and inhabitants are unusually young. The average age of inhabitants is 30 years old, the quarter of people are younger than 14 years.

It is interesting that, from Sri Lanka south coast lies 6.000 km of sea and nothing else, so don't swim to far away because you could swim all to Antartica and there you can meet penguins. . Of course we are talking about insular country in Indian ocean – Sri Lanka (Ceylon), the land of monkeys, chili, elephants and black tea.

In Sri Lanka everything is turning around tea. They drink tea instead of coffee, through all day long. Tea is drunk with milk or without milk. They pampered us with delicious tea with milk and a little sugar like we were some kind of colonial Englishman. English people had their own colony all to year 1948, almost 150 years.

Inhabitants of Sri Lanka

What really surprised me in Sri Lanka, were nice and incredibly helpful natives. They all have big smile on the face and they are used to greet people all the time.

Despite devastation of tsunami years ago, they like to talk about of that time. I told one local from coastal town of Tangalla, that I was helping by collecting goods, which we send in Sri Lanka. But in the next moment I was disappointed when I found out that help didn't come to them. Not in form of money not in some other form, which they would need (clothes...). He told me when the big wave came, he climbed on the palm tree, and his family climb on their roof. His sister was at that time in the bathroom highly pregnant, she lost her baby.

Now they have restored their house, and life is normal again. Just with one difference. They live every day by day because they don't know when the sea could stroke again. Their experts are foretelling that they are expecting one bigger tsunami, someday in the future, but they can't say when this big tsunami will come. People are relying on warning devices, they can warn them four hours before destroying wave. In this way they have enough time to go in higher regions. Sri Lanka boy said for himself that, he's not afraid because he is still young and he runs quickly (they don't have a car), but he is worried of his parents

Sri Lanka Working With Eco Consultants Towards a Greener Economy

Posted on October 13, 2010 by davidhoward

Sri Lanka moves to a more eco-friendly economy

As more and more countries are becoming aware of the effects of global warming and climate change, government programs and advocacies for turning each country towards a green economy have reached new heights. It has moved up on corporate and political agendas because of the intense drive to get rid of carbon emissions and the underlying desire to cut costs.
The latest addition to the list of countries advocating greener economies is Sri Lanka. They have hired Eco Consultants the Carbon Consulting Company (CCC) to help them in this task. The CCC was launched recently in partnership with one of the leading providers of carbon reduction solutions, CarbonNeutral of UK. It is also being advocated by Sri Lanka’s only Nobel Laureate, Prof. Mohan Munasinghe.

CCC is an Eco Consulting firm formed by two dynamic young entrepreneurs, Subramaniam Eassuwaran (Deputy Chairman of Eswaran Brothers Exports) and Fazal Fausz (Managing Director of Rainco Pvt Ltd), under the guidance of Prof. Munasinghe. It offers a complete end-to-end service for companies committed to reducing carbon emissions including emission assessment capabilities. CCC is also an approver reseller of the Carbon Neutral Company’s services like carbon offsets and Carbon Neutral certification.
Eassuwaran said that Sri Lanka looks to develop into a hub of ethical manufacturing and eco-tourism which is why they need to equip Sri Lanka’s local businesses to take advantage of their huge carbon potential. Jonathan Shopley, managing director of The Carbon Neutral Company said that more businesses are realizing that a credible carbon management strategy can deliver powerful benefits for the company including increased revenue, competitive differentiation and reputational improvement.
CCC and CarbonNeutral of UK will be helping Sri Lanka companies set and meet carbon footprint reduction targets and to implement environmental management strategies on par with global standards. They are also concurrently established the Conservation Carbon Company mandating an effective use of environmental finance mechanisms to help protect some of Sri Lanka’s threatened wildlife and ecosystem.
With CCC, Sri Lanka is poised to take its place among the world leaders in carbon management by not depending on trade agreements and duty concessions and disregarding the environment. It will instead attract green tourist, green buyers and green investors to keep abreast of fast changing global trends and regulations. And with the concerted effort of scientific minds and concerned businessmen intending to make a difference to the environment, this initiative will definitely make a positive impact to Sri-Lanka

About Sri lanka

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka