--- type: Place title: Kandy description: The hill city Harry uses as a base for a self-driven tuk-tuk day — a spiral tower with a staircase too narrow for two people to pass, a Buddhist temple, and free lifts handed out on the way home. tags: [sri-lanka, kandy, tuk-tuk, tower, heights, buddhism, temples, tea] coordinates: {lat: 7.2931, lng: 80.6350} timestamp: 2026-08-05T17:00:00Z --- # Kandy The hill city in [Sri Lanka](/countries/sri-lanka.md) that Harry drives out from in a rented tuk-tuk, with a Sri Lankan friend, on a day that is mostly one tower and one temple. ## Driving yourself - **You can rent a tuk-tuk and drive it.** He does, for about 55 minutes each way, and finds it tiring. - **Buses are the kings of the road.** His warning, and he means give way. - **The wipers are manual**, flicked by hand from inside, which becomes relevant immediately. - **He gives up on the steepest section** and walks the last of it rather than trust himself on the hill. ## The tower The one he calls **Sri Lanka's Burj Khalifa**, on a hill above a lake built under a former prime minister. - **Half an hour of walking before you reach it**, through territory patrolled by monkeys — he is genuinely concerned about losing a phone to one. - **The climb doesn't end where it looks like it ends.** An external staircase spirals up around the spire above the point most people stop at. - **It is too narrow for two people.** Anyone coming down has to be negotiated past, one body at a time, on the outside of a tower. - **Around 50 m above the ground**, and by his reckoning about 1,000 m above sea level. Windy at the top. - **Foreigners pay roughly ten times the local price** to get in. - **His advice, given straight to camera**: if you are scared of heights, don't do this — and get outside your comfort zone every day anyway. ## The temple A large Buddha and a temple complex, explained as they walk it by his companion, who is Sinhala Buddhist. The doctrine and the iconography are on the [Sri Lanka](/countries/sri-lanka.md) page; what belongs here is that **Hindu shrines sit inside it** — Lakshmi and Ganesh among them — which he doesn't expect and she treats as unremarkable. ## The rest of the day - **A pony ride, given free** by a man they meet, which he expects to be dull and isn't. - **Free tuk-tuk lifts to strangers** on the way back — see [give strangers a lift](/tips/give-strangers-a-lift.md). Three women assume he must be a Sri Lankan who grew up abroad, because his friend is speaking Sinhala; a man recognises him from the channel. - **A viewpoint over the tea terraces**, with a waterfall somewhere below. - **Kottu**, cheese and chicken, deliberately spiced up as a challenge — and the best meal of his trip to that point. ## As a base The city is also where the series starts: Harry lands in Sri Lanka on no notice and comes straight here to surprise three friends who have taken a villa together. - **About $300 a night for a four-bedroom villa** with a pool, split between the group. *(The villa is linked in the video description and its owner appears on camera, so it isn't named here.)* - **Kandy has roughly two places to go out**, and he is told so plainly — it is much more low-key than Colombo. The one they use is a rooftop lounge with an English owner, Premier League football, and a room full of Westerners, which surprises him. - **About two to three hours from the airport by taxi**, for around $35. ## The city on foot A separate morning, walked and ridden rather than driven out of. - **A tuk-tuk into the centre runs about 500 rupees** — roughly $2 for twenty minutes, and quoted as the local price without being asked. - **Kandy Lake** sits in the middle of it, with a breeze off the water that makes the lakeside noticeably cooler than the streets, and shoals of fish that come up for bread. - **The street market** is small and mostly clothes. A Sri Lanka cricket shirt went from 1,500 to 1,200 (about $6); cricket trousers were 500 (about $2). - **Breakfast at a local place cost about $1.50** — two beef pastries at 70 rupees each and a vegetable roti — and was, by Harry's reckoning, the spiciest food he had eaten anywhere, above Pakistan. - **A mixed-fruit smoothie, 140 rupees**, about 50 cents, with vanilla ice cream in the bottom of the cup. - **The Temple of the Tooth** is what locals tell him to see. He never gets there — this is the only Kandy day in the series. - **Cricket is the way in.** Wearing the national shirt changes how every conversation of the day starts. ## Kottu The dish he is told to eat and the one he rates highest in the country. - **What it is**: cooked flatbread chopped small on the hot plate with blunt blades, then worked together with onion, vegetables and spices, plus chicken or cheese. His own comparison is a Sri Lankan chicken fried rice with bread instead of rice. - **You are asked spicy or not spicy.** Ordered spicy, the chilli flakes bury every other flavour, and it arrives all at once rather than building. - **About 400 rupees — $2 — for a plate he calls two meals.** The table's whole bill came to 700. - **A sweet shop nearby** sells a hard sugar-glazed pastry at 80 rupees per 100 g, about 40 cents, alongside ribbon cake and fruit cake. ## The markets Two of them, side by side, and he rates the second higher. - **The clothes and fabric market** is the one that trades on tourists. Counterfeit sportswear, a fake Rolex at 1,700 rupees, and an openly two-tier price — ask and you will be told what a local would pay. Rough rates: a handmade wooden puzzle box 800 (~$4), a cricket cap 1,000 (~$5), a polo 700. - **The produce market next to it** is where the day gets interesting: tea including a green tea that smells of mango, spices sold as medicine rather than as flavouring, vanilla pods, jackfruit, sugar cane, and a fish section detectable by smell before sight. - **Sri Lankan sweets** to look for: **oil cake**, soft and syrupy, and soft sugar balls he is told are *bombon*. A mixed bag ran to 250 rupees. - **It trades in the rain.** He films the whole thing in a downpour and nothing shuts. ## Eating beyond kottu - **Jackfruit is used as a meat substitute**, and convincingly. Baby jackfruit does the job of chicken; larger fruit is cooked as a sambal or like potato; the largest is eaten as fruit. On a pizza under a strong barbecue base Harry cannot tell it from meat. - **Western food costs several times a local meal**: about $8 for a wood-fired pizza, against $1.50 for a local breakfast and $2 for kottu. He thinks it is fair for what it is. - **Vegetarian is easy, vegan is not** — the substitutes (almond cheese, cashew milk) are expensive here, per a vegetarian restaurant owner. - **Delivery apps operate in the city.** ## The temples - **The Temple of the Sacred Tooth** has ceremonies at 5am, 6:30 and 9:30. **Locals enter free; foreigners pay 2,000 rupees.** Harry never gets inside it across nearly a week in the city — he misunderstands the price when a man in the street quotes it, and separately runs out of days. - **A large seated Buddha** sits on a junction in a non-touristed district a walk from the lake — colourful, and with no obvious public entrance. ## Staying there - **The villa**, on arrival: about $300 a night for four bedrooms and a pool, split between the group. *(Linked in the video description, so unnamed.)* - **A five-star hotel in the city**, taken for three or four nights and chosen for its internet rather than its stars — around 100 rooms, gym, spa and salon, sky lounge, rooftop pool. Roughly 12.9 Mbps in the lobby and around 50 Mbps in the room. *(The group was given a free room upgrade, so it is unnamed too.)* The price is never stated on camera; staff describe it as a promotion. - **Its restaurant does a Sri Lankan-style chicken biryani** that comes with a sauce, nuts, raisins, pineapple and a whole egg in the rice. - **Its breakfast is continental and Sri Lankan together**: string hoppers, milk rice, dosa to order, vegetable sambar, beef and chicken curries, and a potato dish in a sauce Harry compares to Thai green curry. - **Sit inside.** The terrace has crows and flies, and staff warn them off it. ## What you can see from above the city The Bahirawakanda temple and its Buddha statue stand on a hill over Kandy and are floodlit at night. The Temple of the Sacred Tooth is screened by trees from the hotel roof but is, per staff, the thing to look at once the lights come on. There is a cricket ground in the city, in use for school matches. ## Leaving by train The hill line south is the reason a lot of people come to Kandy at all. - **About four hours towards [Nuwara Eliya](/places/nuwara-eliya.md)**, scheduled at 8:30 and moving nearer 8:47. - **Third class costs about 200 rupees, roughly $1**, and has no reserved seats. - **Station food**: coffee, fish, and a freshly made vegetable roti with visible chilli flakes in it. ## Harry's tips - **Ask what a local pays.** He does it out loud, finds the foreigner price is about ten times, and pays it anyway — knowing the number is the point. He does the same at market stalls, and gets a straight answer there too — see [ask what a local pays](/tips/ask-what-a-local-pays.md). - **Walk the last stretch.** The road up is steeper than a rented tuk-tuk deserves. - **Watch the monkeys, not the view.** - **Don't look sideways on the stairs**, and don't stop to think about it. His own method, delivered as encouragement to someone more frightened than he was. - **Eat at the local place, not the Western one** — he says outright that it is both cheaper and the only way to get the experience he came for. - **Stop haggling at a fair price.** He takes 1,200 for a 1,500 shirt and declines to push — see [don't grind a price down to nothing](/tips/dont-grind-down-people-with-nothing.md). - **Walk it and ask.** His stated method for the day, and for cities generally — see [walk the city](/tips/walk-the-city.md). - **No English on the sign is a good sign.** How he picks the kottu place — see [eat at the local place](/tips/eat-at-the-local-place.md). ## Source - [Local Girl Shows Me Sri Lanka's Burj Khalifa 🇱🇰](/videos/lflY_l0wZFQ.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lflY_l0wZFQ - [Surprising Luke Damant, World Nomac and Go With Ali in SRI LANKA 🇱🇰](/videos/GrUxSDr5GPI.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrUxSDr5GPI - [My First Impressions of SRI LANKA (Not what I expected)🇱🇰](/videos/4O4tALBRRTY.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O4tALBRRTY - [Epic Sri Lanka Road Trip 🇱🇰 (Sigiriya)](/videos/CtbrTzCz8Ow.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtbrTzCz8Ow — the departure, and the taxi north to [Sigiriya](/places/sigiriya.md). - [Sri Lanka's Spiciest Kottu! 🇱🇰](/videos/Wq-JwHf4NWA.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq-JwHf4NWA - [We met Elephants in Sri Lanka 🇱🇰](/videos/R9fzTuhp2DY.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9fzTuhp2DY — the base for the day trip to [Pinnawala](/places/pinnawala.md). - [Fake Market Hunt in Kandy, Sri Lanka 🇱🇰](/videos/De-9d_GIqCY.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De-9d_GIqCY - [Sri Lankan Food and Temple Tour 🇱🇰](/videos/K1wXnnVkodc.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1wXnnVkodc - [Best 5 Star Hotel in Kandy, SRI LANKA 🇱🇰](/videos/TESJWUAc3ug.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TESJWUAc3ug - [Chaos on $1 Sri Lankan Express 🇱🇰](/videos/RToF3gJBTeY.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RToF3gJBTeY