Our fourth day of the journey, we visited an elephant orphanage, the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens and the Cave Temples at Dambulla.
Elephant Orphanage, where abandoned and mistreated elephants go to enjoy their lives.
                    • Three footed elephant. M saw this same one when she was here in 1997.
                    • Sick Elephant.
                      • This elephant was trying to get some. Check out the, uh, member on that guy.
                              Our driver took us to a tourist trap, a jewelry store fronting as a gem museum.  They put us in a dark room and showed us a ten minute video about gem mining, which was really just a way of explaining why all the jewelry we were going to see was so expensive.  Nothing purchased, but a great picture made.

                              • Watching a video about gem mining.
                              These are shots from the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, where young lovers in Kandy go to avoid the prying eyes of others.  It's also the home of giant fruit bats.
                                                    • In a bamboo grove.
                                                    • Fruit bats!
                                                    • Giant fruit bats!
                                                    • M running from the fruit bats.
                                                    • This guy was beating the trees to get the bats to fly for us. We ran.
                                                    The Dambulla Cave Temple was built by an ancient king who used this as a hiding place.  He had the caves painted and statues of Buddha carved from the rock itself.