The historic train to Kandy, Central Sri Lanka

It is an early start and the signage on the Fort railway platform gives no indication of where our first-class carriage will be, for the train to Kandy. The green and dark red engine made in Canada made its maiden voyage in 1961 and is still going strong. The Train 783 stops about 50 ft from the end of the track and decouples. When I look next, it's disappeared and we are told it doubles back to pull our coaches to Kandy. The First class seat at 3200 rupees they have a few inches of decline, lots of legroom but you would struggle to call it first class. Little air-con working, no coffee and no service. Its a full carriage and half-filled with a group of about twenty Colombo ladies. As we chug off out of the station we all realize that this train is going to be noisy and bumpy. The last time I’d been on a train was in Japan spending over 3 weeks touring the country. The comparison could not be wider, nor could the behavior of my fellow travelers.

We are are in the last carriage of the train - right after the engine, but now and the last seats of the carriage are open to a stunning and uninterrupted view of the track and the scenery. This route opened back in the 1860's. Had we known that this view was available, we would have booked these seats. 

Image by Jesswondering.com

We pass some rotting old steam engines and lots of old carriages and parts of Colombo I've never seen. We also see the new blue Chinese carriages. One of the Colombo ladies sitting on the row across from me is obviously the organizer, shouting out instructions as they pass round the food and sweets. These two activities will go on till the train pulls in to Kandy. The group gets more boisterous, singing 60/70s music and some classic old Sinhalese songs to some music from a Bluetooth speaker. The baila starts in the limited space available. The ladies and their daughters all have a ball and offer us, sweets, hoping we will join in. A lady with an infectious laugh gets called "aunty" by the youngsters regularly - assume its a term of endearment and not that the group is all related. Later, nearer to Kandy they have all changed into white dresses and skirts and obviously are heading towards the Temple of Tooth in Kandy City.

Needing to charge my iPhone I find there is a modern 3 pin British standard electrical socket in the wall by the seats, which is clearly a retrofit. There are only a few stops on this journey to Kandy including Peradeniya, the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens covering 147 acres. The widows of the train are clean-ish so I get a good view of the changing landscape. Shanty outskirts of the city then coconut then banana plantations and lots of unmanned railway crossings. Its been a rainy month and we can see the fields of water on either side of the train.

If the carriage is not so first-class the toilet is most certainly worse than stowage class. A scruffy man sits outside in the corridor and I’m trying to work out if he is security, the toilet cleaner or some pervert waiting for the ladies to use the loo. There is no toilet paper or towels and it has the old foot pump action to clear the pot contents onto the track below.

We arrive at Kandy some 2.5 hours from departing - it would have taken four plus hours to do this journey by car on the winding road. This journey by car is quite a slog. The construction for the highway to Kandy started in 2007 and should have opened in 2020 but will hopefully be open in two more years. Our ladies look desperately for the station toilets, the sign says "foreigners rest rooms ladies" sponsored by Rhino.

Jezzabel, this is the wife’s name in my book "The Whinging Pome - to the point" and all my Articles although born in Sri Lanka, was brought up in Australia and hence forgets her ancestors and heads to the Foreigners toilets. This is the same lady who will tell you she can trace her ancestors back to the Kandy Kings. Kandy is possibly the most polluted city on the island of Sri Lanka with massive road congestion and an inadequate road system. However, the city does have some points of interest e.g. The Temple of the Tooth, the lake, the aging Queens hotel, The Garrison cemetery and Helga’s Folly. Only the latter is somewhere I'll visit on every trip to the city. It's a whacky house owned by an eccentric woman - Helga de Silva Blow Perera. She lists her visitors including Gandhi, Vivian Leigh, Laurence Olivier and Nehru.

Helga's Folly

Queen's Hotel

So if Kandy is on your list to visit, go by train, arrive fresh, meet some interesting people on the way and enjoy the hillsides of Sri Lanka.