Last summer we visited the Eden project in England and we had a long discussion as to how it would be so easy for someone to come up with something like this in Sri Lanka. After all they don't even need the green houses. Everything would grow just fine outdoors. A few months later when I visited Kandy, I found that there was something vaguely similar. In fact it could be as good as the Eden project if someone had remembered to put in the infrastructure and remembered that people don't necessarily want to see acres of different types of paddy! But if you remember to take a lot of water and some snacks this can be a most wonderful place to visit.
Just across the river from the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens is the much cheaper Agri Park. To get here take any bus heading towards Peradeniya or Penideniya and get out at the Dangolla Junction. Walk over the Mahaweli, Sri Lanka's longest river, and the ticket office is about 250 m on your left.
As of this month the tickets were 10/20 LKR for locals and 100/200 LKR are tourists (child/adult).
I so think that it is worth seeing that I made a little
map in google so that you could find some of the nicer things. There are lots of things missing because I just have never had the time to see everything.
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| Hanging over head as you head to buy your tickets |
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| Dragon fruit on the fence to the road by the ticket counter |
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| Humungous ladies finger in the home garden |
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| Crazy sign board telling you what is good for you when you have heart disease |
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| What is good for oral health? |
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| We were told by one person that we could climb up but then someone with more authority told us that it was not allowed. It looked quite dangerous. It's the kind of hut the farmers sit in to stay out of the way of elephants. |
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| Feeding the goats |
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| A kid with its mother |
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| Paddy fields with the trash sculpture in the background |
End of your tour with a visit to the Hela Bojun food stalls where you can buy all kinds of traditional foods. Sweet and savoury. Try the ulundu wade if there are any left by the time you get to the front of the line. They are amazingly good. If the ladies at Hela Bojun are not working (you are either too early or too late) go around to the back of the building where you will find a small eatery. The food there is good and freshly prepared. At the end of the Hela Bojun food stalls are some basic toilets for a fee.
Once my husband has gotten round to getting our vacation photo's off his camera I might be able to upload some nicer pictures!
