Your first morning in Kandy, your guide takes you to the Temple of the Tooth before the tour buses arrive. The air smells of incense and frangipani. A drumming procession moves through the courtyard.You’ve read about this place. Standing inside it is something else entirely.Three days later you’re at the top of Sigiriya at 6:30 AM, the mist still hanging over the jungle below. Your guide points out the water gardens, the frescoes, the geometric precision of a civilisation that built this in the 5th century AD.You ask him how long he’s been coming here. He says thirty years. He still finds something new every time.That’s the difference between a tour and a guide who actually knows.
