The Royal Botanic Gardens are in fact in Peradeniya, which is not part of Kandy, but a separate town. But they are so close to each other, that when you drive from one place to the other, you will see one city all along, and never notice that you left a settlement or entered another.
The botanical garden was one of the highlights of my visit to Kandy (and in fact, to all of Sri Lanka), and I can only recommend it to anyone who wants to see wonderful plants, trees and flowers. The garden is famous for its orchid collection – at least that’s what I read. It is a good collection indeed, but it is a small orchid house actually. Although it has gorgeous orchids, I saw equally beautiful ones in other places, for example in the Sarawak Orchid Garden in Kuching.
If you are in kandy, you must take a tuktuk – walking would be too long, although not entirely impossible. It cost me 300 rupees there, and 400 back – but only because I said to the tuktuk driver in front of the exit that the 600 rupees he quoted was scandalous, and then another one, who overheard this conversation said he would take me back to the centre of Kandy for 400.
Entrance fee for foreigners is a hefty 2.000 rupees, but you must get used to paying European entrance fees everywhere in Sri Lanka.
Below, I will show you some of the photos that I took in the garden. It is a large area, and you can easily spend there a few hours even if you don’t look at every single tree. Bring your own food and drinks, there are not many places to buy anything in the park (I saw none).
There are a few benches to sit down should you need a rest, but not too many and not everywhere.
