Places to visit in Central Province, Sri Lanka
18 places to visit in Central Province, Sri Lanka, each with LOQAH's carefully crafted stamp of its own: Dambulla Cave Temple, Horton Plains National Park, Knuckles Mountain Range and more. Stand at any of them with the app open and the stamp is yours, confirmed on site, in your Central Province volume.
5 UNESCO World Heritage sites · 13 Hidden gems
UNESCO World Heritage sites in Central Province (5)
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Dambulla Cave Temple
A cave temple high on a rock above Dambulla, a World Heritage Site since 1991. Its five caves are filled with Buddha statues and their ceilings are painted edge to edge with murals, a shrine that has been in use for more than two thousand years.
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Horton Plains National Park
A high plateau of grassland and cloud forest at 2,100 to 2,300 metres, made a national park in 1988 and rich in species found nowhere else. Walkers cross it to Baker's Falls and to World's End, where the plateau drops away in a sheer cliff.
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Knuckles Mountain Range
A massif in central Sri Lanka, spread across the Matale and Kandy districts, that locals call Dumbara Kanduvetiya, the mist laden range. British surveyors named it for the folded peaks that, seen from Kandy, look like the knuckles of a clenched fist.
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Sigiriya
A granite column about 180 metres high rising out of the plain near Dambulla, crowned with the ruins of a 5th century royal citadel. Climbers pass painted frescoes and the polished Mirror Wall, then a pair of giant lion's paws, before the last stairs to the summit.
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Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic
A Buddhist temple in the royal palace complex of the old Kandyan kingdom, home to the relic of the Buddha's tooth. The relic was long held by Sinhalese kings, and the temple is a World Heritage Site because of it; each year it is paraded through Kandy in the Esala Perahera.
Hidden gems in Central Province (13)
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Aluvihare Rock Temple
A cave temple among boulders 30 km north of Kandy on the Matale road, traced back to King Devanampiyatissa in the 3rd century BC. It is where monks are said to have first written down the Buddhist Pali Canon, on palm leaves, in the 1st century BC.
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Ceylon Tea Museum
A museum of tea in the old Hanthana Tea Factory, built in 1925, about 3 km south of Kandy. Its floors hold the machines that once rolled and dried the leaf, and the top floor has a tea room looking out over the hills.
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Hakgala Botanical Garden
The second largest of Sri Lanka's five botanical gardens, laid out on the slopes below Hakgala rock outside Nuwara Eliya. Its cool terraces are planted with roses and temperate flowers, and its edge runs straight into the Hakgala Strict Nature Reserve.
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Kandy Lake
An artificial lake in the heart of Kandy, built in 1807 by King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe beside the Temple of the Tooth. Locals call it Kiri Muhuda, the Sea of Milk; fishing is banned, and a shaded path runs around its edge.
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Lankatilaka Vihara
A Buddhist temple with Hindu shrines built into it, set on a rock in Udunuwara a few kilometres from Gadaladeniya. It is considered the finest building of the Gampola era, and its tall white image house still rises over the surrounding paddy fields.
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Nalanda Gedige
A complete stone temple near Matale, built between the 8th and 10th centuries in a Dravidian style more often seen in South India. Its original site is said to be the geographical centre of Sri Lanka, and an inscription found there shows it served as a Buddhist monastery.
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Pidurangala Rock
An ancient Buddhist temple on a rock about 1 km north of Sigiriya. The path climbs past the temple and a reclining Buddha to a bare summit with the best view of Sigiriya itself, which makes it a favourite climb at sunrise.
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Ramboda Falls
A 109 metre waterfall at the Ramboda Pass on the A5 road between Kandy and Nuwara Eliya. It is formed by the Panna Oya, a tributary of the Kothmale Oya, and falls from about 945 metres above sea level through tea country.
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Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya
Botanic gardens about 5.5 km west of Kandy, by the Mahaweli River, holding more than 4000 species of plants. They are best known for their orchid house, and also grow spices, medicinal plants and long avenues of palms, with the National Herbarium attached.
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Sri Muthumariamman Temple
A Hindu temple in Matale dedicated to the goddess Mariamman. Its tall gopuram gateway is covered in rows of brightly painted figures of gods and guardians, and it is one of the best known Hindu temples in the central hills.
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St. Clair's Falls
One of the widest waterfalls in Sri Lanka, falling in broad tiers through the tea estates near Talawakele. Its width has earned it the nickname the Little Niagara of Sri Lanka.
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Udawatta Kele Sanctuary
A 104 hectare forest reserve on the ridge above Kandy's old royal palace. Under the kings it was Uda Wasala Watta, the garden above the palace; today its trails and tangled lianas are known for their birdlife.
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Victoria Park
A public park in the middle of Nuwara Eliya, next to the town's old post office. Its lawns, flower beds and stream are typical of the hill town the British built as a cool retreat, and it is a quiet place to watch birds.
Collecting in Central Province
What are the best places to visit in Central Province?
LOQAH lists 18 places in Central Province. The best known include Dambulla Cave Temple, Horton Plains National Park, Knuckles Mountain Range, Sigiriya and Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. Each has a stamp of its own to collect when you are there.
How many LOQAH stamps are there in Central Province?
18, and more are added over time. Each place has LOQAH's carefully crafted stamp of its own.
How do I collect a stamp in Central Province?
Open LOQAH at the place and get its stamp. LOQAH checks where you are once, at that moment; at the place itself the stamp is confirmed on site, with a gold badge.
I have been to places in Central Province before. Can I add them?
Yes. In Earlier trips, choose Central Province and swipe through its stamps, or import your Google Timeline. Each one goes into your volume with the date, if you know it.
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