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View all Kandy toursKandyan Village Tour from Kandy with a Rice and Curry Cooking Class
The Kandyan village trail with a cooking class at the end: cinnamon peeling and toddy tapping in the morning, then grinding, grating and cooking a full rice and curry over a wood fire, and eating it.
Highlights
- Cinnamon peeling and toddy tapping in a working smallholding
- Grating coconut on a hiramanaya and grinding the spice paste on stone
- Cooking six or seven dishes in clay pots over a wood fire
- Eating the full rice and curry you cooked, with your hosts
- A small group, so everyone actually cooks rather than watches
Kandyan Village Tour from Kandy with a Rice and Curry Cooking Class: Key Facts
| Price | From $33.8 per person |
|---|---|
| Duration | 6 hours |
| Languages | English |
| Tour type | Guided Tour |
| Booking | Direct with the local operator — no OTA markup |
Full description
This is the village morning with the cooking made central rather than incidental. You see the countryside working — cinnamon peeled by hand, a tapper up a coconut palm drawing toddy, spice plots where pepper and cardamom grow together — and then you cook with what comes out of it.
Rice and curry is the national meal and it is badly named in English: it is not a curry with rice but six or seven separate dishes eaten together, each cooked its own way. A dhal tempered with curry leaves and mustard seed. A coconut sambol pounded with chilli and lime. A jackfruit or a green bean cooked down in coconut milk. A fried fish or an egg curry. All of it built on a spice base ground fresh.
You do the work: grating coconut on a traditional hiramanaya scraper, grinding the spice paste on a stone, cooking in clay pots over a wood fire, which behaves nothing like a gas ring and is half the lesson. The host corrects as you go.
Then you sit down and eat what you made, which after a morning of grinding and grating tastes considerably better than it would have in a restaurant.
Tour Itinerary
The schedule below is a suggested plan and can be adjusted to suit your preferences.
Pickup in Kandy
Collection from your hotel.
Cinnamon and toddy
The smallholding, the peeling and the palm.
Spice plots
Picking what will go into lunch.
Cooking class
Grating, grinding and cooking over a wood fire.
Lunch
Eating the rice and curry you made.
Kandy
Drop-off at your hotel.
Detailed Itinerary
[{"time": "08:30", "title": "Hotel pickup", "description": "About an hour into the Kandyan countryside."}, {"time": "09:30", "title": "The smallholding", "description": "Cinnamon peeling and toddy tapping, both done by the people who do them daily."}, {"time": "10:30", "title": "Spice plots", "description": "Collecting for the class rather than a separate tour."}, {"time": "11:30", "title": "Cooking", "description": "Around 90 minutes. The wood fire is the hardest part and the most interesting."}, {"time": "13:00", "title": "Eating", "description": "Vegetarian by default. Tell the operator in advance about other requirements."}, {"time": "14:00", "title": "Kandy", "description": "Drop-off at your hotel."}]
Includes
- Hotel pickup and drop-off in Kandy, an English-speaking guide, the village and plot visits, the cooking class with all ingredients, and the meal you cook.
Excludes
- Drinks beyond those served with the meal, gratuities, spice purchases, personal expenses.
Important information
Meeting point
Hotel pickup in Kandy; the exact address and time are confirmed after booking.
Know before you go
- Free cancellation available up to 24 hours before the activity starts