Image: Spice shop in Kandy Market, Sri Lanka

Description: A bright display of spices at the Kandy Central Market. Sri Lanka is known for its fabulous spices in diversity, quantity and quality. Visions of cooking and sumptuous meals danced in my head as I browsed these shops. Cardamon and cinnamon, nutmeg and chili, pepper and turmeric and amazing smelling vanilla. Kandy's Central Market, open only on Fridays was a fortuitous find through a helpful passerby. Stocking the same range of foods, spices, herbal tonics, crafts, textiles and factory-reject designer-brand clothing, it caters to the locals and is government run so there is one price and it is 200-300% cheaper than the tourist shops. There apparently used to be 3 on the island, but 2 were destroyed by the sunami and have not yet been rebuilt. The one in Kandy is the only one remaining. So if you are in Kandy on a Friday, ask for it, ditch your guide's and guesthoues's advice to frequent the pricey shops of their friends and stock up on your gifts here.
Title: Spice shop in Kandy Market, Sri Lanka
Credit: originally posted to Flickr as Sri Lanka - 080 - Spice shop in Kandy Market
Author: McKay Savage
Permission: This image, which was originally posted to Flickr.com, was uploaded to Commons using Flickr upload bot on 12:02, 9 September 2009 (UTC) by Ekabhishek (talk). On that date, it was available under the license indicated. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix – to adapt the work Under the following conditions: attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 CC BY 2.0 Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 truetrue
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
License: CC BY 2.0
License Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
Attribution Required?: Yes