Saturday, 9th February, 2019
What a beautiful way to wake up – birds chirping in the jungle that surrounds our guesthouse – it had rained at night but now it was dry and the jungle was steaming away. Although we had a peaceful night, it actually did not start off that way – a whole group of new guests turned up late and besides talking and laughing out loud, they even tried to get into our room (obviously by mistake!) anyway they soon settled down and we were all able to have a good night’s rest.
Today is a travel day and we were in no particular hurry to leave this guesthouse as its owners are such hospitable people. Anyway at 8 we went down for breakfast and as soon as we arrived in the dining room, we were surprised to see a whole crowd already enjoying breakfast – there must have been at least 8 persons x most of them young but with a few older men in the group. After greeting each other and naturally asking where everyone came from, they replied that they were from Iran – up to now have never met Iranians travelling!!! I immediately asked which one of them had tried to get into our room – of course jokingly – so that made them even more loud….. both Gerry and I thought they were Italian but they were much more noisy! It seemed that they were following the same route as we were so who knows perhaps we would meet them again….
Indika was well on time and the house boy brought down our luggage to be stowed away in the booth and by 9.15 we were on the way. As yesterday we had missed going to the Udawattakele Royal Forest Park, Indika suggested that we do that this morning.
This Forest Park has always been regarded as a part of the Royal palace and the pond at the entrance was known to be where the royal family bathed. We paid our entrance fee and received a map which had the pathways which we could follow. According to the lady who sold us our tickets, the whole walk around the park was some 5.5km and it would take us just over an hour – well to cut a long story short, we managed to get lost!
After having walked uphill to the view point and the information centre, we thought we took the right path to the left,but actually this led us down and outside the official park grounds. There were some newly built houses and an older guy was just reversing his even older Mercedes out of the garage. He guessed we were in trouble and he rolled down his window and we asked him how we could get back to the park. But he told us not to worry as he could take us back by car – obviously we were pleased with this as we did not fancy retracing our steps – however while getting acquainted in the car we noticed he was driving back to Kandy as we were close to the city lake. He asked us to call our driver with his phone and he would explain in Sinhalese where he would drop us – after what seemed quite a heated discussion, he said he would drop us at the entrance of the forest park – which he had said he would do and that’s why we accepted his lift – anyway he did tell us we were the third set of tourists he has helped to get back as they too were lost……
Well both Indika and us were so glad to see each other – I guess he was worried stiff when we had not returned back on time……
So back in Indika’s car, we said he had to find us somewhere where we could use the restroom, Gerry to have his smoke and have something to drink before continuing our drive towards Nuwara Elija.
We were lucky that we had good weather when we were lost in the Royal forest as now the clouds were gathering and we were not sure whether we would have a dry drive through the mountain range.
The mountain range we drove through is known as the Knuckles Range which incidentally are now included as one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites. Apparently, lots of trekking takes place in this region but always with a guide. The foothills of the Knuckles Range are dotted with villages and we could see these while driving.
We then drove into the tea plantation region, high up on the hills and with every bend we took by car, we saw the tea shrubs neatly climbing against the hills. This is known as the Hill Country and preciously when still a British colony, was the The luscious green carpet of tea shrubs was a real eye catcher – especially when dotted with colourful sari-clad girls picking tea leaves……
Indika took us to a tea plantation, Glenloch, which was first planted by a Scotsman some 150 years ago and is one of the biggest plantations in Sri Lanka. Here we were given a private tour by a lovely lady who explained how the leaves are picked and which are used to make white, green or black tea and how it is dried and fermented and then sent off to Colombo where there is a huge tea market and sold to brands like Lipton, Tetley and Dilam.
Just a little bit of history on the tea industry in Sri Lanka – apparently the British tea barons back in the colonial days could not get the Singalese to work on the Apparently only 80% remains in Sri Lanka and sold under its own brand name. When the tour was over, we had the opportunity to try some of the teas and both Gerry and I came to the conclusion that the white tea has the best taste and aroma – but obviously the most expensive!
As we had instructions from Gerry’s daughter, Lisette, that should we feel inclined to buy anything for her from Sri Lanka, then we should get her green tea – so while Gerry continued enjoying his cup,of tea (with chocolates), I went to the factory shop to choose some tea to take back home.
By the time we got back to the car, it started raining heavily and we saw the mountains just disappearing behind a shroud of low hanging clouds. We were on our way to view the various waterfalls in the hills – the Ramboda waterfall. We had a very good view point to,take pictures but we also drove to a hotel for some lunch and where we walked down quite a few steps to admire this waterfall,as it came crashing down. According to Indika, normally there is much more water that the valley would be flooded. Further down in the valley there is a dam to hold all the water.
As we walked up from the waterfall, we came across the Iranian group who had stayed in the same guesthouse in Kandy. They greeted us with so much friendliness, however I was keeping my fingers crossed that they would not be staying at the same place we would be staying. Indika said that the Oasis Bungalow estate only had four bungalows so the Iranian group could not fit in…….
By the time we had finished lunch we were having torrential rain. Everyone said that tomorrow will turn out sunny and that this is typical weather of the hill country region. No wonder it is so green and luscious!
We had another hour’s drive to our next stay and I am sure I would have enjoyed the trip more if it hadn’t rained so much – the hills and tea plantations were all lost behind the clouds…..
Anyway we finally arrived at our destination Oasis Bungalows at Nuwara Elija – in a torrential rain. Indika suggested we go for another Aryuveda massage and then dinner and that’s what we did.
By the end of the day, we just wanted to sleep as tomorrow we will be having a day sightseeing in the neighbourhood and getting to know the hill stations and the “kitchen garden” of Sri Lanka
