Pluck Yourself

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Only a few days’ ago I said to John that I would love to have just one day when I wasn’t sweltering all of the time, and I think my wish has been granted and I’ve just woken up to such a day! John says he was cold in the night - it was certainly cool, but I can’t say I was cold.

After breakfast on the terrace overlooking the vista of mountains, the most scenic setting thus far, we set off to the BOH tea plantation. We stopped and looked at the tea leaves growing on the bushes and were told how they no longer pick by hand, but by cutting with shears or automated cutters and then they sort the leaves back in the factory.

We then visited the factory and watched as they rolled the leaves, withered them, dried them and eventually sorted them. Yet again, we had to listen to the story of how we are mad to use tea bags as this is the cheapest tea made from the dust at the end of the process - whilst the best tea is made from the leaves themselves. They fertilise the bushes from the air. I asked about pest control - apparently the only pests are rats which like to gnaw on the tea bush roots ... so they are controlled by snakes. Lucky I wasn’t told that earlier when we were in the fields! Bushes are also sprayed with a fungicide after they have been sheared.

On the way to the plantation we had passed numerous strawberry farms with ‘pluck yourself’ signs (guffaw, guffaw), which is actually advertising Pick Your Own - it was only when we were on the tea plantation that we realised this was because the tea leaves used to be ‘plucked’ by hand.

After the tea plantation we visited a rose garden, which reminded us of home with many plants that we have as houseplants - but growing to huge sizes. We then went to a butterfly house to admire some really beautiful butterflies. As you walked in, literally hundreds of butterflies flew around you of varying colours, shapes and sizes. My favourite was the Atlas moth whose wings look like a cobra snake - fascinating. We also spent some time looking at leaf frogs, stick insects, leaf insects, scorpions and other assorted icky things.

A walk round the local vegetable market ended with a wonderful “Nonya” meal and then back to the hotel for a swim. Well, we will go for a swim when it stops raining - at the moment we’re just kicking back in the room and enjoying the first sight of rain since Luang Prabang, You can’t grow enough tea for 5.5 million cups per day without a little bit of rain every day...

We eventually wandered down for the swim, sat and watch the clouds close in for a while, and had a relaxing evening in front of the TV watching a movie - sometimes a touch of normality can be really good too!

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