Blogs from Ella, Central Province, Sri Lanka, Asia
Amazing train ride across the tea plantations
Published: October 28th 2011Asia » Sri Lanka » Central Province » Ella
October 20th 2011
I would like to thanks our friends for the tenths of messages we have received concerning the situation in Bangkok. Little update. We are, as of Friday lunch time, fully on dry ground. I checked around town yesterday afternoon....the closest floods are at least 10km away from us on any direction. We have limited supplies of bottled water...something like 15 liters, and no more in any shops. I was able to find 3 more litters yesterday walking by a yoga studio...you can smile! But we have all supplies of soda water, fruit juices, carbonated drinks, milk and even wine! For health reasons, the kids have now a mandatory third brushing teeth at lunch time...with all those sodas! Another smile! There is no issue to find food around our area...maybe not everything, but still a huge choice ... read more
October 13th 2011
Hello everyone! Welcome to another installment of my ramblings. This one won’t be an epic because as before, the pictures tell all the story and I fear I will simply be repeating myself. Sri Lanka continues to be a fantastic to visit, it continues to throw up the most colorful surprises and the people continue to be wonderful. So….After leaving Tringo. I headed inland for one of my treats of Sri Lanka, Sigiriya. For those that don’t know: Sigiriya is a large stone and ancient rock fortress and palace ruin in the central Matale District of Sri Lanka, surrounded by the remains of an extensive network of gardens, reservoirs, and other structures. A popular tourist destination, Sigiriya is also renowned for its ancient paintings (frescos) which are reminiscent of the Ajanta Caves of India. It is ... read more
October 6th 2011
We took a nauseatingly windy but utterly gorgeous bus ride up into the hills here, in Nuwara Eliya, a sort of Little England, in total tea country. Tea is grown in just about every patch of hill here, Ceylon being the former tea-capital of the world in the days of empire (I think India grows more tea now). Although it shows the world's disturbing obsession with tea, it is very, very pretty. You can see people picking tea, little kids and families scampering up and down the hills. It tends to look a little more organic than most large-scale crops, with a sort of patchwork of fields, since the landscape is pretty rugged here. Nuwara Eliya has little white English village-looking houses, a golf course, a race track, and some other curiosities. We spent a night ... read more
January 29th 2011
Up until a few weeks before my December holiday (I’m a teacher and at my new school, new country, we had 3 weeks off...sooo well-deserved..) I still hadn’t decided where on earth to go. I wanted to stick closer to home and somewhere not full of expats, specifically drunken expats (I have British people in mind when I think of those two words together) and somewhere not too cold but not boiling hot either. Having spoken to a couple of people about recommendations for that time of year, I settled on Sri Lanka, somewhere I’d always wanted to go..preferably during the elephant festival but I’m always going to miss that as long as I’m in this part of the world as that’s when schools start back. Anyway so a wee bit of research later and I ... read more
October 18th 2010
Hi everyone, this is a quickie as I am touring wonderful Sri Lanka and have just happened upon a cool little WiFi cafe with great music too. So here are a few photos from some of the unbelieveable places that I have visited. Will write more when I have time and the inclination. The first lot are of Colombo. Ahhh, life is good.... read more
June 11th 2010
...then, there's dessert. then, there's british dessert. then, there's more dessert. then, there's breakfast, which, is basically the same as lunch and dinner, but without dessert. unless, hordes of fresh fruit count. :) and sweet yoghurt. oh, and as always, tea. so hear ye hear ye veggies and vegans. come one come all. . . . . *note: I have only gotten 'sick' once this entire trip, and it was my first meal in a fancy white people's resort (don't ask. planning mishap. the resort. not the poisoning.). anyways, turns out something subterranean in my sub-Mediterranean. *note on local dessert: Wattalappan when in rome... one must try the local dessert, right? and by try, I mean try at each and every dinner. and sometimes lunch. now....considering I'm not an eggy, mushy type of person, I was ... read more
April 21st 2010
Ayurvéda est une médecine naturelle utilisant les épices, les herbes et les huiles provenant de l'Inde. Le Sri Lanka est donc, un lieu de prédilection, pour profiter des vertus curatives de cette science. Ayant déjà été soumis a cette médecine, il y a deux ans, au Kerala en Inde du sud, nous sommes certain d'une seule chose: le traitement sera une expérience avec un grand "E", plus qu'une réelle détente. Tout d'abord, notre docteur en Ayurvéda nous explique les différentes étapes de la séance et tente de nous rassurer en insistant sur ses 15 années d'expériences dans le domaine. Après avoir discutés rapidement le prix, nous descendons le grand escalier en colimaçon vers ce qui ressemble plus, au premier abord, à une chambre de tortures, qu'à une salle de bienfaits thérapeutiques. Sous les yeux impudiques de ... read more
February 5th 2010
We left Mirissa sunburnt and longing for cooler drier air. The rest of our trip is now in the hill country surrounded by fabulous peaks and tea plantations. Ella is a quaint town at the beginning of the hill country. It is surrounded by peaks and tea plantations. There is nothing else to do here apart from hill country walks and tea factory visits. We are staying at a lovely guesthouse recommended by Scott and Bianca. We visited the Uva Halpewaththa tea factory. It took about an hour and a half to walk and it was really hot but the walk was lovely, started by following the train tracks and then passing the fields and rice paddies. We had a tour of the tea factory and were shown all the different processes involved in the fermentation, ... read more
January 16th 2010
The train to Ella departs Kandy at 8.40am so we arrived at the station about 45minutes early to ensure that we had plenty of time to buy our tickets. However, they only start selling the tickets about 20minutes before the train departs. We assumed this was because they have to wait and see how many seats remain before they reach the station, but when the train arrived it was clear this was not the case! We couldn’t even step into the second class carriage as it was already crammed full of passengers so we fought our way into the restaurant car and grabbed a patch of prime real estate on the floor, surrounded ourselves with bags, made ourselves as comfortable as possible and settled in for the six hour ride. We were both really looking forward ... read more
September 2nd 2009
Some pics from our Tour, plus a few anecdotes from the past few weeks/months! It’s the little things! From the never ending power failures to the deaf man across the road smiling and giving me a wave when he goes to collect the water each day. The kids at the pool bowing at my feet after they have had a lesson and the ones that make sure they say thank you in English, because they can, or being called Aunty. These are all signs of respect and are quite moving. The coaches being comfortable with me at the pool and telling me what to do or playing jokes on me! (I do get my own back on them of course.) And just when you think you have it all sorted, something goes astray! Like yesterday, Bubba ... read more
