"Arguably the best tea in the world."

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All around the Bogawantalawa valley (easy to cut and paste, harder to say!) are signs pronouncing this as Ceylon's Golden Tea Valley, and proclaiming that this is "Arguably the best tea in the world". I couldn't argue with that, not being a connoisseur of tea myself. I will agree that it is very good tea - and today we're on a short trip to see how it gets from field to cup.

We woke at 6 - well, I did. Roy was actually wakened at 5 by Buddhist chanting from a nearby temple - it is played on a tape and the same chant loops over and over for about 45 minutes or so. Didn't wake me though. We'd odered "bed tea" for 7am and it arrived promptly. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to stay in bed to drink this but we got up and took tea in our lovely armchairs looking out on to the garden. We wandered round for breakfast at 7.30am - tea, mixed fruit juice, tropical fruit platter to begin with. Roy ordered poached eggs and I decided to try the Sri Lankan omelette, with chilli, tomato and onion. Very tasty. They also served toast, croissants and pastries. On top of this they seemed surprised that we didn't want bacon, sausages or potato to go with our eggs!

At 8.30am the Tea Trails minivan picked us, and two other couples up for the Tea Factory tour. This is a very interesting look around the Norwood Tea Factory - guided by Andrew Taylor, an ex-planter with over 40 years experience. It was fascinating! Then we took a look around the Summerville Bungalow which is one of Tea Trails smaller properties across the reservoir from Castlereagh. It's beautiful - witha stunning lounge with wraparound windows and views of the reservoir. It doesn't have a pool, but given that we never got to use the pool at Castlereagh that didn't seem too much of a disadvantage. The main road back to Castlereagh was closed - some cock and bull story about a grand re-opening of it that was due to happen when some local dignatories arrived - and so we took a detour up a long and steep hill, round the back of Castlereagh and back down again! It was nearly 1 by the time we arrived back - we'd been expecting to get home for about 11.

So, no swim before lunch - no time! For lunch we passed on the soup course and enjoyed grilled seer fish with roasted veg and potato wedges. Then poached pear and ice cream. Delicious. No wine today - we decided to try one of the 6km walks later on this afternoon and if I'd had a glass or two of wine I'd have just wanted to snooze. Dinner, we're told, will be a Sri Lankan feast. Looking forward to that.

Actually, I did have a snooze after lunch, on the recliner in our garden. Roy was reading. Just after 3 we set off on our trek through the tea hills. We passed a school, where lessions were still going on ("after school" stuff, according to Seelan) and then walked through a village where we were chased by a Tamil lady asking for money. We don't take cash out with us on these walks. Then, we seemed to attract a following of school kids. A group of about 10 followed us out of the village, and then, from nowhere they all started to appear out of the tea fields! Felt like the pied pipers of Castlereagh. Most of the kids got bored, but three of them stuck with us - two boys and a very young girl. The older boy was lovely - they really were nice kids and didn't ask us for anything. I was suspicious at first but I think they were just wanted to walk along with us and we chatted a little about nothing in particular. When we came to a "junction" another group of children appeared - they obviously knew the short cuts through the tea fields! We asked where the kids lived and it turned out they were heading in the opposite direction to us. They mobbed Roy as he said goodbye. So cute. Then they stood and watched us, waving until we'd turned a corner that took us out of view.

It started to rain about 10 minutes before we got back to Castlereagh. Our butler had offered us brollies but we'd declined. Suddenly, we spotted the security guard from the gate house running towards us with 6 umbrellas! It seemed he'd been sent out to find all the walking couples and supply them with a brolly! How well we're looked after here.

We'd worked up some appetite for afternoon tea, which was smoked beef sandwich, and the usual assortment of cakes! My tactic is to eat just half of everything so that I don't get too full for dinner. Tried some more teas, both of them are really nice. Went back to our room to read and get ready for dinner. Stayed indoors as there is a very loud thunderstorm - it even drowned out the chanting (which also plays at about 5pm every day).

Pre-dinner, we chatted with the other guests here. This is when we compared notes on the Botanical Gardens scams! We learned that we have got off lightly compared to some of the stunts pulled on other people!

Dinner was Sri Lankan food - appetisers (spicy fish balls) with drinks and then straight in to the main event - rice, poppodoms and a huge assortment of curries and veggies. Fish curry, chutney, coconut sambol, chicken curry, banana flowers, cabbage, bean curry, dahl, mushroom and garlic, brinjal (sweet and sour style) and I forget what else! All very tasty but very mild - obviously "tourist curry". I'd have like a bit more chilli. This was followed by creme caramel and a couple of Grand Marniers with coffee. We had a good natter and giggle out on the verandah with the other guests. In fact, this was a very late night for us - it was after 11 when we got to bed!

I'm reading Woolf in Ceylon, which has been left in our room. I doubt I'll finish it before we leave here.

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Photos

Learning how to taste tea
Andrew Taylor also showed us the process from field to cup

Local school children
Enthralled by Roy - not sure why!