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HE SAID... Today we were travelling south from Kandy to
Bogawantalawa, then north-west to Negombo.
While our final destination was the coastal town of Negombo, our main destination was Bogawantalawa, a small town in Sri Lanka’s Hill Country. Famous for its tea estates, Bogawantalawa is where Ren’s mother lived as a child and where her grandfather and great-grandparents are buried.
We woke at 6am, organised our packs and prepared for a long day of travel. We headed down to the hotel’s dining room and opted (horror of horrors) for the Western breakfast! The generous breakfast included fresh pineapple juice, a fruit platter, toast and jam, waffles and treacle, omelette with chilli and onion, fried mushrooms and a large pot of tea – it was fantastic.
We checked out of Viyana Boutique Hotel with a hint of sadness. We’d loved our time in Kandy, and we particularly loved this hotel. We’ll be returning to Kandy in a few days’ time, but we’ll be staying in a different hotel, and I doubt anything will match this incredibly comfortable place on the edge of the lake.
Ren’s cousin Denzil pulled into the hotel’s entrance at 10am (having left Colombo four
hours earlier), and after piling our packs into the boot of his car, we continued on to Hotel Thilanka to pick up Ren’s uncle Martin. The traffic was heavy and congested, so our drive out of Kandy was slow. We dropped into the peaceful town of
Nawalapitiya to visit Aloysius (Martin’s cousin), and after chatting, reminiscing and sidestepping questions of marriage, we left with a handful of guavas and continued our journey south, twisting and turning through the narrow tea plantation roads until we arrived in Hatton at 1:30pm.
We were hungry, so we crawled through the busy, built-up streets of
Hatton looking for a place to eat. We decided on Priyangani Restaurant, so we pulled up outside, clambered out of the car and settled at a table. Ren, Martin and Denzil all went for the rice and curry buffet, while I opted for the pan rolls (filled and rolled up crepes, that are crumbed and fried). The food was cold, but it was fantastic. I’m still getting used to how
short eats (an umbrella term for Sri Lankan fried or baked snacks) are served in some Sri Lankan eateries. I ordered two pan rolls, but instead of getting
them both on a separate plate, the waiter grabbed the entire plate of pan rolls from the Bain Marie and placed it in front of me. When I’d finished, he simply took the plate with the remaining rolls and placed it back in the Bain Marie…
After threatening for a few hours the afternoon rain arrived early, and by the time we’d finished our meal it was literally teeming outside. We ran through the rain, clambered into the car and continued our journey south. After navigating narrow winding roads through various tea estates, we arrived at Bogawantalawa in the mid-afternoon. We first visited the grave of Martin’s father (Ren and Denzil’s grandfather) in a small cemetery located within the grounds of the local Catholic Church. Ren, Denzil and Martin placed candles on the grave and shared a small prayer, which attracted the attention of a small local boy. Before long, a group of children in school informs had gathered by the roadside. Two young girls waved nervously, and when Ren waved back their confidence soared – they rushed up to us, giggling madly. The taller of the two had a badly damaged left eye. As we left, she pushed
herself against the car window and tried to look in at us. I felt so sorry for her – a simple eye test and a basic pair of glasses would have made such a difference to her life…
We then drove a short distance to the Bogawantalawa tea factory where Martin and his siblings had spent their childhood. After some impressive diplomacy on Martin’s part, we were invited on a tour of the old homestead and the factory, having initially been informed that photography was banned and that we were not entirely welcome. That all changed when Martin explained who we were and why we were there. The current manager, a very affable bloke, took us through the old homestead where Martin, Eva (Ren’s mother), Basil (Denzil’s father) and their siblings had all grown up. It was a fantastic opportunity to see the place that Eva has spoken so fondly of, and it was clearly a place of fond memories for Martin.
After exploring the internal rooms and gardens of the old homestead, we walked a short distance to the factory for an impromptu and particularly enjoyable tour. We were shown how tea is tasted and graded, and
while Martin told stories of his boyhood, the current manager (who now lives in the old homestead with his family) walked us through the huge tin-clad building. He was incredibly friendly and warm, and at the end of the tour he gave us two large packages of Bogawantalawa tea. It was a privilege to have had the opportunity to visit this part of Sri Lanka.
We left the factory in the late afternoon and retraced our path back to Hatton as dusk fell. We had a five hour trip to Negombo ahead of us, and the narrow winding road out of the Hill Country seemed to go on forever… we all needed a cup of tea and something to eat. We crawled through a few small villages, but nothing appeared to be open, so we kept driving until we came across some rest rooms in the middle of nowhere. Martin negotiated a deal with the old caretaker, who said we could use the toilets while she made us some hot tea. We thought the deal sounded great, although we were a little surprised to find the toilet had no paper and nor did it flush… Still, the prospect of
some hot tea kept us going. Unfortunately, and for no apparent reason, the caretaker abruptly changed her mind and told us the tea was off and the toilet would cost 25 rupees each.
Disgruntled and thirsty, we continued descending the long and winding road from the Hill Country until suddenly, up ahead in the distance, we saw a shimmering light – a small roadside cafe that was open! We settled in for a hot cup of tea, and it was an absolute life saver.
We continued winding our way down out of the Hill Country, then headed north-west to Negombo. Martin, Ren and I slept at various stages of the journey, while Denzil continued driving through the night. When we eventually arrived at our hotel in Negombo (Rani Beach Resort), we’d been on the road for 13 hours. Denzil had been driving non-stop for 17 hours, and we felt terrible he and Martin faced a further 20km journey to Kandana. This had been a memorable road trip, and I really valued our time in the Hill Country.
We checked in, made our way to our second floor room and crashed. I didn’t even open my pack…
SHE SAID... We started our travel day in Kandy with a smaller breakfast than normal. We skipped the Sri Lankan breakfast and opted for what I thought would be the lighter Western breakfast option of eggs on toast, but we also got pineapple juice, a fruit platter, waffles with treacle, and toast and jam!
We were a little sad to be leaving the comfort of the gorgeous Viyana Boutique Hotel, which we would highly recommend (especially any of the suite rooms overlooking the lake) if you value proximity to the city centre and highly efficient but personalised service in an intimate setting.
We then prepared for a long day trip to
Bogawantalawa via Hatton. Both these places were of high significance for my parents, as my Mum was born and lived in Bogawantalawa for the first twenty or so years of her life, and my parents met while both working as teachers in Hatton.
My Uncle Martin (who lives Melbourne and happened to be visiting Sri Lanka at the same time as us) had organised my cousin Denzil to drive him to visit Grandpa Roman's grave in Bogawantalawa, so we basically tagged along. Denzil picked
us up from our hotel at 10am and then proceeded up the hill to pick up Uncle Martin. And thus began our epic road trip.
Getting out of Kandy in morning traffic was a bit hectic, but the traffic eased as we passed through the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens and the Peradeniya University where Dad had studied. It was an interesting drive, and we got to witness village and street culture close-up as we navigated Gampola and headed towards Nawalapitiya. We saw lots of banana leaves and palm leaf decorations on many shop entrances, and we found out that this was called
thoranam. It marked a Hindu festival and is also used when celebrating happy occasions like a marriage, a birth or a new business.
We stopped briefly in
Nawalapitiya to visit Aloysius (Uncle Martin and my Mum's first cousin), who I had never met before. It was a lovely although fleeting visit, as we still had a long way to drive, and we left with a hand full of big green guavas from Uncle Aloysius’ garden. It was also a good time to leave as the questions about why Andrew and I weren't married had just started. We
had been forewarned that Sri Lankans aren’t subtle in their questions about anything they find curious about visitors, so we fully expected to be asked this question at some point on the trip. 😊
It was lunchtime by the time we drove into the thriving town of
Hatton. We stopped at Priyangani Restaurant for what turned out to be a fabulous lunch of rice and curry. It was in a buffet style setting, and I decided to only have the vegetarian options of
dahl (lentil curry), green bean curry, beetroot curry,
mukunuwenna mallung (sessile joyweed stir-fry with shredded coconut) and
pol sambol (shredded coconut with onions, chilli and lime). I couldn't believe that a passing street side eatery had such delicious food, but Denzil explained the establishment had been around for many years and had a good reputation. This was the closest thing to the flavours of Mum’s cooking I’d tasted in Sri Lanka so far.
Andrew ordered the fish pan rolls (filled and rolled up crepes, that are crumbed and fried), which were also delicious, but I was slightly put off by the fact that they ignored the number of rolls he’d ordered and brought out the
whole stack of rolls – with the idea that you were charged for how many you ate. This in itself isn’t bad, but it’s gross that the ones uneaten are recycled back into the next order. I tried not to think of how many people had prodded and poked at the rolls already.
The usual afternoon thunder storm hit while we ate lunch, and the act of walking to Denzil’s car, which was parked just outside the door, was drenching. The roads had been very good so far, but they started to show obvious signs of low maintenance the further we climbed into the tea plantations. Denzil did a fabulous job of keeping us safe on a narrow road with buses hurtling at us, and all manner of vehicles overtaking on blind corners in very heavy rain.
Regardless of the rain, the drive up into tea estate land was spectacularly beautiful and atmospheric. Both my grandfathers were in tea estate administration, and their families lived in housing on the land of the estate. As a result, this landscape had been the backdrop to both my parents’ childhood, and I could totally see why they had always talked of
it so affectionately.
We headed to the Holy Rosary Church in Bogawantalawa where my maternal Grandpa Roman, my Uncle Douglas and both my great-grandparents Morris and Mary Pereira were buried. I have heard so many stories about all of them over the years, but sadly had never met any of them. The cemetery was in front of a cute blue and white parish church where my Mum and her entire family went to Mass every Sunday for a large part of their childhood.
While Uncle Martin was chatting to the parish priest, a young boy from the school attached to the church walked up the driveway to us with much curiosity. However, he completely ignored Denzil and me, and bee-lined for Andrew, so we realised where his curiosity lay. And his curiosity was rewarded when Andrew gave him a pen from Australia that he was very pleased with. We thought he said his name was Thanushan, but he was very softly spoken, and Andrew thought he had said Thompson, so Thompson it was. He didn’t seem to mind… and Denzil and I chose not to correct Andrew until we were back in the car. 😄
We then
drove to the Bogawantalawa Tea Estate where my Grandpa Roman was the Manager and Tea Maker in charge of tasting and grading the tea. The very nice current factory manager was very gracious in giving us a tour of his house which was Uncle Martin and Mum’s childhood home, and a place the whole Pereira family has many fond memories of. He also walked us through the factory which was partially operational that day. The process from green leaf to three graded orange pekoe teas was very interesting, as was the tasting of tea in order to grade it. It wasn’t dissimilar to a wine tasting, with all the same slurping, sloshing and spitting involved.
Andrew asked where we could buy some of the Bogawantalawa Estate tea, but buying single estate tea is apparently a complicated process. However, as we left we were very kindly presented with two 1kg parcels of tea!
It was 5pm by now and we still had a four hour drive ahead of us to get to Colombo. However, Denzil very kindly persisted
in driving 6km out of the way so we could see Devon Falls, which are quite beautiful waterfalls and named after a pioneering English Coffee planter.
It was getting late and we desperately wanted to stop for a cup of tea, but ironically, even though we were in the heart of tea country and surrounded by tea bushes on all sides, all the tea shops had closed for the day. We drove through a couple of small towns but couldn’t find anything suitable, but finally stopped at an advertised rest house at about 7:30pm. Uncle Martin checked with the woman who seemed to be in charge if we could order four cups of tea and use their toilet, but after we’d used their very basic toilet, we were abruptly informed that the kitchen was unable to make four cups of tea! But they wanted to charge us for the toilets anyway. As you can imagine, this caused a few mutterings from us. However, just down the hill we thankfully came upon a road side
kade (tea house), and they were only too happy to make us hot cups of tea to pep us up for the rest of the
journey. I was flagging by this point, so I was in awe of Denzil who was still very alert and seemingly not tired.
Denzil was supposed to drop us off in Colombo where we were going to catch a taxi on to Negombo, but he very quietly and non-negotiably insisted on driving us all the way to our hotel. It had been a long but fabulous day, and we had very much enjoyed seeing a part of the country that was so meaningful to Mum and Dad. It had also been lovely hanging out with Uncle Martin and Denzil (we had only met Denzil for the first time a few days earlier), and hearing their stories and sharing their experiences.
We arrived in Negombo at 11pm and checked into our hotel, and the process was mercifully very quick. We went for a quick walk around the hotel to get our bearings, buy some water and stretch our legs, and almost immediately noticed that the three-wheeler drivers were a bit more determined here than we'd encountered before. This was a sure sign that we were now in a more touristy area.
We also noticed a lot of dogs
out and about, and two male dogs were suddenly very territorial when a little puppy engrossed in playing with Andrew walked back to our hotel with us (obviously overstepping an invisible territory marking). We used our best dog command voices to tell them to back off, and stayed outside our hotel until the puppy made it safely back home.
Back at our hotel, we were less than impressed with our dimly lit worn-out hotel room. However, it was late and we were tired, so we went straight to bed (trying not to get grumpy about the shabby polyester sheets). We thought we’d reassess the situation the next morning. It hadn’t been the most auspicious start to our stay in Negombo.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
So much tea, so little time.
My heart broke hearing of the young girl with a damaged eye and needing glasses. Simple things to us, very big to them. If we get to Sri Lanka I'd love to experience this area of the country. The hill country sounds amazing.