Advertisement
Published: August 29th 2018
Edit Blog Post
23A2FB53-8C8E-4A65-BC83-084822D91A03.
The brick factory wasn’t quite what I was expecting! So after the weekend I was picked up by Anton, the centre driver (feeling uncomfortably like Driving Miss Daisy, except I sat in the front!) and we headed off inland to my first stop, Kurunegala. I can’t say how long it took me to get that off pat. Pathetic! Every time I say to Anton I want to see a monkey/elephant/snake. He hasn’t managed that so far! Apart from the first bit of freeway, which was empty of traffic, it was all on small roads and through a succession of small towns. There was a lot to see along the way, so much local produce for sale on little stalls, corn, watermelon, coconuts, cashews, papaya and teak growing. Anton knows I want to know what everything is and gave me lots of info. Would I like to see a brick factory? Gazing upwards, I expected something like the towering chimneys and potent smell of my childhood trips to visit family in Peterborough. Nothing like that at all. All the bricks are shaped by hand and dried in the sun before being baked in ovens, so there were a lot of little ‘factories’, with neat little piles. After that, every time I
saw more than 3 of the same thing for sale I said to Anton, there’s a (mosquito net) factory, which he found hilarious!
The traffic was something else. Not for the fainthearted. I can see wh6 some colleagues choose to sit in the back, less stressful. At one point there seemed to be about 8 vehicles across the road, us being one of them. I tried not to shriek too much at the accelerating and slamming of brakes. The journey took about 4 hours and we only stopped a few times so I could take some photos. It was 53 miles! I dropped my bags at the hotel and got my room, which is spotless, spacious, comfortable but with a terrible WiFi system of vouchers and limited data, it’s been driving me nuts. Also, it’s virtually impossible to connect an iPhone or iPad. I have to keep going back to reception to ask for help, which, quite frankly, none of us are enjoying! But he staff are very sweet. My bed had a towel pet elephant and flower petals. The pool looked great on Tripadvisor but has no sunbeds and even if it did I would not be displaying
myself on them to the constant crowd of local young men frolicking about in it.
After looking for things to do, there was a fairtrade shop mentioned on Tripadvisor, like Barefoot but cheaper. Anton was happy to take me wherever I wanted to go so we drove up Colombia Road, quite far out of the centre, there it was. It had some really nice stuff, toys and clothes for children, what I thought were bedspreads but turned out to be saris, so I got a few bits and bobs (not a sari, they are super heavy and yards and yards of material). The shop assistant followed me round more or less breathing down my neck. I ignored her and she got the message. After buying some nice things she asked if I wanted to see the factory. Here we go again, obviously it’s factory day today. Again, a few hand looms at the back of the shop where they employ 10 women. They were on their tea break so I didn’t see them working.
I asked Anton if we could go for a cup of tea, and he took me to a VERY local place, of the spit
and flypaper variety, where I was such a novelty I didn’t dare get my phone out and take pictures. They gave us their best sups and saucers and it was about 20p a cup! Then we went to a Hindu temple, which needed a bit of a sweep up. There were men giving some statues a bath and polishing a big pile of brass bells but there was rubbish all over the floor. Not a woman in sight but they were very smiley at me. A few men were praying. I liked it. The lake was just round a few corners and I took a few photos. There was a turtle popping his head out but he disappeared as soon as I opened the car door. A workman came over and asked Anton in singhala if I wanted to see an elephant. There would be a charge and it would be chained up, so no thank you!
The next two days were work, in the centre of town, which is a trek from the hotel and very built up, so nothing much to see. There seem to be a lot of hospitals and clinics. For lunch we went downstairs
to the restaurant underneath (see pic of menu), which was very busy and again they were very smiley, where are you from etc. We had things like really big samosas and stuff wrapped in roti, mainly fish curry and egg, 25p each and absolutely delicious.
Tomorrow is a travel day, to Nuwara Eliya via Kandy. I want to see the botanical gardens and visit a tea factory (a real factory this time) if we have time. The drive should take about 5 hours, winding uphill into the Up Country. Exciting!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.109s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0592s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb