New Country...New Adventure

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Our hotel Cinnamon Red did not look great to be honest but we got a high level corner room with great views overy Colombo. Of course first thing we did was to head to the pool....rooftop infinity..! OMG.. the family will know that I am not great on heights but I did have a swim and lay on a lounger albeit not too close to the edge. Again the view was amazing across Colombo and out to sea. Colombo is about 2 million people biggest city in Sri Lanka (21 million total).
We are only in Colombo for the night so dinner then bed and then breakfast. Our package in all Sri Lankan hotels includes breakfast and dinner buffets so it will be a battle of wills to try to keep the waist lines under control. We could not fault the meals at Cinnamon Red. Colombo is very humid and we look forward to going inland.
First impression of Sri Lanka. . alot cleaner than India! Pradeep had explained to us that all hospitals, Schools, and universities are free and there is a minimum wage of around 3000 rupees per day. There are about 105 Sri Lankan rupees to a NZ dollar.

We are excited to be going to Kandy for 2 nights. Kandy was the old Capital of the Sri Lankan kings and also into British rule. It's only 150 kms to Kandy and on the way we stop at a spice plantation for a tour. The man who takes us is very knowledgeable and despite it being a tourist thing it is really good. Also have a cooking demo of a Dahl curry which we eat for lunch. We are also booked for a visit to an elephant orphanage but read bad TripAdvisor reviews re welfare of the elephants so decide not to...Pradeep our driver / guide is very accommodating around this.
Our hotel The Earls Regency is 20 minutes out of the city and is lovely. They have a lot of local weddings here and one is concluding as we arrive...beautiful dresses etc. We have a lovely room on 4th floor (top) with a balcony and a lovely view over pool and lovely green valley and the hills beyond. It is still pretty warm here so off to the beautiful pool..it is probably the best we have had nestled between natural rocks with water falls ferns etc. Very large and lovely and cool. Beautiful meal that night.
We are picked up by Pradeep at 10 in the morning after a lovely breakfast and off into Kandy. The population of Kandy is 200000 the second largest city of Sri Lanka but as the street's are all pretty small the traffic gets quite heavy so we park on the edge of the lake and take about a 15 min walk into the city around the edge of the lake. This lake is man made and is a holy lake. ..a Buddhist temple there has a casket containing a tooth of Buddha and called The Tooth Temple. Unlike another man made holy lake we have seen...Pushkar in Rajestan India....this one is clean and without the overflowing sewerage. In fact there is a flotilla of municipal boats patrolling it and cleaning. On the way we pass the Queens bath house which is being restored by Unesco. Everything nice and clean and it is an offense to litter. The whole scene is almost reminiscent of a Swiss or a northern Italian lakeside town.
We leave Pradeep and arrange to meet him at the car at 1.
We popped in to a little restaurant and had a lovely fresh orange and carrot juice for a dollar 50...looking at the menu curry and rice meals very cheap also. A lovely town.
We fell for a great little scam here. We were waiting to cross the road and a guy came up to us and said " hello remember me from the hotel...I took your bags to the room".Of course we didn't remember him but said oh yes of course we do. He then said great market just over here for today only...come I will show you and come to my brother's shop. I did get some nice linen shorts for half what they asked for and a few other things. So we weren't scammed out of money or anything like that but it was quite cute. Of course the guy didn't work at the hotel...but no harm done...!
Rest of the day at the pool.
We decide not to do the Botanical Garden tour next day so spend the whole day relaxing at hotel pool etc.
On 26/10 day 52 of our trip we are off to Nuwara Eliya the centre of High Country tea production. There are 3 levels of tea...low country, mid level and high where the higher the level the better the tea. Pradeep stops on the side if the road where the ladies are coming down the steps from the tea plantation with their loads if tea....around 7 kg at a time. They must empty their bags or baskets every 2 hours so the leaves bint spoil. Each ladies load is weighed and noted against name. They need to do 18kg each a day to earn R2400....NZD 24. We will think of these poor ladies when we drink our Dilmah tea which is one of the big brands. Incidentally the brands such as Dilmah do not have there own estates and factories. Once a week there is a big tea auction/market in Colombo where they buy the tea in 50 kg bags with BOP being a breakfast tea, BOF being a lighter tea and PEKOE being used for Earl Grey.
Later we have a tour of a tea factory..most of the factories date back to the British period and also some of the machinery although some of the machinery is newer.
The middle shoots are used for the famous white tea which is very expensive.
On to our hotel The Old Tea Factory.
All the tea factories in the higher regions seem to be built of corrugated iron and there is a reason which I think is something to do with temperature. They aren't particularly attractive structures and our hotel looks exactly the same...a slab sided corrugated iron building of about 5 stories. The inside is amazing ......alot of the old machines etc but in a totally modern environment. Absolutely beautiful. The restaurant for example is the original drying floor and so on. It is in a tea plantation and has its own mini tea factory only making tea for its own use or for sale to guests. You can actually go and spend time picking and they will process and pack your leaves.
We did not have time for that but bought some of the different tea grades.
The meals and ambiance were exceptional and we had an upper corner room with beautiful views. Sadly just one night.
In the morning off to Ella which Pradeep explains is popular with backpackers. Lots of bars restaurants and homestays There is a train from Colombo. We stop for luck at a place called Chill which is full of backpackers and have a nice lunch. As we finish it buckets down with rain and we need to wait 20 minutes or so for it to ease Then off to our hotel 98 Acre Tea Estate & Spa. The road, while short is pretty much a 4 WD road having been washed out by the rains and then we arrive at 98 Acre & check in and get taken to our room by golf buggy. It is incredible...large and made of stone and wood looking out over the most incredible jungle Vista. ..as Sandra says it could have been in a safari resort in AfriCA. ...we have not been there but seen pictures...!
The big open dining area is lovely food and the infinity pool beautiful. Unfortunately not enough time to fully enjoy but we manage a swim after breakfast before embarking on our 7 hour drive to The Heritage Allunghalle at Bentota Beach south of Colombo. We have high hopes here as it is the same hotel group as the Old Tea Factory.
A long but interesting drive much of it wending our way down from the mountains. The little towns we go through are lovely and clean...we stop for lunch in one and have all sorts of stuff put in front of us including small whole fish...quite nice...devilled chicken which is a hot curry etc . The whole lot for 3 is about $12. After lunch I buy an aged Arrack to take back to NZ...this is the National coconut based liquor .
Finally we arrive at our next home for 2 nights and decide with Pradeep to relax the next day rather than go to the Turtle Hatchery. Local fishermen collect eggs from beaches and take them here and some 100000 turtles have been released into wild in last 2 years.
Our room is lovely.....an upgraded one...on ground floor with a big deck and pool just a few metres away with the beach just beyond. The beach is beautiful...lovely deep sand clean and beautiful blue surf.We feel at home straight away and settle in with loungers just outside the door.
The buffets are amazing.. huge grilled prawns etc....we could go on and on about the food...
The surf was quite big and as is usual in Asian countries they are not too keen on you going in too deep. However we did have a swim in the sea and it was wonderful.
Prandeep picks us up at 9 for 3 hour drive to airport and we need to be there at least 2 hours before our 2pm flight to Cochi in India.

Sri Lanka we voted a wonderful place and certainly a destination we could come to again. We loved the clean beach aspect, in fact the whole culture of cleanliness. We only saw a small part, although it is a small island...280 kms long and less than that wide. We would like to go up north ...this is the Tamil stronghold. .the Tamil are originally from the Tamil Nadhu province of India and of course they fought a bitter civil war in Sri Lanka for many years. All i's peaceful now though.
Sri Lanka seems a very progressive and modern country certainly compared with most of India.The majority of the population are Buddhists although there are also Hindus, Moslems and Christians mainly Roman Catholic.
The lack of rubbish and pollution is the biggest factor.
The next part of our journey is to Kerala which Keralalians call God's Own Country.

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Photos

Restaurant on Bentota Beach Sri Lanka
We had lunch here at tables in the sand