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Published: January 7th 2013
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Tea, is served. And neither is it some sissy rose petal jasmine tinted version with a twist of ginger.The air of the mountains hangs heavy with the scent of your basic black hard core traditional Ceylon brew. Not that I'm any type of connoisseur but if the choice at breakfast is tea or coffee, the little black leaf gets the nod.
Sri Lanka's Hill Country is tea central of the galaxy and travelling to and through the region is half the fun, where the journey itself becomes an essential ingredient of the travel recipe.
Sure you could jump the bus but "the little red engine that huffed and puffed" is THE way to slip by the area.
Leaving Colombo, urban sprawl quickly turns to rice paddies, then banana plantations before finally climbing up and settling amongst those fabled tea fields. A TGV or Bullet Train could cover the distance to Kandy in the blink of an eye but the observation carriage of the Sri Lankan Inter City rattler allows the opportunity to absorb the passing landscapes at a rickety chulalug meander.
The trains themselves are like some faded sport star. They could perhaps be described as having
a "mothball heritage" appearance (read: dilapidated rust bucket). Creature comforts are noticeably thin on the ground. Air conditioning is dependant on the outside air temperature and how far you can raise the windows. A couple of dust laden fans drone out a token effort at cooling things down but you are basically at the mercy of the ambient weather conditions. The walls are blistered, the fixtures a classic holdover from Ceylon's colonial byways and full of the type of faults generic to all of Sri Lanka's public infrastructure. In the midst, pristinely decked out head to toe in starched white flannels, conductors officiously march down the aisles clipping tickets. It's a flashback to the heady days of a newly acquired independence. I'll wager the scene hasn't skipped a beat since 1948. And that's the 1st class carriage.
Mosey on back to cattle class and a different beast emerges. Forget the fans. Forget the reserved seating. Absolutely forget any hint of stiff upper lip British etiquette. You want to see a feeble old lady with a walking stick transform into a Usaine Bolt and Mike Tyson hybrid? Wave a vacant 3rd class train seat in front of her.
As
Reading the sports section
Boy our cricketers are a joke. much as I get off on rubbing shoulders with Joe Average on public transport, in the Hill Country it was time to fess up a few extra rupee for the "luxury" of 1st class and leave the carnage of "people ville" class behind.
The result is a gilt edged panorama of a Sri Lankan icon whilst slumped inside an equally iconic iron horse relic. These museum pieces don't so much careen from town to town but rather clank, rattle and roll, punch drunk from over use and scant maintenance. The journey times are just long enough for an insight and short enough to stave off scenic overkill.
You wouldn't want to travel any other way.
Yeatesy
More images at:
www.colvinyeates.zenfolio.com
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Anastasia78
Anastasia78
Beautifully written!
Really enjoyed the description of the train ride. I agree. I wouldn't want to travel any other way.