Sri Lankan Gardens, Tea Plantations, and Mystery Smells??

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Our first stop today was a gem shop that designs, makes, and sells jewelry. This wasn't on the agenda. Their prices were so ridiculous. But it was a short visit and then we were off to a botanical garden, one of four near Kandy I think. Some of us walked with Sujee, by accident, and he showed us some great stuff. Fruit bats, tiny bees he found by accident, and he is quite knowledgeable about plants. I was content to walk with Sujee and hear what he had to say about certain areas of the garden. This place was not cheap to enter. It was 1100 LKR, although I'm sure Sri Lankans don't have to pay that much.

Afterwards we drove back to Kandy and I walked around the local market with Danielle and Nicole taking lots of pictures. This market sold clothing, but mostly fruits and vegetables. It was great because people were friendly, but don't speak a lot of English and they don't deal with a lot of tourists, so they let us take all the pictures we wanted and no one asked us for money or even really tried to sell us anything. We got to taste different types of mango too. My favorite. There was one guy who really wanted us to visit his shop that sold the same ayurvedic stuff we saw when we toured the ayurvedic garden earlier this week, so we went and his prices were much cheaper. I ended up getting nutmeg, cocoa, and vanilla bean pods. Yay!

Got a bite to eat at The Bake House and then we were tired. We went back to my room and had shandys and then it was time to go to bed.

The next morning I laid by the pool and then we left around noon to go to our next destination, Nuwara Eliya and tea country. We toured Glenlock Tea Factory and took some pictures. I don't think anyone from our group was super interested in this, but it was a worthy stop. Sri Lanka is known for Ceylon tea, after all. Our hotel, Leisure Hotel, for the evening was beautiful and had great views of tea country as well. On the way to the hotel, the bus had to climb several switchbacks and at the bottom of the hill was a boy selling flowers. Sujee said some people did this after school to help their families financially. Every time we passed this boy, he would run up the side of the very steep hill and meet us at the next switchback. He must be very fit! He did this at least three times and then Sujee asked us if we would like to buy flowers from him. We were so impressed so we said yes, of course! He gave a flower to every girl on the bus and was all smiles.

The next day I was excited to walk 8km in Hortons Plain Nature Reserve. I had some serious rice belly and was hoping this walk would help remedy the situation. Our group managed to finish the hike in 2 1/2 hours, even with a visit to Baker's Waterfall. The highlights were Mini World's End and World's End, both of which are viewpoints with huge drop offs. I expected a bit more dramatic drop off, but the views were stunning. We arrived quite early so the mist and fog hadn't arrived yet. Sure enough, this walk did me a world of good! I felt so much better afterwards. I just wanted to keep going! I did not want to get back on the bus. Afterwards we went to a roadside place that Sujee knew about and had some of the most delicious food of the whole trip. Samosas with hard boiled eggs in them! Never had this before. Yummy. But no rice!

Back on the bus we had a bit of a drive to our hotel in Belihuloya. We stayed at a rest house on a river that was so loud we couldn't even have a conversation if we were standing outside. The hotel is called Belihuloya Heritage Rest House and it is run by Ceylon Hotels Corporation, the same corporation that owns Galle Face Hotel in Colombo, which is where I'm staying at the end of my trip. I hoped Galle Face was cleaner than this one. My room looked beautiful and had a beautiful view of the river and a little balcony with chairs, but the door to the balcony was locked and there was no key in the room. I couldn't hear the river in my room. I really liked the room, but the bathroom was absolutely disgusting. I didn't even want to take a shower in there. I was so disappointed as I think that for what I paid for the tour, basic cleanliness should be a given where we stay. And I kept noticing a weird smell, but only after I unpacked. The room smelled fine when I first arrived. Where was this mystery smell coming from? My shoes! Good grief, it was a powerful smell emanating from my trainers that I trekked in that morning. It was like a cross between cat piss and mold. What the hell had I stepped in? No one else seemed to have this problem with their shoes. How do I know? I asked! I hoped it would go away when they were dry.

It didn't.

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Photos

Jackfruit
At the botanical garden in Kandy

Kandy Botanical Garden
One of four botanical gardens in this area

Comments

[BugsBunny]

These are banana flowers.