Nuwara Eliya

Hey everyone,

Last night we continued our mini dance party until about 10.30, at which time we retired to our room. It was nice seeing everyone smiling and our tour guide and bus driver dancing too!!

We slept pretty well and checked out at 8.30. On the bus ride back into Kandy, Darsh told us about the process of meeting a partner and getting married here. Women usually get married from 25-30 and men around 30. If someone hasn’t found a partner in a typical way, parents advertise in the newspaper about their child, detailing their age, job, horoscope etc. Then both sides meet up and see if the match will work. Something that is checked thoroughly is whether the horoscope of both sides matches up well. There are 21 aspects to be compared, and if at least 50% of them match up ok you can get married. Some people produce fake horoscopes to ensure enough matches up! I met Rob online, so I had a bit of a laugh picturing myself responding to a newspaper ad about him!! Apparently most couples honeymoon just outside of Kandy. There is still a class system here and it isn’t too common to marry outside of your class - the highest being a Buddhist farmer, the lowest a potter. They also have dowries here, including money, pockets of land and goods such as appliances. Rob’s just getting a whole lot of Collingwood craziness when he marries me later this year!!

Our bus journey today was approximately three hours. I had a grand old time on the bus today! For the first few days we sat in the back row, but quickly realised we couldn’t hear the information very well. Hazel and Rob kindly let Darsh know, and he organised for the assistant driver to take our back seat, Darsh to have his seat, and us to have Darsh’s previous seat down near the front. It was very kind of him as we can now hear all the information properly, and Rob and Hazel are right behind us. Rob leant me his guidebook on Sri Lanka in the bus today and I really enjoyed reading up on some additional history and facts. As a result the post is be a bit longer today!!

Sri Lanka is slightly smaller in area than Ireland and slightly bigger than West Virginia. That’s why it feels like we are covering such a lot of ground in our two week trip. It wasn’t until 1972 - 24 years after gaining independence from Britain - that Ceylon changed its name to Sri Lanka. Darsh tells me it was called Lanka all along which means ‘island’. The ‘Sri’ that was added in front is auspicious and means ‘resplendent’. Interestingly the Arabs called Sri Lanka ‘Serendib’ and it is said this is where the English word ‘serendipity’ originated from (because they landed here by chance and the island was a happy, beautiful surprise).

The average life expectancy here is 77, and the literacy rate 93%. Sadly they have one of the world’s highest suicide rates, which unfortunately is probably a growing problem with the current ongoing economic crisis. Interestingly, Sri Lanka had the world’s first female prime minister. This was after PM Bandaranaike was assassinated and his wife took over from him in 1960.

As I mentioned in the last couple of days, Kandy withstood the various colonial incursions while the rest of the country was taken over. The British took over from the Dutch when the Dutch lost to France in the Napoleonic wars. However, the eventual British takeover of the town in 1815 wasn’t due to military superiority, but rather to the unpopularity of the king at the time, the same king who impaled protesters of the artificial lake he had built in the town (I can see why he was unpopular!!). He strikes an interesting similarity to the family in government at the moment that the Sri Lankan people are protesting about - the guide book said in recent years journalists who have spoken out against them have met an untimely death also.

The colonial invasions aren’t the only conflict that Sri Lanka has suffered though. Most recently, from 1983-2009 they had a civil war. This was due to unrest between different ethnic groups - mainly Sinhalese against Tamils (who interestingly all share the same new year that has been celebrated the last few days). In what has been termed ‘Black July’, the Sinhalese stormed the Tamil area of Colombo (in the market area our walking tour took us to) and murdered approximately 2000 Tamils as well as destroying buildings. There was a lot of conflict for the next 26 years, until the war came to an end in May 2009. Sadly I think there are still tensions from time to time.

While the northern hills area we have just come from was the last surviving independent Sri Lankan kingdom, home to lots of ruins, fortresses etc, the southern hills area is largely a product of the British colonial era. They built British style buildings, railways etc, and also introduced tea to Sri Lanka. Firstly they introduced coffee, but the soil wasn’t suitable due to a fungus so they tried tea instead. It took off in the conditions here and the first official plantation was started in 1867 by the Scottish James Taylor. Lots of Tamils from the south of India came to work in the thriving plantations and were called the ‘plantation Tamils’. This is why in this region today, 60% of the population are Tamil compared to 15% of the population of Sri Lanka being Tamil.

Today, Sri Lanka is the fourth largest producer of tea in the world behind China, India and Kenya. However, at the moment there are issues due to the power outages. Machines that are usually used as part of the process are unable to operate due to the power cuts at times, and therefore the vicious cycle of no foreign currency continues.

Along our journey today, we saw a Hindu ceremony taking place in the street, and a new year game much like hitting a piñata going on as well. We watched from the bus while a young boy had a go. Along the way, we stopped at Rothschild’s Tea Plantation to stretch our legs, and then at a viewpoint where we enjoyed some sunny views of waterfalls.

From here our ascent began towards Sri Lanka’s highest town at 1893m above sea level, Nuwara Eliya. Our ears popped, the temperature dropped, and we had to turn off the AC on the bus so it had the capability to climb the hills. A man trying to sell us some flowers legged it up each section of the hairpin bends, chasing our bus and getting closer and closer to being clipped. He later reappeared in the tray of a truck that overtook us, STILL holding the flowers! We all roared with laughter. When we arrived at the tea factory we were touring, he was there again. Our beautiful guide Darsh bought his flowers.

The tea factory we toured was Damro Tea, the oldest tea factory in Sri Lanka (175 years old). The property we were at consisted of 1200 acres, but throughout Sri Lanka they have 54,000 acres. They have 600 ladies that pick tea leaves. This must be back breaking, hot work. Due to it being a long weekend, the machines were not in operation. But we got to see the troughs where the 3000 kg of tea leaves produced each day by the factory dry. They lose 40% of their moisture and are then crushed and rolled, before undergoing oxidation to ferment.

Damro auction 80% of their tea leaves to companies such as Dilmah and Lipton, and then sell the remaining 20% in their shop. We enjoyed some tea samples and cake as a group before ending up in the shop where we bought some tea. At the start of the trip I had told Mum I would buy some for my Nan who enjoys tea. Sadly she is not very well at all at the moment, but I still bought a box “for Nan” as well nonetheless. We are trying to experience as much as we can and continue having a good time as this is what she would have wanted. She has always said this to us before we have gone away.

Then we arrived in Nuwara Eliya. The town is referred to sometimes as “Little England” as it was established by the British in the 1800s, and has a much cooler climate than the rest of Sri Lanka (top of 22 degrees today!). We had a laugh that the locals were wearing beanies and coats. As a result of British influence, the town has a racecourse and a golf course. Back in the day, it was a bit of a pleasure retreat that the English would go to on the weekend to escape the heat. After a quick orientation with Darsh, Mum, Carmel and I went for a very wet walk in Victoria Park. “Little England” certainly lived up to its name - it absolutely belted down and our legs got saturated. But we enjoyed the pretty flowers nevertheless, and the small museum which had old photographs of the town. We saw photos of the town hall, railway construction, and some photos of when Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth visited in 1954.

We checked in at our hotel, changed out of our sodden clothes and then Mum and I headed off to the Grand Hotel. Our guide had called up and tried to book us high tea but had been told it was booked out. I suggested to Mum that we walk up there, act naive and see how we go. So we strode in with confidence and just said “may we have high tea please?” and were seated at a table with a high tea tower in front of us before we knew it. The food was beautiful, as were the surroundings. After the tower we also ordered a cake with strawberries on top. Confusingly, the waiter first brought us the display one which was really dry and awful. He raced back over and apologised about 20 times for the mix up. It turns out it was actually meant to be full of ice cream and jelly. The new one we received was delicious!! All up the whole experience cost us $50 - lots cheaper than any other high tea we have ever had!!

Afterwards we sat and enjoyed some live music for a while. We reflected that this hotel would’ve been the exact sort of place that Nan and Pa would have stayed at and enjoyed if they had visited here. The building was beautiful and very historic, a bit like a Sri Lankan equivalent of Raffles in Singapore. It was originally the governor’s house that was built in 1828 and later converted into a hotel. There have been many famous guests over the years including the Queen and Prince Philip, Tito, Richard Nixon, Yuri Gagarin and Gandhi.

We walked back to the hotel via the racecourse. There was some sort of festival going on but you had to buy a ticket to get in so we just had a quick look.

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox