Sri Lanka day 23 – Ella to Arugam Bay

Posted on Thursday, 05 May 2011 by Hattie

The bus journey from Ella to Arugam Bay involves a change at Moneragala and takes 5-and-a-half hours, all for a mere 500 rupees or 2.75 pounds for the two of us. Good value even if we do have to stand for the first 50 minutes of this two hour journey, but grindingly slow. The bus is heaving, not only with people but luggage as well and we only just manage to squeeze on with Andy half hanging out of the door! Luggage, stowed alongside the driver, is re-arranged to accommodate our rucksacks, but I feel sorry for the people who are sitting adjacent to the driver who spend most of the journey trying to prevent the mound of luggage toppling on top of them. The bus to Monaragala leaves Ella at 9am and arrives in plenty of time to spare before the 11.20am leaves for Arugum Bay, giving us time to use the non-too salubrious facilities (10 rupees) round the back of the station and purchase a much welcome ice cream and some snacks. Moneragala is a transport hub for the region and the focal point seems to be its large and bustling bus depot surrounded by shops. There is a 20-minute lunch stop between Monaragala and Arugum Bay, very civilised. But Andy makes the mistake of getting off for some rotis and looses his seat to a man who knows very well the seat is taken, but neverthess isn’t going to budge. A little diversion ensues when two policeman stop the bus as we are approaching Pottuvil and search the locals’ bags. We’ve no idea what is going on, but there has obviously been some sort of tip off, although they appear not to find anything and we are soon on our way again until a few kilometres further on the bus stops at a local police compound and the police take a man is taken off the bus, leaving us none the wiser. Arugum Bay is a small fishing village with allegedly the best surfing in Sri Lanka. It is the main beach resort on the east coast although it is far from a tourist mecca. Like elsewhere in Sri Lanka everything closes early and people are tucked up in bed by 10pm. There are numerous guest houses offering cabanas on the beach stretching a kilometre or so along the coast road. All seemingly bereft of guests. The season doesn’t start until mid May and there is hardly a soul here. It is difficult to imagine that this place gets so busy in the high season that people have been known to sleep on the beach. The sandy curve of Arugam Bay stretching from Pottuvil in the North to the Surf Point in the south is pounded by waves that sweep obliquely round the beach like a Mexican wave. Towards the southern end a flotilla of outrigger canoes lay beached after the day’s fishing and the restaurants and guesthouses are hard to spot amongst the palms. Beyond the fishing boats the breaks are good for surfing and there are a few out there today. We are staying at the Tsunami Hotel, right on the beach with a view to die for. Not the most auspicious of names, admittedly, and one that is in the throes of being changed to the less exotic but possibly more sensitive, Sun Hotel. A start has been made by painting out the unwanted letters on the current signage. To our surprise also staying here are two young New Zealand women who we first met on the train to Ella and have kept bumping into ever since.

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Sri Lankaday 22 – Ella

Posted on Wednesday, 04 May 2011 by Hattie

A short tuk-tuk drive away from Ella village is a cave up in the hills, a rock temple and Rawana Falls, the latter right on the roadside and attracting enough people to make it worthwhile for the locals to have a few stalls of tat for the tourists. The waterfall is impressive and as well as the tourists that stop here, it is also a hangout for monkeys and a wash place for local Sri Lankans. The cave is not worth the slog up overgrown steps, which turn out to be impassable (at least for someone in a dress and sandals) just before the entrance to the cave and we have to turn back disappointed.

The rock temple on the other hand is definitely worth a visit.  This 2000-year-old temple is built under a rock overhang with a bodhi tree alongside draped with a cloth.  The driver disappears to find a monk who opens the temple so we can take a look inside where there is a particularly serene reclining buddha, two sitting buddhas and decorations painted on the walls and ceiling. 

When we arrive at the waterfall my foot is bleeding profusely but there is no sign of any cut and no pain.  My foot continues to bleed all afternoon and I decide to pay a visit to the medical centre.  The centre is open but the doctor is absent and won’t be back until 6.  By which my foot has stopped bleeding and all that is evident is a small pin prick between two of my toes.  Apparently, the most likely explanation is a leech has taken a liking to me and having had its fill, dropped off.  According to Frosty the vet, who we meet in a local bar, leeches don’t carry any disease and the bleeding only last for abut four hours.  Being suitably reassured, We sit back and enjoy our cocktails!

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Sri Lanka day 21 – Ella

Posted on Tuesday, 03 May 2011 by Hattie

Ella

For those who cannot face the challenge of Adam’s Peak (2242m) with its 8000 or so steps to the top, there is always Little Adam’s Peak in Ella.  It may be considerably smaller but it is much gentler on the joints.  It is an easy stroll up through the tea gardens, with a short, not-to-steep climb up some steps for the final ascent to the top and good panoramic views of the surrounding valleys.  The scenery around Ella is much more rugged and dramatic than Nurawa Eliya and as a result the tea planatations aren’t as extensive.

The tea pickers have a little sideline earning money for posing for photographs.  They eagerly invite you to take their photo, some even providing their name and address in the hope that you will send them a copy, but all expect some litle ‘help’ in return. After snapping four of these diminutive ladies  home for lunch and giving them 20 rupees apiece, which buys half a kilo of rice or thereabouts, we move on up the trail before any more pickers come along.

On the way down we stop in a little wayside cafe, although perhaps cafe is rather overstating the pretensions of this covered platform with a view and a couple of tables offering coconut juice straight from the tree complete with outer husk, a hole for a straw slashed in the top with a machete. 

We discovered Kottu Roti at lunch time and it is delicious.  There is a little cafe in Ella with a couple of tables that does the chopped roti with vegetables and spiced up with garlic, cinnamon, cloves and ginger freshly cooked.  Mmmm!  Definitely recommended.  As the man there told us several times as he extolled the virtue of his kottu rotis, others have ‘no garlic, no cinnamon, no cloves, no cinnamon’.

We have met a Dutch/French couple staying at Hilltop who are at the start of a 12-month tour, so we have had lots to chat about and stories to swap.  Their trip will take them from south-east Asia to Australia and New Zealand and then on to Paraguay, Chile and Argentina. We are quite envious;  perhaps we will make it to South America one of these days.

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Sri Lanka day 20 – Nuwara Eliya to Ella

Posted on Monday, 02 May 2011 by Hattie

The train to Ella is delayed by an hour so we spend the time standing chatting to a New Zealander and his Japanese partner.  We have bought 2nd class tickets for this two-and-a-half hour journey, but hadn’t bargained for just how busy this train was going to be.  There are no seats and we find ourselves standing in the unutterably dingy and dirty ‘restaurant’ car.  Faced with the prospect of having to stand all the way in these grimey surroundings we upgrade to first class and the shabby comfort of reclining seats;  I doubt these carriages have been upgraded since the end of the colonial era. 

A Dutch group upgrade just before us and their canny guide gives the guard a backhander and they get away without paying the full fare. We meanwhile are clobbered for the extra fiver!  To put this into perspective the two first class fares cost 6.5 pounds!

The mountain scenery between Nurwara Eliya and Ella is really stunning, far more even than our earlier journey from Kandy to Nurwara Eliya.  If only we had the same seats!

We are staying at the Hilltop Guest House in Ella which has fabulous views through Ella Gap;  on a clear day, which are probably a rare occurence, it is said that is possible to see the lighthouse on the coast.  The room has a decent shower with hot water, which is something of a luxury in Sri Lankan guest houses, but the room is slightly damp which a problem which only seems to effect room number 5.  The family who run it are very friendly and speak good English.  Our room on the ground floor opens onto a shared terrace and a small garden. 

Ella is a very small village, which is the only place we have been to so far that seems to have any noticeable tourist infrastructure.  Here there are numerouse restaurants and cafes – and even bars selling alcohol – which are aimed specifically at the few tourists who come here.  There is nothing much here to draw tourists, which makes it all the touristy side even more strange – a few walks, a couple of waterfalls and temples and tea plantations.  Not exactly a major draw. Perhaps it the laid back vibe.

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Sri Lanka day 19 – Nuwara Eliya

Posted on Sunday, 01 May 2011 by Hattie

Horton Plains National Park is a beautiful, undulating plateau over 2000m above sea level covered with a mix of wild grasslads and thick forest. There are a number of walks in the park which start from the Farr Inn – once a British hunting lodge – including the 7km circular walk to World’s End and Baker Falls, and the climbs up Sri Lanka’s second and third highest mountains, Kirigalpotta (2395m) and Totapola (2359m). 

We leave Nuwara Eliya at 5am in order to be here by 7.30 so that we can get the best views from the escarpment at ‘World’s End’ before the mists envelope the area as they are prone to do in the late morning. 

We have hired a car and driver to bring us the two hours from Nuwara Eliya and we have come with an American who is staying in our guest house.  ‘Mr’ Lee, as he is deferentially referred to by Wasantha who runs the guest house, is an older gentleman who divides his time between India and Sri Lanka.  He spends 9 months of the year in a guest house in Mount Abu in Rajasthan and three months here in a suite at the King Fern Bungalow.  Mr Lee has suggested that he join us, on the basis that it will save us all money and so we readily agree.  Mr Lee has a very wry sense of humour and is an entertaining, if slightly eccentric, companion.  However, he does have his own agenda which involves trying to persuade us to extend the trip to take in some botanical gardens and a visit to a property he owns.  This will add a further 50km to the trip and cost an additional 3000 rupees on top of the 3,900 we are already paying. 

Mr Lee has that forthright, voluble  manner, shared by many Americans, which enables him to effortlessly assume centre stage in any situation.   When we arrive Mr Lee is undecided about which walk to do.  Having been to Horton Plains and undertaken the circular walk several times before, he is inclined to trek up one of the peaks, but due to the early hour the visitor centre is closed and  he has a host of questions to be answered before he can make a decision.  Eventually someone is found who can speak English and on the strengto of the information provided Mr Lee decides to undertake the climb, while we head for the cirular walk. 

Finally its settled – Mr Lee is going to climb Kirigalpotta and we are doing the circular walk and we hurry off eager to get ahead of a large, school party that has just appeared. 

The grasslands of Horton Plains are quite a striking contrast to anything we have seen elsewhere in Sri Lanka.  Surprisingly, Rhodadenrons are dotted across the grassland – apparently a native species – and so is European gorse.  There are Sambar deer, a few leopards and shaggy bear monkeys, none of which are much in evidence unfortunately.  Although we do see a couple of monkeys and a impressive lone stag which comes right up to the car to have his photograph taken.

The two highlights of the walk, apart from the wonderful scenery, is World’s end, where the plateau comes to an abrupt end at a stunning escarpment that falls 880m and provides some fabulous views towards the south coast, and Baker Falls.  The latter involves a scramble down through the forest to the base of the falls and another to a viewing point half way up the falls.  Both well worth the effort.

When we arrive back at Farr Inn, Mr Lee is waiting for us.  He didn’t manage the climb to the summit of Kirigalpotta.  It turns out that it was twice the distance he been led to believe and the trail wasn’t clearly marked, so he has turned back.

We decline his suggestion that we go on to the Botanical Gardens and decide instead to return to Nuwara Eliya.  But not before Mr Lee has instigated two stops at garden centres along the way to buy plants for the guest house gardens and another stop to purchases some glasses and other items, again for the guest house.  We are slightly bemused by his completely unself-conscious cheek when it comes to commandeering our outing!

By the time we get back to Nuwara Eliya the mists are rolling down the valley and visibility at the guest house is down to zero – we can’t even see the houses across the road.

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Sri Lanka day 18 – Nuwara Eliya

Posted on Saturday, 30 Apr 2011 by Hattie

There is not much in the way of interesting sights in Nuwara Eliya, apart from Victoria Park,  It is more of a base for trekking, walking and excursions.  Today we take a three-and-a-half hour walk to the top of Single Tree Hill, 6050 ft above sea level, with guide Santha.  Not that we had to make that ascent today as Nuwara Eliya town is 1889m above sea level.  The climb up through the tea plantations and back through cool Eucalyptus woods is only, the latter brought here by the British to provide wood for railway sleepers.  The climb up is relatively easy along winding roads and wooded paths with wonderful views of the neat orderly hillsides;  houses and shacks sitting amongs neatly cultivated vegetable gardens and further up a of tea bushes. 

Nuwara Eliya is a town of 26,000 sprawling across the valley floor and up into the hills. The housing isn’t dense by any means and most people appear to have some land on which to cultivate vegetables either commercially or for their own consumption. But the most of land here is given over to tea.

Higher up in Hill Country is cloud rain forest and Nuwara Eliya is often shrouded in mist and low cloud, which can sweep down from the hills very swiftly and disperse just as quickly.

Nuwara Eliya has a lingering Britishness;  it’s not for nothing that it is dubbed ‘Little England’.  From the architecture of some of it’s public buildings and historic hotels to the flora, the tradition of the gentlemen’s club still in evidence at the stone and mock tudor Hill Club to the immaculately formal gardens of the Grand Hotel and St Andrews Hotel, this in many ways is a throwback to a colonial past.

Today Nuwara Eliya is primarily a holiday and weekend retreat for wealthy and not-so-wealthy Sri Lankans who come to escape the heat, play golf and enjoy the racing.  Away from the rather down-at-heel centre of town, Nuwara Eliya is picturesque and quaint as can be.  The only thing to marr this peaceful idyll is the thick, black exhaust fumes that belch from every bus, lorry and van.  Lack of effective emissions control is endemic in Sri Lanka, and the only saving grace is that there isn’s much traffic.

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Sri Lanka day 17 – Nuwara Eliya

Posted on Friday, 29 Apr 2011 by Hattie

Today we have a driver and guide to take us on a tour of the tea plantations, a tea factory and local waterfalls.  Sri Lanka is the world’s second largest tea producer after India and Mackwoods, who are the largest tea grower in Sri Lanka, have several teas estates in this area including the Labukale Tea Centre which is where we are headed.  On the way we stop several times to take picture of the immaculate tea gardens and the tea pickers. 

The traditional image of the tea picker sporting a wicker basket carried by a strap across the head has given way, unfortunately for the environment, to the pedestrian plastic sack carried in a similar fashion but much lighter and less cumbersome. 

Only the bud and top two leaves are picked and each bush is picked every five days and the tea pickers pick a minimum of 18 kilos of tea a day for which they earn a basic wage of 500 rupees a day.  This is well below the average wage, but is supplemented with free housing, health care, education for their children, wedding and funerals paid for, in fact most of their expenses are paid for and they are also provided with land on which to grow vegetables.  Most of the pickers are Indian Tamils brought over by the British specifically to work the tea plantations introduced to Sri Lanka after the coffee plantations were destroyed by fungus.

All the tea grown in Sri Lanka comes from the same type of bush; flavour is determined by the altitude at which it is grown and strength by how finely it is chopped.  Tea bushes are productive for at least 50 years and are pruned back every five years.  The processing of the tea is quite uncomplicated as we discover from our tour of Mackwoods tea factory. The whole cycle only takes 24 hours from picking to packing.  The stages are withering the leaf using fans, rolling and chopping the leaf, fermentation, hot air drying, winnowing the stalks, grading and packing.  The processed tea is sent to auction in Colombo and is blended by the likes of Liptons and Brooke Bond for strength and flavour.  The tour completed we sit in the sun with a huge pot of tea and a piece of chocolate cake.  How perfectly civilised!

There are numerous waterfalls in the vicinity, many of which can be seen cascading down the hillside next to the road, but a couple require a little more effort. The views are wonderfully picturesque with the tea plantations carpeting the hills, occasionally interspered with vegetable gardens, and the Miwara Ganga snaking towards the dammed Lake Gregory which provides hydro electricity for the area.

Despite the extensive tea planations, which seem to occupy every last square foot of the hillsides, this is also a major vegetable growing area.  In fact it is the only area in Sri Lanka where cold weather vegetables can be grown:  carrots, cabbages, leeks, beetroot, potatoes, lettuce and green beans are all cropped four times a year.  Small vegetable terraces are with neatly raised beds separated by deep channels to disperse the heavy rains are squeezed amongst the houses to provide commerically and domestically grown vegetables which find their way all over the island and onto the local road side stalls.

After our tour we take spend some time looking around this unlikeliest of towns.  Originally established by the British as a retreat from the heat of the lowlands, it is like stepping back in time with its English architecture and toytown feel.  Not for nothing is this town referred to as ‘Little England’. There is a horse racing track and an international golf course, the latter kept in immaculate condition, but completely devoid of golfers.  Otherwise the only feature of note is the beautifully kept Victoria Park with its perfect lawns and glorious flowerbeds overflowing with dahlias, gypsophylia, antirhinums, marigolds, busy lizzies, lilies and numerous other familiar blooms.  Just beautiful.  Unfortunately though, one of the small pavilions has been subject to an incongrous promotional make-over including a large tinted pvc canopy and double glazed windows alongside which are advertising boards promoting the myriad benefits of pvc windows.  Quite bizarre.

All this before lunch!  Lunch in a small pastry shop.  No menu, just a plate of savoury pastries to choose from;  simply pay for what you eat.  But try not to think about how many people may have man-handled them before you!  Lunch for two:  less than a pound.

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Sri Lanka day 16 – Kandy to Nuwara Eliya

Posted on Thursday, 28 Apr 2011 by Hattie

It’s an early start to catch the train to Peradeniya for the onward connection to Nuwara Eliya in the heart of the hill country.  We have booked first class tickets in the observation car and are pleasantly surprised to discover that we been allocated seats immediately in front of the observation window which provides uninterrupted views down the track and across the countryside.  Quite a result! 

It’s 65km from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya but the train journey takes 4 hours as it winds up through the hills with spectacular views most of the way.  Neatly clipped tea bushes carpet the hill sides and there are a few tea pickers to be seen on the slopes cloaked in plastic capes to ward off the rain and with large plastic sacks hanging from their heads.
Nuwara Eliya nestles between the surrounding hills about 1800m above sea level and our guest house seems to be a long way up the hillside away from the centre.  We are staying at King Fern Bungalow and are picked up at the station in Nanu Oya about 6km away.  By the time we arrive we are beginning to feel that the location is far too remote.  But this is definitely the cleanest and most attractive guest house we stayed at by far.  There are fantastic views of the town below from the balcony outside our room and also from the dining and sitting room. Plus there is internet. 

The family – mother and three brothers – who run the bungalow (which is a complete misnomer since the building is on several levels) and King Fern Cottage further down the hill – are very friendly and attentive and the puckish brother who seems to do most the work is very chatty and keen to tell us all we might want to know about Nuwara Eliya and we are in danger of information overload.   Mamma surprisingly manages to make herself understood despite her very limited pidgin English and bird-like voice and is famed for her cooking, which sadly turns out to be not quite as good as she likes to believe.

It’s distinctly cooler here, overcast and wet.  In fact rains heavily most of the afternoon and well into the evening.  So plans to take a walk down into town, which we are assured only takes 10 minutes by the short-cut, will have to wait until tomorrow and we hunker down in front of a wood fire in our fleeces instead – and yes, it is that cool!

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Sri Lanka day 15 – Kandy

Posted on Wednesday, 27 Apr 2011 by Hattie

We are staying an extra two days in Kandy, mainly to slow down after the rather hectic three-day tour of the ancient cities, but also to do justice to Kandy. 

The bus fare into Kandy sets us back 6 rupees, which puts the tut tut fare of between 150 and 250 rupees into perspective.  Our destination today is the Botanical Gardens at Peradeniya about 6km from the centre of town.  But first we take a look round the central market.  It is surprisingly well organised and clean by Asian standards. It  is arranged around a well-cared for central courtyard garden with a pond.  There are the usual food stalls here on the ground floor – meat butchered on premises, fresh and dried fish and stalls heaving with fresh fruit and vegetables.  On the upper floor are stalls selling clothes, household and leather goods, toys and so on.  I’m looking for a sarong and one of the stallholders is very keen to ensure I find what I want, taking me from stall to stall until I find a rather nice, piercingly blue silk sarong.  Of course, having bought something I become a prime target and in order to get to the exist we have to run lhe gauntlet of the rest of the stallholders all eager to sell their wares.

The intention is to get a bus to Peradeniya, but like many of our intentions it is quickly thwarted.  There is nothing so sophisticated as numbered bus stops or anything at all in the way of signage giving information about where to catch the bus you want.  Asking passersby only results in being told some contradictory flimflam about how full the bus will be, that there are long queues, we will have to wait hours and the buses only leave when they are full.  All leading to the inevitable pitch for a taxi or a tut tut.  One man offers to drive us for 300 rupees, which at less than two pounds seems like a bargain until we see the state of the rust heap he wants to take us in.  In the end we take a tut tut for 300.  Once on our way the driver skillfully sells a return trip including waiting time for 1000 rupees.  And once again convenience wins out.

The Botanical Gardens are quite spectacular and very well kept.  Again rather at odds with the general infrastructure of the Kandy which is anything but.  It’s a shady haven of peace away from pollution and noise outside.  At 60 hectares, these is the largest botanical gardens in Sri Lanka and are bounded on three sides by the longest of Sri Lanka’s rivers, the Mahaweli Ganga.  There are avenues of palms, a flower garden, a suspension footbridge over the river, giant bamboo and a delightful orchid house.   A splendid Javanese fig tree, which although showing signs of age, dominates the Great Lawn with a span of some 2500 square metres.  But the strangest tree must be the Canonball tree which has flowers growing from the trunk and round hard-shell fruits the size of cannonballs and and pretty heavy too!

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Sri Lanka day 14 – Kandy

Posted on Tuesday, 26 Apr 2011 by Hattie

The most important cultural and spiritual attraction in Kandy is the Tooth Relic Temple on the northern edge of the Lake.  The temple houses one of the Buddha’s teeth – probably the most important Buddhist relic in Sri Lanka and said to have been snatch from the flames of the Buddha’s funeral in 483 BC and smuggled from India to Sri Lanka in the 4th century AD in the crown of a prince. The tooth has resided in several places in Sri Lanka since including Anuradhapura before ending up in its permanent home here in Kandy.  At one point in its eventful history, the tooth was stolen and taken back to India.  It finally came to rest in the central shrine of the temple in Kandy under the auspices of the British.

The front of the temple was extensively damaged by an LTTE bomb in 1998 although there is little evidence of the damage now.  Although there is still tight security including barracades around the entrance to the complex and screening of visitors. 

The temple is surrounded by a moat and is a wonderful example of traditional Sri Lankan temple design with carved stone pillars and decorated wooden beams supporting a tiled roof to form a galleried cloister.  In the central courtyard is the two-storey tooth shrine surmounted by a  gilded and rather out-of-place modern canopy on metal supports built with Japanese donations.  The temple was mainly constructed by Kandyan Kings during the 17th and 18th centuries and is decorated with some wonderful painted walls and ceilings. 

Behind the central courtyard is the new Ahut Maligawa shrine hall which displays several buddhas and a sequence of paintings around the walls depicting scenes from the life of Buddha and the saga of the tooth relic.  The upper two floors of the Ahut Maligawa house the Sri Delada Museum which contains a number of artifacts, some facsimile documents dating from British rule and photographs of the damage caused to the temple by the 1998 bomb.

Also within the temple grounds are the Audience Hall – an open-sided pavilion with carved wooden columns;  Rajah Tusker Hall where the stuffed remains of Rajah the ceremonial Muligawa Tusker who served the temple for 50 years and died in 1988 is on display.

After the temple we visit two adjacent Buddhist Devales or temples to the gods who support Buddha, and St Paul’s Catholic Church which retains a strong British flavour with its flowering arranging rotas and notices written in very old fashioned English.

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