The Hill Country - Part One

We've spent the last few days (Friday-Tuesday) in Sri Lanka's hill country, land of tea plantations, windy and terrifying roads and some of the country's best views.

Ella was our first stop and immediately felt more touristy that other towns we've stayed in so far. As we travel we're booking hotels and guesthouses a couple of days ahead and even with research (thank you Agoda, TripAdvisor and Hotels.com!) we're always a little unsure what we'll arrive to. In Ella this meant a climb up a very rough path about - no joke - 150m back from the main road to get to our guesthouse. Our room had a small balcony that gave us incredible views though so the climb was worth it - a theme that repeated over the weekend, as I'll get to later on.

For our first day in Ella we hired a car and driver to take us to the local sights. Everywhere you drive up here is on a road hugging the side of a mountain, or weaving its way through a tea plantation. Beth wasn't too happy about the former and made it clear with all of her squeals and even though we were surrounded by breathtaking views she couldn't help but bury her face into me to hide. To be honest I'm not too surprised as even with the vehicle dominating the road (except for buses and lorries) it was hairy at some points, like when the driver decides to overtake a slow bus on a bend, in the wrong lane on the outside of the road with a HUGE drop off the edge! (To our mum's and anyone else who is panicking reading this - we asked and crashes aren't common as this is their normal conditions, so they're used to it. Panic over? No I thought not!)
Anyway back to the tour. We went first to Uva Halpewathe tea factory. Thanks to the British demand for tea during the colonial era Sri Lanka has some very well established plantations and factories, and the one we visited was huge and perched atop a mountain surrounded by its fields. The tour was fascinating and showed the five stages to tea manufacturing - picking (by hand), drying (using cool air, for about 7-12 hours), rolling, fermenting (leave it out for about 2 hours. They judge when this is finished by using a very wise old man who smells the tea leaves to see if it's ready!) and finally heating (at 105C). We were guided through by a very energetic and passionate local who happily grabbed handfuls of the tea at each stage of the manufacture (often from the depths of the still-working machinery) and dumped them into our hands. It was a great experience topped off with a cup of fresh tea, of course! If you're interested then Halpe tea (their brand) is sold internationally and is amongst the best quality Sri Lankan tea - we can recommend it! Although you may already get a taste with Sri Lanka being the biggest exporter of tea internationally including the big brands we know like Tetley and PG tips, who buy from that factory and mix it with other tea they purchase.

Next on our tour we visited a local temple, the Dowa temple, dating back over 500 years and built into a cave by a river. It was a very peaceful area and large parts of the temple used the natural shape and flow of the caves, all painted beautifully and with every surface covered in Buddha statues of many sizes. As with every temple we've visited so far the tourists visiting are outnumbered by people visiting to make use of the temple. It's incredible that so many people make time every day to visit the temple and offer their prayers.

Our third stop on the tour was a feat of British engineering, the Nine Arches Bridge. The name explains it, and it's used for trains even now despite being about 200 years old and made from only stone, brick and mortar. The views surrounding it were incredible as well, as we were about 1100 metres above sea level with mountains and valleys in just about every direction.

That afternoon although we were starting to feel tired we had heard about a fun walk to see nearby waterfalls. Nice, yes, but what made it great was that the way to get there was to walk 2 miles along the railway line until you reached them! As I keep banging on about, the views were outstanding and there were loads of other people (tourists and locals) who were doing the walk too. Train tracks here simply double up as another road when the trains aren't running...except they still were running as we found out when one appeared from around a bend at about 50mph! We jumped out of the way just in time to watch it hurtle past and to wave at people sat in the doorways enjoying the afternoon breeze. It was a bit edgy as I was only about 1m away from the train but where else could we experience this?! The waterfalls made for a picturesque halfway point before the amble back along the tracks, this time without train spotting! That evening when we were back at our guesthouse we sat out and listened to the croaks and squeaks of jungle nightlife with the sound of live acoustic music drifting up the hill from the town.

Sunday was Beth's 26th birthday - YEAH! Happy birthday! We'd planned a day to celebrate, kicked off by a hike up a nearby mountain called Little Adam's Peak. The one hour climb was largely on a road, completed by rugged steps etched into the mountainside in a steep and rather precarious manner. It was pretty tough going but oh-so-worth it when we arrived at the summit as there were clear views in every direction. My words can't really paint a picture so I'll let our camerawork do the talking. You may be surprised to hear that Beth would want to climb a mountain on her birthday, but it really shows how worth it it was for the views!

Now that Beth had worked for it I treated her to a long lunch at 98 Acres Resort. It's a plush spot perched on a nearby mountain with amazing views around. We had a table on their cafe deck, made from old railway sleepers and enjoyed a cold cocktail and a buffet of salads, curries and, amongst other desserts, chocolate mousse. Beth definitely enjoyed that part!
First thing in the morning we'd moved to another guesthouse which had a swimming pool. By the time we were back from lunch we were very ready for a swim and wow it was refreshing! And after all that walking the day was topped off with a massage to ease our weary feet.

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