Kandy and Colombo, Sri Lanka 16-18 Jan 2014

Sri Lanka Train Ride

2nd Class carriage

The train from Nuwara Eliya left on time. We've got a seat reserved in Class 2. Normally we can pay much cheaper for a non reserved seat but that will not guarantee a window seat or any seat. Since the journey takes 4 hours and we want to enjoy the scenic view to Kandy, we decided to spend the money. Class 2 is non air conditioned but we don't need it anyway with the cool air in the hill country. The seats are spacious and the carriage is clean. The Class S12 train is a diesel multiple-unit (DMU), built for Sri Lanka Railways by China's CSR Corporation. They were brought in in August 2012. 

Villages

Tea plantation

The first 2 hours of the ride brought us through the hill country. We pass through numerous tunnels, bridges, tea plantations that cover the hills like carpets, locals waving to us while the train pass through their villages and scenic view of mountains and valley beneath. It is definitely a sight not to be miss in Sri Lanka. 

Kandy lake

We arrived at Kandy around 4:30pm, the train continue to Colombo. It was raining again and we were hungry, so we found a small restaurant near by to eat and to check where we should go for accommodation. It seems the nearest guesthouse is by the lake side. The traffic was bad, everyone getting off work and heading home. We found our way to Saranankara Road. It was about 1.5 km from the train station. There are many guesthouses along the road going uphill. We finally found our room at Mango Garden. There was a construction right opposite, we chose a room at the back, away from the main building but it was nice a quiet. We decided to eat in the hotel that night. Too tired to walk to town. The food was delicious but more expensive than outside restaurant. 

Kandy

After a good night sleep, we headed out early. The weather was nice and sunny. The short 1.5km walk along the lake took us 40 minutes, as we discovered varieties of birds and monitor lizards by the lake. The town was bustling with cars, buses and tuk tuk. It was quite easy to navigate by foot. After a big breakfast, we head to the Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic. 

Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic

Daily Thewawa session

The Buddhist Temple houses the relic of the tooth of Buddha. It was believed that whoever holds the relic holds the governance of the country and Kandy was the last capital of the Sri Lankan kings. The daily praying session is scheduled at 5:30am, 9:30am and 6:30pm. We were just in time for the 9:30am session. The drums were beating, we followed the crowd up stairs to the praying hall. The sacred tooth relic is kept in a room in a gold casket shape of a stupa. We queue for our turn to offer flowers and have a quick glance at the Tooth Relic from the little window. No chance of taking any photos. The locals dressed in all white line up with their offering and got their turn to go into the room where the Tooth Relic was kept. The long table line up outside was full of flowers offered from the devotees.

Around the temple, there is the Paththirippuwa (Octogan shape building), new Royal Palace, Audience Hall, the old palace which is now preserved as an archaeological museum and the Elephant Museum. Then we stroll to town and found a souvenir shops, we were suppose to head to the Ceylon Tea Museum but we found this shop selling many varieties of tea at a good price. Did our shopping and then head to the local market. The local market is always an interesting place to visit. There are lots of spice stalls, vegetables stalls, fruits stalls and grocery stalls. Tropical fruits are same as what we have in Malaysia like papaya, pineapple, banana, watermelon, coconut and mango but we didn't find any durian. 

Local market

Local market

We finished our evening by a slow walk around the lake, it was a great site for bird watching. There were Indian Cormorant, White Egret Crane, Asian Openbill, Wood Stork, Pelican, Lesser Whistling Duck, White-Throated Kingfisher, Grey Heron, Indian Pond Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron, Stork-billed Kingfisher and hundreds of fruit bats hanging on the tree. We met a group of youngster who were playing musics and singing, they invited us to join them. We hung out for a while, and noticed that other foreigner tried to ignore them and walk away. I guess sometimes it is hard to differentiate between the genuine nice people and people with hidden agenda.  

White Egret Crane

Asian Openbill

Indian Pond Heron

Stork-billed Kingfisher

Black-crowned Night Heron

Fruit bat

Indian Cormorant

Royal Botanic Garden

Our last day in Kandy and Sri Lanka, we visited the Royal Botanic Garden. We were looking forward to the Orchid Garden, but we were really disappointed, there were not many orchids and the orchid plants are lack of maintenance. Don't waste your time there. The Botanic Garden itself is impressive, it covers about 147 acres, with many type of plants. The walk around it was nice with display of varieties of palm trees, flower garden, bamboo, and others. My favorite was the huge Giant Java Almond tree. My least favorite was the thousands of fruit bats hanging on the stretch of trees on the western side of the park. That ends our visit in Kandy. The rest of the afternoon was spent travelling on bus to Colombo, and from Colombo to airport for our flight back to Singapore.

Giant Java Almond tree

Many people thought Sri Lanka is dangerous, didn't know what is there to see and thought it is just like India but that is a wrong conception. Sri Lanka has a lot to offer. The people are the gems. The country is clean and I fully respect the government to ban public smoking. Something an advanced country like Singapore or Malaysia are not able to do. If you are looking for beach, mountain, culture, wildlife and the nation of smiling people. Sri Lanka is the place! :-)

Friendly Staff of Hotel Mango Garden

Accommodation
Hotel Mango Garden – 2300rp per room/night with fan, attached toilet with hot water and wifi.

Transportation
Local bus from Royal Botanic Garden - 70rp pp (2 way)
Local bus to Colombo - 160rp pp
Aircon shuttle bus to Airport - 200rp pp

Recreation
Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic entrance fee - 1000rps
Royal Botanic Garden entrance fee - 1100rps

Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka 15 - 16 Jan 2014

Labookellie Tea Plantation

It was 2 hours bus ride to Nuwara Eliya, this was the only direct bus from Ella. On the way we pass several big town, plenty of tea plantation and vegetables farms. We are moving high up on the mountain at an altitude of 1,868 m. The mean annual temperature is 16 °C. We arrived during a downpour. It was cold and wet! When the town gets bigger, it get's more confusing. We didn't know where to go to look for guesthouse, so we find a coffee shop to have our lunch. We loved the string Hoppers and curry. The tea tasted better too. Finally we decided to put on our raincoat and go look for guesthouse.

It was still the Tamil new year, the President house is open for public, many locals are flocking toward the President house. We asked some traffic police standing at every junction about any guesthouse recommendation, they don't seems to know. A tuk tuk driver stop us, he offered to bring us to a guesthouse little bit out of town by the lake side, "Free no charge!" we told him no thanks and continue with our search. We have lost any trust to any tuk tuk driver. 

Wattles Inn

Our ancient room

Old light switch

In town, there were just shops after shops. We tried to walk toward housing area, found a Hotel but the guy told us it was full and he brought us opposite to a monastery. The lady showed us a hostel style room with lots of bed and demanded for 1500rp each. It didn't look like it's worth the price. We continue our search. It was really getting frustrated after half an hour of search in the rain with our bags. I decided to ask someone again. This man walking out from a house told us yes there is a hotel he is working with so we followed him. He brought us to a really old colonial house, the keeper told us it is more than 100 years old. I believe him because everything in the house were so old. The furniture, the key, the old light switch, the painting, there is even a chimney in our room. We find the place attractive and decided to take it. The guy told us that the Labookellie Tea Factory is open. Yeah!! We can finally visit a Tea factory. :-)

Mackwoods Tea Plantation

We left to the Tea factory, it was quite easy to get there as there is a direct minibus to the factory from the main bus station. On the way the scenic view of tea plantation was stunning. We arrived at Mackwoods Tea Factory at the last stop. Mackwoods was established in 1841 with currently 27,000 acres of tea. There was a huge 4 story building, a tea house and a tea shop. As this was the only tea factory that was open during this long holiday period, it was packed with tourist. We wanted to get a tour but there were no guide available, so we wandered off ourselves into the factory which they called it museum now. The working area is isolated from the museum, so we could see some of the machine displayed in the museum. The entire process was clearly explain on the TV and the sample of tea was on displayed as well. We didn't have this brand of tea in Malaysia. I don't remember BOH having those tea named the way Mackwoods does. 

Type of Tea

There are 5 different types of teas, below copied from Mackwood website :-
BOP - Broken Orange Pekoe -Well made, neat leaf of medium size without stalk or fibre.
BOPF - Broken Orange Pekoe Fanning -Fairly clean, neat leaf, grainy but smaller than BOP grade
OP - Orange Pekoe -Long well twisted wiry leaf.
PEKOE - Pekoe -Shotty, even, well made grade.
OP 'A' - Orange Pekoe 'A' -Similar in size to OP but loosely twisted and inferior to OP in appearance.
FBOP - Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe -This Medium leaf and tippy.

Weighing Machine

Drying Machine

We stop at the tea house to sip a cup of tea and a cake like an English. It was only S$0.60. :-) I find this a nice gesture so the customer will spend their money buying tea from the shop instead of a getting rip off for a cup of tea and scone like in Cameron Highland, Malaysia. After the rain subside, we went for a stroll to the Mackwoods tea plantation. It was endless. We finished our visit with some shopping, my brother bought 2 boxes of tea.

Breakfast

The cobbler

There is still a lot to do here but we are running out of time. Next day we left early to Kandy. This time we are determined to take the train because we have read that the train route to Kandy is breathtaking. We have pre-book a seat the day before with the help of the guy in the Inn. We had another great breakfast, Anthony found a cobbler to fix his running shoe but the old man was taking too much time. At the end, we had no choice but to get a tuk tuk. I hated bargaining with them. We were quoted 800rp at the bus station. The distance to Nanu Oya Train Station is just 6km. We walked away and stay by the road to flag one down, another one quoted 1000rp. Arrg! Then one of them bargain with us till we agreed to 600rp. Off we go, he told us the road is bad. We didn't expect it to be an adventure getting there. The road was muddy and full of potholes. The poor tuk tuk is bumping left and right avoiding potholes here and there. We finally got to the train station unfortunately the train has left! Well...at least we are here early for the next train at noon. :-) 

Nanu Oya Village

Nanu Oya Train Station

So we now have time to kill, we went for a stroll at the nearby village and found a tea factory up on top of the hill. The kids were so welcoming when we pass the village, they surround us and said "Hello, good morning" even the adults were really friendly too. The Edinburgh Tea Factory is locally owned, it was built in 1934. It wasn't open for public touring, but they didn't kick us out. We took some photos and chat with some workers. They said they are in a process of setting up the factory for tour. That will be good for the company and local community, sharing the info and bringing in more tourist to purchase tea directly from the factory. One thing I realized is that there isn't any souvenir shops where we have been, in a touristic places like anywhere in South East Asia, you will find store after store of t-shirts, key chain, fridge magnet, hat, etc. Not here though!

The ancient Lock-and-block signaling system

Handling over the token

While we were at Nanu Oya train station, we had time to visit the Train Control office. The office looks a bit like a museum, very tidy and neat filled with sets of old furniture left over by the British. Much of the network uses a lock-and-block signaling system. The key is to ensure the safe operation of a railway by allowing only one train to occupy a defined section of track at a time. The officer said it is over 100 years old but still in use. We observed that before a train arrive to a station, the bell will ring with certain code that only the train officer will understand. When a train arrived, one officer will pass the token pouch to the train captain, that ensure the track is lock and block for that one train use only. I couldn't understand exactly how it works but it is interesting. :-)

Accommodation
Wattles Inn Tel : 0770660110 – 2000rp per room/night with attached toilet with hot water.

Transportation
Local bus from Nuwara Eliya to Labookellie Tea Factory - 35rp pp
Tuk Tuk to Nanu Oya Train Station - 600rp
Train (http://www.railway.gov.lk/) from Nanu Oya to Kandy (Class 2 Reserved seat) - 600rp

Recreation
NA