Samut Saring Ceylon

Fri 19 Dec 2008

Train ride to the Hill Country - Mountains and Tea Estates

Here are photos of the mountains and tea estates that took our breathe away as we approach Nano Oya, our final stop and where we get off. I am not much of photographer but I hope it captured everything we wish to freeze in our memories.

Evergreens show that we have reached a high altitude.

Sri Lanka has black bears and leopards prowling in the woods.

Still going higher..

Clean, cold crisp mountain spring

The jungle gets thicker.

My soul is bare in the eyes of God...

A land of hundreds of waterfalls and springs.

Mountain cottage overwhelmed by weeds.

This one looks more maintained.

Slowly trudging on, like we do through life..

I have seen many tea estates from a car... It gets a little different and more exciting from a slow moving train...

Outback roads to tea estates.

Tea factory.

Ihalawatala

Half-inheritance?

"... I see the mountain grandeur. They Power throughout the universe displayed."

And waterfalls to admire.

A tree of fire.

Rock solid.

From afar.

And another angle.

Clean. cool water.

And we never got tired of beautiful rolling hills of tea.

Housing for tea workers.

Probably a supervisor's home.

It is untiringly beautiful.

Continued..

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Fri 19 Dec 2008

Train ride to the Hill Country - Free and Frenzy

Posted in Sri Lanka

This is not your bullet-speed-spaceship-looking-top-of-the-line-mean-and-chugging machine but we like it. It is a slow yet comfortable and reliable train with lots of space. First, there was no crowd which we often see on jam-packed city metros when life and limb would dangle out of the door. Well, we did some dangling, too... the happy way =), you will see...

But first I want to show you how the aisle looks like.

Yet the seats were all taken.

With lots of leg room. If only the economy airfare has this!

Lil Ruffin had her longest nap since struck with the moving stress.

We had a ball taking each other's photos outside the train in motion.

Don't do this kids without your parent's supervision!

View is much better out here.

Actually others are more daring

I took the picture of another train going the opposite direction.

That did it. Kids saw and here they are!

Monkey see, monkey do!

Hmmm, not too nice passengers were we. So I better shift the topic.

Continued..

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Fri 19 Dec 2008

Train ride to the Hill Country - Uphill Climb

Posted in Sri Lanka

No sooner than we expected it, the train started to go more slowly and we wondered why. A cool breeze blew in the wide windows. That's when we realized that we were crawling uphill. The scenery gave way to a more diverse and interesting sight.

The Uphill climb

Rice terraces remind me of Banaue.

The ascent to Kandy by car, as seen from the train.

It is fun when track and road race. A provincial lorry trying to beat us.

First stop, Peredeniya. Remember the Royal Botanical Garden?

Dozing Fuzzy

A village fruit stand

Gathering leaves

Boy with a kite

Train stations are old but efficient.

Looming dark clouds in the mountains seem to threaten our day. An almost invisible kite dares a challenge.

Men replacing old wooden rail base. Notice the white fresh concrete?

Another stop - "thambili" in Sinhalese is king coconut. Must be a place of abundance?

Villagers await the trains arrival.

Wake up, Fuzzy! You are missing lots.

A family waiting for their ride at Ulapane.

Upland rice paddy.

Buddhist flags enliven the road to a temple.

Nawalapitiya.

Washing clothes by the river.

Time drifted by.

Continued

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Fri 19 Dec 2008

Train ride to the Hill Country - The Lowlands

Posted in Sri Lanka

We promised ourselves this momentous train ride from Colombo to Nuwera Eliya. A must-see for tourists and locals alike as they say. Six tickets, one for each of us and a friend, four days before we bid our farewell, took us to an 8-hour slow but pleasant ride to hill country of Nuwera Eliya.

A momentous 8 hour trip of our lives!

Such madness! You might say. Four days to your flight and you are still sight seeing, after four long years of you stay?

Why do we really want to take this journey amidst the chaos of our move? We hardly had sleep these days and there are suitcases to fill up, yet I will tell you why.

We learned to love this country, its turmoil and tranquility, to gloriously bask in its simplicity and elaborate beauty, to love its tea estates, national parks, bird sanctuaries, waterfalls, hills, rivers and wewas. We love its sun, sand and salty air. We are fascinated with their people, both Tamil and Sinhalese, each unique identity and ethnicity, of how graceful their loops of writing are and how melodious the sound of their words, their cricket matches amidst bomb threats, for their love of Bollywood which infected and humoured us. We love their sarees, sarongs and shalwars, their hoppers: string, egg, plain; their tea: loose leaf or in bags, their cinnamon sticks, coriander and curry leaf, all spices in abundance. We will miss Odel, Thiangra, Cotton Collection, Sen Sal, Blue Water, Mango Tree, Nihon Bashi, 888 or Curry Bowl, or just riding around in a trishaw. We will never get over the freakiness of finding out how elephant dung paper came to be and how monitor lizards can excite street traffic for no driver would think of of a roadkill. We will miss the haunting call of kingfishers, perky noisy squawks of parakeets and soulful songs of the Ko-el. Nor the morning squirrels skittering their way to my kitchen window for breakfast scraps. We will miss our Cinnamon Garden Baptist Church family, cell group, youth and all. For here we found friends (the Raneys, the Hallocks, Plan and more) who are more a family than just friends. aaaah, Ceylon... we hope to touch your shores again.

Just maybe, a train ride closes a chapter of our lives... but in our hearts, we know we will never get enough or will ever get enough of this tiny island, a tear pearl tucked away under the threatening tsunamis of the Indian Ocean, yet it will with hope arise someday to shine!

Ride with us and see what this trip has in store for you... I hope it will amaze you as much as it did us.

Of 200+ photos we have taken, here are some 120 of 'em...

The Lowlands

Can't miss a dogoba.. even among paddy and bananas..

"Doesn't it get any better than bananas and coconuts?"

Kingfisher on pole

Sarong on track

To market. to market.. to buy a big Coke?

We are approaching the hills!

Continued..

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Tue 9 Dec 2008

A Taste of Tea

Posted in Sri Lanka

A samowar.

We are avid tea drinkers (and coffee drinkers, too!). But for many years, we have been buying our supply from the most expensive department store in town, Odel and the most widely distributed brand, Dilmah. Compared to other tea brands, this one doesn't come cheap so I still drink other black tea brands which are as good. Dilmah though offers a wide variety of tea concoctions, infusions, flavours and such, and the packaging is simply brilliant and hip (I will show you some photos when we open the boxes at home). We have tried the many flavoured ones and voted for vanilla, black currant, mint as few of our favorites. Vibrant Bea loves caramel tea. My preference is green tea and cinnamon yet I prefer a stronger cinnamon taste so I still add a small bark of cinnamon from the stick. I usually take 2-3 cups of this a day. I also love to steep Earl Grey loose leaf which I take with cream and stevia.

Today, after going around the city, we also decided to go directly to Dilmah in the hope of buying 1-2 boxes, we will be given a good price. So, for the first time in our stay here, we visited them. I brought the camera with me but ooops!... NO CAMS allowed so I just took my frustration and snap shots of this lovely samowar instead, which the manager says is fine. It is sitting in his office. He entertained us in a lovely showroom where we can find all variety Dilmah can offer. The options are plenty and I hope I can buy one of each kind but there were just too many. They have black tea, flavoured tea, organics, green tea, rooibos, infusions, decaf, tea mainly for the Russian taste, tea from the higher lands and lower lands.

We learned that tea harvested from higher altitude is milder and has a lighter hue than tea harvested in the lowlands which are spicier and has a darker color. Hmm.. We also caught glimpse of some lab tests going on which I have no clue what was it about - as there are secrets of the trade. As for tea, I prefer both dark or mild depending on the occasion.

And there is also the most expensive tea which I hope to taste someday. It is called the silver tip or white tea which is harvested only before dawn breaks. These buds are the freshest and youngest of the tips. It has a silvery color. These are handled so carefully and brought to the plant right away after harvest.

In spite of the lack of photos, the quick tea tour turned out well after all. Especially when they let each of us a hot cupful of our choice. Aaah...calmness and warmth.

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The photo above is a samowar. A traditional tea-kettle or tea-maker of Russian-Turkish origin. Here is how it is used in preparing tea.Want to see more photos of different kinds of samowar? Click here.