Up in the tea country

Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Nuwara Eliya, Central Province, Sri Lanka
Time to leave Kandy and carry on uphill to the high tea country. Just on the outskirts of Kandy are its botanical gardens which are not to be missed. So we could get round in just over the hour we luxuriated on a codger cart with guide !! Actually well worth it as it meant we could see more of the gardens and learn more in depth facts about the trees, plants, flowers and especially the many vip's who have trees planted during their visits to Kandy - there's one for Yuri Gagarin but there won't be one for Donald T our guide told us ! Then up and up and round and round a busy road into the mountains. On route a tour of a tea plantation. We did not realise there is only one tea bush in the world, whether in China, India or here in Sri Lanka (Ceylon). It's of the Camelia family and the different climates and soils where it's grown give it the different raw flavours - hence Darjeeling, Assam, Ceylon etc. Also, Sri Lanka's tea, from all the various estates, is auctioned at the Colombo tea market to distributors (such as Liptons, PG, Typhoo etc) who then mix and match etc to produce the teas that end up in our teapots. Only at the estates can you taste and buy the estates own pure and unmixed tea. Lunch stop near a waterfall, more uppy roads and finally checked into our hotel in Nuwaraeliya at the top of the climb. The Grand Hotel lives up to its name ! Very swanky and very proud they are of their gardens having won the town competition for the last 25 years. Early wake up in the morning at 5.00 to walk the 9km through Horton Plains Nat Park
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