Up high in Nuwara Eliya

Having been born and raised in a consistently warm and humid country, a change to a cooler climate has always been a welcome relief. The tea plantation area of Nuwara Eliya provided that break from the tropical weather that left us sun burnt in areas that we neglected to block from the sun.

We dropped off at drizzly Nuwara Eliya without a room booking and promptly settled down for tea and started frantically searching for a place to lay our heads. Thankfully, we found a reasonably priced and available guest house, by the name of Chez Allen, with an eccentric and welcoming owner. Allen, who looked like Bob Marley, came by to pick us up in his pick up and recommended a great driver for touring the tea plantations and the waterfalls. 

The pretty Post Office where Allen swung by to pick us up.

Cold and hungry! Food at Chez Allen.

We stopped by two factories, Labokelie and Mackwoods for a tour of the factory. It was an eye opener seeing how the humble drink had its origins, and the processes involved in getting it from plantation to the cup. We ended our tour with a pot of the finest fragrant Orange Pekoe tea. Life is good.

Single estate tea leaves ready to be shipped out.

Nuwara Eliya is known as Little England as it was a sanctuary for the British during Sri Lanka's colonial days. I'm starting to detect a trend here with the Brits and their love for hill country retreats.

The next day, we abandoned our initial plan to hike at Horton's Plains due to the crazy expensive entrance fees and went trekking around Nuwara Eliya because Allen told us that the hike to the highest village, Shantipura, would be a two hour easy hike. (An aside: entrance fees to attractions in Sri Lanka are really high as compared to that in other countries, and I could not help but feel a little underwhelmed by the places).

While the views up high were gorgeous and worth the physical exertion, the hike was definitely not easy, nor did it take us two hours! 

Hiking up above the town.