From Ella to Nuwara Eliya
Tea Factory Tour and Tasting
It’s overcast when we get up this morning at Poomaz Peace Palace in Ella. John keeps calling it Poomaz Pleasure Palace…can you see my eyes rolling? The high today will be 20°C/68°F. We have a Sri Lankan breakfast at the Palace before heading to the main street to catch a tuk-tuk to the Uva Halpewatte Tea Factory, about a 15 minute drive outside of Ella.
Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) is the world’s fourth largest producer of tea and the world’s largest exporter of tea. The top 3 producers are China, India & Kenya. Tea accounts for over 2% of it’s GDP.
We get into the tuk-tuk and the older driver weaves in and out of traffic, passing other drivers often as we travel up, up, up into the mountains.
We pass many plots of tea plants growing on the hillsides.
I notice that there is a bottle labelled Tequila in the bottle holder beside our drivers seat. It is filled with a clear liquid which I hope is water after all there is a Buddha figure on his dashboard and Buddhists don’t usually drink.
When he parks the tuk-tuk in the tea factory lot, I notice that another tuk-tuk driver beside us has a wine bottle with a screw cap in this bottle holder.
Rain pours down as we take our tour inside the factory. Much of the work is manual labour and done by women. Green and black tea comes from the same tea leaf, the processing method determines green vs black and the amount of caffeine and anti-oxidants. Green tea has the lowest caffeine and highest anti-oxidants while English Breakfast tea (a black tea) has the highest caffeine and lowest anti-oxidants.
The tea leaves are hand picked year round. We see the drying, rolling and sorting process. The tour ends with us tasting eight different teas. When we leave the factory it has stopped raining and the sun has come out.
Second Visit to Nine Arches Bridge
We return to Ella for lunch at The White Rabbit before we head out to explore some more.
We end up walking on a pretty forested path back to Nine Arches Bridge. John scouts out the spot he wants to be standing so that I can get a picture of him with the train going past. He waits in the spot and I wait in the 
perfect spot for 45 minutes and then just as the train is coming, some girl jumps on the edge blocking John from my view. Argh.
As yesterday, people are hanging out of the train as they go by.
Walking back up and down steep hills, we decide to both get an Ayurvedic massage which ends with an oily head massage. Let’s just say , my hair wasn’t looking its best for the rest of the walk back to Poomaz Pleasure…oops, mean, Peace Palace.
Showers are needed before supper.
One of the World’s Prettiest Train Rides
The mornings are quite cool. We have breakfast at 7:15am and the tuk-tuk picks us up at 8:00 am to take us to the train station. Today we are taking the train from Ella to Ambewela.
John is whining and complaining that I have too much luggage. I have one carry-on, one large hand bag, a back pack and a 
purse (actually that does seem like a lot when written out…NOT). He says that I should have it all in one backpack plus my carry-on.
Two Eastern European women with humongous suitcases and bags sit down beside me. Hopefully he now realizes how lucky he is with the restraint I’ve shown.
We are taking the train to Ambewela. Usually this train goes to Nuware Eliya and on to Kandy and is considered one of the world’s most beautiful train trips. Unfortunately we can only go as far as Ambewela because the train tracks were washed out in several places during Sri Lanka’s devastating rains last November.
John and I have reserved seats but we sit in the wrong seats before figuring out which seats are ours. Actually we had the correct seats but the wrong coach. People are sitting in our seats because they had the same problem. We all had a good laugh as we finally sit in the correct seats.
As we saw when visiting Nine Arches Bridge over the last few days, the train doors stay open and people hang out for photos while the train is moving. John does this and I take his photo by sticking my head out a window, barely missing hitting a tunnel that comes up.
John takes a picture of me hanging out the train doors, but I must confess, the train wasn’t moving at the time.
The scenery is spectacular, lush mountainsides, tea plantations and small villages. The train tracks are at a high elevation through the mountains and not through the valleys. One station we stop at is the highest elevation station in Sri Lanka at 1891 m (6204 ft) above sea level. The ride takes about two hours and twenty minutes. Reserved tickets were $15 CAD per person. Click here for a short video of scenes from the Train.
On to Nuwara Eliya
Once we arrive at the station we grab a minivan taxi to our accommodation at the Premier Villa in Nuwara Eliya.
We are now in the coolest climate in Sri Lanka. The nights are about 11°C, with highs of 20°C. We are in the highest area of Sri Lanka with Mt Pidurutalagala, the highest mountain in the country at 2,524 m (8,281 ft), just a few kilometers away. This is one of the most important tea growing areas in the country.
Nuwara Eliya is referred to as “Little England” due to its lush, green surroundings and British Influence from the late 1800s.
After checking in to our accommodations, we head out to see the town. I just have to go into the grocery store (Cargills Food City). I love visiting grocery stores in other countries. I am really enjoying Sri Lankan food so I pick up some Kathul Treacle Syrup and more Sri Lankan spices that might be hard to obtain at home.
Post Office and The Grand Hotel
After lunch we check out the old post office, some of the landmarks and then make our way to the Grand Hotel. This hotel is very posh, think Banff Springs Hotel. It was established by the British in 1891. We check out their high tea and decide to go tomorrow when I am dressed more appropriately.
We hang out for awhile in the beautiful garden by the fountain and then go to one of their other cafes for drinks and soak in the surroundings.
We talk to some hotel staff who are excited about tonight’s cricket match between Sri Lanka and India. A movie screen is being set up outside for everyone to watch the match.
Victoria Gardens
We next head to Victoria Gardens. It is quite pretty but not as many flowering plants as I expected. We speak to one of the gardeners who says that they lost a lot of plants in the floods last November. He informs us that they are in the process of replanting.
We have a light supper and call it a night.
