I finally left Kandy on the 1st, taking a 10:30 bus east to Mahiyangana, about 45 miles away. While my bus was slowly pulling out of the jammed bus station in Kandy, I noticed bunches of bananas hanging alongside bunches of big purple grapes in several fruit stands. Quite an odd combination. Also, I noticed rambutan and mangosteen on sale, which I hadn't noticed before. These are Indonesian fruits, brought to the island in colonial times by the Dutch. Leaving Kandy's bus station, the bus headed back to the city center and went about two thirds to three quarters around the lake. We got out of the city without too much traffic.
I took the bus to Mahiyangana, an almost three hour trip, mainly for the trip through the Knuckles Range en route. From Kandy the bus crossed the Mahaveli Ganga and traveled north of the river, passing part of Victoria Reservoir behind Victoria Dam. The Knuckles Range rises to the north, and I had great views of those green, rugged mountains as we rose to about 2800 feet elevation at Hunasgiriya, and even better views of the rocky cliffs of the Knuckles Range as we headed east down from the pass. Eventually, I could see the plains below to the east. At about 2200 feet elevation the bus started down a series of 18 numbered hairpin turns over four or five miles, descending more than a thousand feet, with ever closer views of the plains below as we descended. At the bottom the air was noticeably hotter and more humid. We descended further through the green, hilly countryside and again crossed the Mahaveli Ganga, which had turned north. Mahiyangana, at about 400-500 feet elevation, is on the river's east bank.
I took a tuktuk to a small hotel on the banks of the river, where a wedding reception was in progress. After I checked into my room, the brother of the bride's mother came up to me and invited me to share the buffet lunch. The people were all very friendly. There were no other guests at the hotel except for the wedding party and me. Before eating lunch I wandered around a bit, taking a photo of the bride and groom, both in traditional dress. I was invited over to a table outside, on the river bank, where several older men sat drinking arrack and Sprite or Coke. I think two of them were the fathers of the bride and groom, but no one spoke particularly good English and they were a little drunk. It was very hot sitting there. There was no breeze at all. One guy had on a tie, but no one else at the table did. Few among the guests wore ties.
I went to get a plate of food and on the way to the buffet was asked to pose with the bride and groom. They were beautifully dressed and I was in shorts, sandals, and a mostly clean but now very sweaty shirt. The lunch was good, with ice cream and fruit for desert, but the air was very hot. I envied the folks under fans. Dancing broke out at one point, a sort of free form mass dance of young and old, and I, of course, was pulled into it., to much amusement. I am sure they were laughing at me, not with me. The dancing didn't last long and eventually I was able to sit along the river under a tree and watch what was going on, with several little kids and half drunk adults coming over to say hello and ask me where I was from. The party began to break up between 3 and 4. I retreated to my room, with a fan, just as the bride and groom were getting ready to leave in their decorated car.
About 5, under a dark sky, I walked about a half hour south of town to the big white Rajamaha Dagoba, marking the site where Buddha is supposed to have made his first visit to Sri Lanka. (His second is supposed to have been to an island in the far north near Jaffna and his third to a place near modern day Colombo. In reality it is unlikely Buddha ever visited Sri Lanka.) The Mahaveli Ganga and, beyond, the escarpment I had come down on the way to Mahiyangana are to the west. A big group of white clad devotees was sitting under a tree near the dagoba while an orange clad monk sitting in a chair recited. Later, one of the group told me he was reciting in Pali, the ancient language of the Buddhist scriptures. A few raindrops fell as I walked around the dagoba. I got back to the hotel about 7, after dark. My room was very hot at bedtime, 88 degrees. But I opened the big windows, without screens (I slept under a mosquito net) and by morning the temperature in my room had plunged to 84 degrees. I slept fine, though it took me a while to fall asleep.
Clouds hung over the mountains to the west the next morning when I got up after 7. At 9 I left on a bus back to Kandy and again enjoyed the scenic trip, though it was much cloudier than the day before. The view of the plains to the east from the top of the escarpment was much hazier than the day before. It felt great to get up into the cool air of the hills after the heat of the lowlands.
Back in Kandy, I left at noon on a bus bound for Nuwara Eliya, about 45 miles away and even higher in the hills. From Kandy the bus headed south along the Mahaveli Ganga to Gampoli and then began to climb southeast into the mountains. Though the sky was cloudy, the green countryside was lovely, with tea and forests. At about 3500 feet we passed a dramatic waterfall, Ramboda Falls, and began an even steeper climb, with lots of switchbacks. The tea covered hillsides were beautiful. We rose to about 6500 feet, and then came down to Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka's highest town at 6200 feet, after a two and a half hour trip from Kandy. The air felt wonderfully cool, especially considering that the day before I had been sweltering in Mahiyangana.
I found a hotel overlooking Victoria Gardens, a big formal garden in the center of town, and then looked around. Nuwara Eliya, with only about 25,000 people, is considered the heart of the tea country. The area was discovered by the British in 1819 and a road from Kandy finished ten years later. The town became the center of the coffee and later the tea plantations, and the British also grew all sorts of vegetables not usually found in the tropics, like carrots and turnips and lettuce. Some were on display along the road as we arrived, as were strawberries. The area now is largely Tamil, the "Plantation Tamils" brought by the British to work the tea estates, but the area is still known as Sri Lanka's Little England, with quite a few old colonial buildings and rainy English weather. The sky was cloudy when I arrived and stayed so all afternoon.
I walked around Victoria Park and along the very green golf course in the center of town. I spent considerable time in two very nice hotels, the Grand Hotel and the Hill Club. The former has a mock Tudor facade and wonderful public rooms inside, full of old photos and comfortable furniture. The hotel has been considerably expanded from its colonial original, and it is all very nice. There is a very nice lobby, two in fact, a ballroom, a court with a grand piano, a restaurant, a bar, and a billiards room with three tables. I watched a couple of the staff playing billiards. The Hill Club is a big stone building dating from the late 19th century, with a beautiful lawn in front. A staff member gave me a tour and then I looked around the library, with a photo of Queen Elizabeth from 1954, when she toured Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, and several 18th century prints illustrating the differing fortunes of an industrious apprentice and an idle apprentice. The Hill Club has a daily dinner where men are required to wear coats and ties or Sri Lanka national dress.
Walking around town, I also visited the old post office and passed by the club house for the golf course. About 6 it was chilly enough for me to put on my windbreaker. I went to sleep under blankets for the first time since Haputale. My room was almost 20 degrees cooler than it had been the night before in Mahiyangana.
It was raining hard the next morning when I woke up about 7:30. It continued to rain hard during breakfast at my hotel and only started to rain less heavily about 9. Light rain fell the rest of the morning until it began to rain very hard again just before noon. I spent much of the time looking out the hotel windows at people going by under umbrellas. Early in the morning there was a colorful collection of them as girls in white skirts and blue sweaters headed to a nearby school. The air got very cold. I put on long pants, socks, and a fleece and was still a little cold. I had hoped to go very early that morning to Horton Plains National Park, south of Nuwara Eliya, but could find no one to share expenses the evening before. With the heavy rain, I was glad I hadn't gone. I later read that the heavy rains had caused the deaths of more than 20 people in the lowlands south of Colombo. At one spot eight inches of rain fell in one day.
I had lunch at the hotel and then about 2, with the rain now a light drizzle, finally headed out under my umbrella. I walked to another wonderful old hotel, St. Andrew's, and looked around it and its gardens. I walked back to the town center and then cut across the golf course on a little path and made my way back to the Grand Hotel. The rain had stopped but clouds still hung along the tops of the hills surrounding town. One of them, Mount Pidurutalagala (known as Mount Pedro to the British) is Sri Lanka's highest, at 8281 feet. It is not particularly imposing, just the highest bump on a ridge. I spent some time in the beautiful gardens of the Grand Hotel and then went inside, again watching staff playing billiards and later listening to a very good pianist at the grand piano. The clientele at the hotel seemed predominately Chinese and Arab, with the Arab women all in black while their husbands were in shorts. There seem to be lots of Chinese, from China itself as opposed to Singapore or even Hong Kong, all over Sri Lanka. The cloudy sky was darkening even more as I recrossed the golf course back to the town center.
There was no rain the next morning, and even a few moments of sunshine. I spent the day walking around town and up to hilltop on the edge of town. I first headed to the 1889 club house of the golf club, right off the town's main street. The sign said "Members Only," but I was welcomed and given an interesting tour of the building and grounds. Besides a bar, restaurant, and lounge, there are a billiards room and a badminton court inside. There are many wonderful photos and prints on the walls, including photos of club golf champions going back to 1910. Wooden boards on the walls named all the champions since 1891 and there is a collection of old wooden golf clubs in a display case.
The guy who was showing me around took out back to spot where there are three or four tombstones from the 1830's and 1840's. One lay over the grave of the Major Rogers, killed by lightning at Haputale in 1845, whose plaque I had seen at St. Paul's Church in Kandy. I have read that he killed in excess of 1400 elephants before his own demise. Perhaps the lightning bolt that killed him was a rather well aimed one by the elephant gods. His gravestone is cracked in several places, supposedly the result of two more lightning bolts. Elephants never forget.
I took the path that crosses the golf course towards the Hill Club and went inside after walking around the gardens. In fact, I was invited in to look around. I spent quite awhile inside, looking over the old bar, dining room, lounge, and other rooms, and then looking around upstairs, where I could peer into some of the old fashioned rooms with huge bathrooms. I read a couple of newspapers in the lounge while sitting in a very comfortable chair. From the Hill Club I walked to the nearby Grand Hotel and had lunch, with a little rain during lunch.
After lunch I walked south, stopping at several hotels in old buildings to look around. There are quite a few wonderful old hotels here. Nuwara Eliya is a big tourist draw for Sri Lankans on weekends and school holidays. South of Victoria Park is the Racecourse, with a grassy track bordered by a white rail fence. Races now are infrequent, usually in April, but in colonial times they were big events. Horses were grazing on the grass inside the track.
I visited a few more hotels west of the racecourse as it began to rain a bit. The rain stopped and I headed up the road to Single Tree Hill, southwest of town. As I started up I could see southeast down the valley to Hakgala Rock, a distinctive hill seven miles away, but soon clouds swooped in and obscured the view down the valley. I continued up through tea bushes and soon was enveloped by the clouds. I hoped it would again clear and walked up through the fog. After climbing about 400 feet, I found a big flat rock among the tea bushes to sit on while I waited to see if the fog would lift. It did briefly several times, opening up good views of the town, including the wide green racecourse area and a lake south of it. The valley to the southeast was all fogged in, though. I started heading up the road further and the views of town got better. I reached the top of the hill, about 700 feet above town and no longer with just a single tree just before 5. Thick, low clouds still obscured the view southeast, but the views of the town were great. I enjoyed the walk down through the green tea bushes with the town below me. The summit of Mount Pidurutalagala was covered in clouds. I got back to my hotel just before dark.
The sun was out for most of the next morning, though the sky clouded over just before noon. After breakfast at my hotel, I walked up to Holy Trinity Church, established in 1852, so said a sign, though the present church may date from 1899, the date marked on the outside of the church. The exterior looks recently refurbished and the interior has some beautiful woodwork, a pipe organ, and lots of interesting plaques on the walls. One plaque listed vicars since 1843. The names were all European, mostly English, but a few Dutch or German, until the 1960's, and all Sri Lankan thereafter. Another plaque explained that the person memorialized died in 1895 from an "abscess of the liver," which seems a little too much information. Several commemorated deaths of soldiers in South Africa, Libya, and elsewhere. The most poignant listed the names of four children, two boys and two girls, all from the same family and born from 1862 to 1873. Two died before their first birthday, one before his second, and the fourth just before her seventh birthday.
The church was very well maintained and had several stained glass windows. A small plaque stated that the three behind the altar commemorated the life and reign of Queen Victoria. A large window in the transept commemorated the attendance of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh at Easter Sunday service in 1954 and displayed the royal coat of arms.
Outside the well maintained cemetery was full of British graves, most from the early 20th century, but many from the 19th century. I think the oldest I saw was from the 1850's. There are some recent Sri Lankan graves, too. Yellow wildflowers grew all over the cemetery, which surrounded the church, with hundreds of headstones. Many of the dead had made it to old age, which is somewhat unusual for these cemeteries. Quite a few reached their 60's or 70's, and I saw at least one who died at 80 or more, and one who died at 90. One grave was shared by the husband and wife who ran St. Andrew's Hotel from 1933 to 1976. Their last name was De Zilwa, an apparent Dutchification of a Portuguese name. I had seen a picture of them at the hotel taken in 1966 at their 50th wedding anniversary. The wife died just after they sold the hotel. The husband moved to Australia to be with his children and died three year later. His ashes were brought back to his wife's grave.
I had lunch and then took a bus only two or three miles east to the Pedro Tea Estate and visited the four or five story factory. The tour was interesting and the building certainly smelled good. We were treated to a cup of tea after the tour. The factory had photos of the Duke of Edinburgh's visit to the tea estate in 1954. One photo shows him driving what a newspaper article reports is a Humber. The article complements his driving along the narrow country roads. It also commends his interest in the tea workers, asking what sort of pensions they will receive.
After the tour, two others who had been on the tour and I walked up through tea bushes to a waterfall, with great views on the way up, only about a 300 foot climb, of the surrounding tea fields, the factory, and the hills beyond under an increasingly cloudy sky. As we got higher we had good views of town. We also had a good view of a snake, a python I think, more than six feet long that quickly slithered right in front of us across the dirt road and into the tea bushes. In addition, we saw three long (six or eight inches) centipedes or millipedes. The cloudy sky grew increasingly dark as we ascended, with fog swirling in to cover the mountaintops surrounding town, but it didn't rain. We walked down the way we had come and took a tuktuk back to town about 4.
The next morning in the dark just after 5 I finally left in a van, with the two others I had met the afternoon before, for Horton Plains National Park. It was raining and windy as we left, a bad sign. Horton Plains is an undulating plateau at about 6500 to 7000 feet elevation about 20 miles south of Nuwara Eliya. At its southern edge an escarpment plunges almost 3000 feet to the southern plains. It took us over an hour to get to the entry gate. The sky began to get light about 5:30, but fog obscured the views. The narrow road made several switchbacks up to the grass covered, fog enshrouded plains. At the entry gate we spent a few moments considering the cold, rainy weather before deciding to pay the $20 or so entry fee for each of us (Sri Lankans pay less than 50 cents) and brave the trail in the foul weather.
At about a quarter to 7, with the wind blowing and fog swirling around, we, and a few others, started down the trail that makes about a six mile circuit, heading to the escarpment and a viewpoint called World's End and back. The first part of the trail is through undulating grass lands, with views of cloud forest on the top of ridges. It seems the area is so wet that trees can get a good foothold only at the top of ridges, which are better drained that lower areas. The grasslands were speckled with rhododendron bushes and dwarf trees, many with huge dark red blossoms. Despite the wind and fog and early morning chill, I was warm enough in a thin shirt, fleece, and windbreaker. My legs were a little cold under my thin trousers.
Soon the trail entered a spectacular cloud forest, which the trail wandered through for over a mile. The stunted, moss covered trees were some protection from the wind, though fog swirled in and out of the forest and the heavily water eroded trail. Ferns and dwarf bamboo and many other plants grew among the stunted trees. I walked slowly and enjoyed seeing everything. I saw a few birds, and heard a few more, but didn't see much other wildlife. There are purple faced langurs, wild pigs, sambar deer, and even leopards in Horton Plains, but none were to be seen on that rainy morning. There used to be elephants until about a century ago. I did see a squirrel, with much thicker fur than normal, an adaptation, I suppose, to living in such a chilly place.
Nearing World's End, the cloud forest alternated with more open grassland and the trail passed by a viewpoint called Small World's End, with a plunge of about 1000 feet down the escarpment, but the fog obscured the views. I could just barely make out the outline of a hillside with trees below. The path to World's End was beautiful, with cloud forest and grasslands, and I enjoyed it despite the weather.
I got to World's End before 8:30, and, lo and behold, I could see down the escarpment to the plains below. Immediately below is a the sloping valley of the stream coming down from Horton Plains called Behihul Oya ("oya" means "stream") with a few houses among the trees and grass. Beyond, further south, I could see the plains and the Uda Walawe Reservoir, where I had seen elephants a month earlier with the escarpment as a backdrop until it was obscured by clouds later that morning. I was surprised and thrilled to get to see the view. Even in good weather, the view down the escarpment is usually obscured by fog by 10 in the morning. When I started the hike on such a rainy day, I figured I would enjoy the hike but not be able to see the views south. The higher peaks along the escarpment, including Sri Lanka's second and third highest mountains, were hidden by clouds and clouds hovered out over the plains. The ridge on the other side of the beautiful little green valley of the Belihul Oya was mostly covered in clouds, but then they briefly blew away, revealing a gap in the ridge and views through the gap.
The clouds swirled back and forth, but the view south remained open. After looking around for a while, I sat on the rocky ledge of the escarpment and ate half of the sandwich I had brought with me. Clouds began to close in and soon the view was lost, after about a half hour. I waited for a while to see if it would open up again, and then took the trail leading away from World's End into rolling grasslands. It began to rain lightly, and with the strong wind in my face I got a little wet. I broke out my umbrella to use as a shield. The rain eventually diminished and then stopped as I continued through the pretty grasslands, with a view of the Belihul Oya up on the plateau, and then entered more cloud forest.
About 10, after an hour of slow walking from World's End, I reached the steep, muddy path through the cloud forest that leads down a little more than 100 feet to Baker's Falls. The path was slippery, but with great views of the scenic falls through the trees. Once I reached the rocky shore of the river just below the falls there were more great views of the falls and the river as it headed downstream. Some wonderful ferns lined the river.
I enjoyed the views for a while and then walked back up to the main trail, easier than coming down. A short distance along the main trail concrete stairs led to a viewing platform more or less eye level with the falls, with more fantastic views. The falls cascade down through several levels across a wide outcrop of rock.
Back on the main trail I climbed up through the twisted roots and gnarly trees of more spectacular cloud forest. Eventually, I climbed out of the cloud forest and was back in the undulating grasslands. Here I again was pelted with rain and resorted to my umbrella, which helped, but my lower pants legs got fairly wet. However, once the rain stopped, the fierce wind dried my clothes fairly rapidly. The path back eventually ran along the Belihul Oya, with many gnarly rhododendron trees with blood red blossoms along its banks. There were other wildflowers, too, including some very little delicate purple ones.
The last part of the trail left the stream, but there were still lots of rhododendrons along the path. The rain started up again and I again pulled out my umbrella. Just before the end several hundred noisy Sri Lankan teenagers, a school group, came along the path. I got back to the visitor center just before noon, after a five hour hike.
The other two had arrived before me and we immediately drove back, with fog covering the plains for several miles as we drove at about 7000 feet elevation. We descended and the fog lifted, revealing some beautiful forest. We stopped at the train station at Pattipola, six or seven miles from the visitor center. The other two wanted to take the train to Ella, but upon arriving were told the train would go only so far as Bandarawela (because of a landslide blocking the tracks further on) and that the train wouldn't arrive at Pattipola for another three hours. They decided to continue to Nuwara Eliya. On the way back I enjoyed seeing the green landscape that had been hidden by fog earlier that morning. I didn't see much tea, but I did see lots of vegetable gardens.
We got back to Nuwara Eliya just after 1. The hilltops surrounding the town were hidden by clinging clouds and the sky threatened rain. I was dropped off at my hotel while the other two headed to the bus station. At the hotel I ate the other half of my sandwich and some cookies and drank the rest of my water while it began to rain, quite heavily for a while. My clothes were still a little damp, my hotel a little chilly, so when the rain stopped I headed into the town center and to an internet cafe. I went to bed that night soon after 9 and slept for about ten hours.
I took the bus to Mahiyangana, an almost three hour trip, mainly for the trip through the Knuckles Range en route. From Kandy the bus crossed the Mahaveli Ganga and traveled north of the river, passing part of Victoria Reservoir behind Victoria Dam. The Knuckles Range rises to the north, and I had great views of those green, rugged mountains as we rose to about 2800 feet elevation at Hunasgiriya, and even better views of the rocky cliffs of the Knuckles Range as we headed east down from the pass. Eventually, I could see the plains below to the east. At about 2200 feet elevation the bus started down a series of 18 numbered hairpin turns over four or five miles, descending more than a thousand feet, with ever closer views of the plains below as we descended. At the bottom the air was noticeably hotter and more humid. We descended further through the green, hilly countryside and again crossed the Mahaveli Ganga, which had turned north. Mahiyangana, at about 400-500 feet elevation, is on the river's east bank.
I took a tuktuk to a small hotel on the banks of the river, where a wedding reception was in progress. After I checked into my room, the brother of the bride's mother came up to me and invited me to share the buffet lunch. The people were all very friendly. There were no other guests at the hotel except for the wedding party and me. Before eating lunch I wandered around a bit, taking a photo of the bride and groom, both in traditional dress. I was invited over to a table outside, on the river bank, where several older men sat drinking arrack and Sprite or Coke. I think two of them were the fathers of the bride and groom, but no one spoke particularly good English and they were a little drunk. It was very hot sitting there. There was no breeze at all. One guy had on a tie, but no one else at the table did. Few among the guests wore ties.
I went to get a plate of food and on the way to the buffet was asked to pose with the bride and groom. They were beautifully dressed and I was in shorts, sandals, and a mostly clean but now very sweaty shirt. The lunch was good, with ice cream and fruit for desert, but the air was very hot. I envied the folks under fans. Dancing broke out at one point, a sort of free form mass dance of young and old, and I, of course, was pulled into it., to much amusement. I am sure they were laughing at me, not with me. The dancing didn't last long and eventually I was able to sit along the river under a tree and watch what was going on, with several little kids and half drunk adults coming over to say hello and ask me where I was from. The party began to break up between 3 and 4. I retreated to my room, with a fan, just as the bride and groom were getting ready to leave in their decorated car.
About 5, under a dark sky, I walked about a half hour south of town to the big white Rajamaha Dagoba, marking the site where Buddha is supposed to have made his first visit to Sri Lanka. (His second is supposed to have been to an island in the far north near Jaffna and his third to a place near modern day Colombo. In reality it is unlikely Buddha ever visited Sri Lanka.) The Mahaveli Ganga and, beyond, the escarpment I had come down on the way to Mahiyangana are to the west. A big group of white clad devotees was sitting under a tree near the dagoba while an orange clad monk sitting in a chair recited. Later, one of the group told me he was reciting in Pali, the ancient language of the Buddhist scriptures. A few raindrops fell as I walked around the dagoba. I got back to the hotel about 7, after dark. My room was very hot at bedtime, 88 degrees. But I opened the big windows, without screens (I slept under a mosquito net) and by morning the temperature in my room had plunged to 84 degrees. I slept fine, though it took me a while to fall asleep.
Clouds hung over the mountains to the west the next morning when I got up after 7. At 9 I left on a bus back to Kandy and again enjoyed the scenic trip, though it was much cloudier than the day before. The view of the plains to the east from the top of the escarpment was much hazier than the day before. It felt great to get up into the cool air of the hills after the heat of the lowlands.
Back in Kandy, I left at noon on a bus bound for Nuwara Eliya, about 45 miles away and even higher in the hills. From Kandy the bus headed south along the Mahaveli Ganga to Gampoli and then began to climb southeast into the mountains. Though the sky was cloudy, the green countryside was lovely, with tea and forests. At about 3500 feet we passed a dramatic waterfall, Ramboda Falls, and began an even steeper climb, with lots of switchbacks. The tea covered hillsides were beautiful. We rose to about 6500 feet, and then came down to Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka's highest town at 6200 feet, after a two and a half hour trip from Kandy. The air felt wonderfully cool, especially considering that the day before I had been sweltering in Mahiyangana.
I found a hotel overlooking Victoria Gardens, a big formal garden in the center of town, and then looked around. Nuwara Eliya, with only about 25,000 people, is considered the heart of the tea country. The area was discovered by the British in 1819 and a road from Kandy finished ten years later. The town became the center of the coffee and later the tea plantations, and the British also grew all sorts of vegetables not usually found in the tropics, like carrots and turnips and lettuce. Some were on display along the road as we arrived, as were strawberries. The area now is largely Tamil, the "Plantation Tamils" brought by the British to work the tea estates, but the area is still known as Sri Lanka's Little England, with quite a few old colonial buildings and rainy English weather. The sky was cloudy when I arrived and stayed so all afternoon.
I walked around Victoria Park and along the very green golf course in the center of town. I spent considerable time in two very nice hotels, the Grand Hotel and the Hill Club. The former has a mock Tudor facade and wonderful public rooms inside, full of old photos and comfortable furniture. The hotel has been considerably expanded from its colonial original, and it is all very nice. There is a very nice lobby, two in fact, a ballroom, a court with a grand piano, a restaurant, a bar, and a billiards room with three tables. I watched a couple of the staff playing billiards. The Hill Club is a big stone building dating from the late 19th century, with a beautiful lawn in front. A staff member gave me a tour and then I looked around the library, with a photo of Queen Elizabeth from 1954, when she toured Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, and several 18th century prints illustrating the differing fortunes of an industrious apprentice and an idle apprentice. The Hill Club has a daily dinner where men are required to wear coats and ties or Sri Lanka national dress.
Walking around town, I also visited the old post office and passed by the club house for the golf course. About 6 it was chilly enough for me to put on my windbreaker. I went to sleep under blankets for the first time since Haputale. My room was almost 20 degrees cooler than it had been the night before in Mahiyangana.
It was raining hard the next morning when I woke up about 7:30. It continued to rain hard during breakfast at my hotel and only started to rain less heavily about 9. Light rain fell the rest of the morning until it began to rain very hard again just before noon. I spent much of the time looking out the hotel windows at people going by under umbrellas. Early in the morning there was a colorful collection of them as girls in white skirts and blue sweaters headed to a nearby school. The air got very cold. I put on long pants, socks, and a fleece and was still a little cold. I had hoped to go very early that morning to Horton Plains National Park, south of Nuwara Eliya, but could find no one to share expenses the evening before. With the heavy rain, I was glad I hadn't gone. I later read that the heavy rains had caused the deaths of more than 20 people in the lowlands south of Colombo. At one spot eight inches of rain fell in one day.
I had lunch at the hotel and then about 2, with the rain now a light drizzle, finally headed out under my umbrella. I walked to another wonderful old hotel, St. Andrew's, and looked around it and its gardens. I walked back to the town center and then cut across the golf course on a little path and made my way back to the Grand Hotel. The rain had stopped but clouds still hung along the tops of the hills surrounding town. One of them, Mount Pidurutalagala (known as Mount Pedro to the British) is Sri Lanka's highest, at 8281 feet. It is not particularly imposing, just the highest bump on a ridge. I spent some time in the beautiful gardens of the Grand Hotel and then went inside, again watching staff playing billiards and later listening to a very good pianist at the grand piano. The clientele at the hotel seemed predominately Chinese and Arab, with the Arab women all in black while their husbands were in shorts. There seem to be lots of Chinese, from China itself as opposed to Singapore or even Hong Kong, all over Sri Lanka. The cloudy sky was darkening even more as I recrossed the golf course back to the town center.
There was no rain the next morning, and even a few moments of sunshine. I spent the day walking around town and up to hilltop on the edge of town. I first headed to the 1889 club house of the golf club, right off the town's main street. The sign said "Members Only," but I was welcomed and given an interesting tour of the building and grounds. Besides a bar, restaurant, and lounge, there are a billiards room and a badminton court inside. There are many wonderful photos and prints on the walls, including photos of club golf champions going back to 1910. Wooden boards on the walls named all the champions since 1891 and there is a collection of old wooden golf clubs in a display case.
The guy who was showing me around took out back to spot where there are three or four tombstones from the 1830's and 1840's. One lay over the grave of the Major Rogers, killed by lightning at Haputale in 1845, whose plaque I had seen at St. Paul's Church in Kandy. I have read that he killed in excess of 1400 elephants before his own demise. Perhaps the lightning bolt that killed him was a rather well aimed one by the elephant gods. His gravestone is cracked in several places, supposedly the result of two more lightning bolts. Elephants never forget.
I took the path that crosses the golf course towards the Hill Club and went inside after walking around the gardens. In fact, I was invited in to look around. I spent quite awhile inside, looking over the old bar, dining room, lounge, and other rooms, and then looking around upstairs, where I could peer into some of the old fashioned rooms with huge bathrooms. I read a couple of newspapers in the lounge while sitting in a very comfortable chair. From the Hill Club I walked to the nearby Grand Hotel and had lunch, with a little rain during lunch.
After lunch I walked south, stopping at several hotels in old buildings to look around. There are quite a few wonderful old hotels here. Nuwara Eliya is a big tourist draw for Sri Lankans on weekends and school holidays. South of Victoria Park is the Racecourse, with a grassy track bordered by a white rail fence. Races now are infrequent, usually in April, but in colonial times they were big events. Horses were grazing on the grass inside the track.
I visited a few more hotels west of the racecourse as it began to rain a bit. The rain stopped and I headed up the road to Single Tree Hill, southwest of town. As I started up I could see southeast down the valley to Hakgala Rock, a distinctive hill seven miles away, but soon clouds swooped in and obscured the view down the valley. I continued up through tea bushes and soon was enveloped by the clouds. I hoped it would again clear and walked up through the fog. After climbing about 400 feet, I found a big flat rock among the tea bushes to sit on while I waited to see if the fog would lift. It did briefly several times, opening up good views of the town, including the wide green racecourse area and a lake south of it. The valley to the southeast was all fogged in, though. I started heading up the road further and the views of town got better. I reached the top of the hill, about 700 feet above town and no longer with just a single tree just before 5. Thick, low clouds still obscured the view southeast, but the views of the town were great. I enjoyed the walk down through the green tea bushes with the town below me. The summit of Mount Pidurutalagala was covered in clouds. I got back to my hotel just before dark.
The sun was out for most of the next morning, though the sky clouded over just before noon. After breakfast at my hotel, I walked up to Holy Trinity Church, established in 1852, so said a sign, though the present church may date from 1899, the date marked on the outside of the church. The exterior looks recently refurbished and the interior has some beautiful woodwork, a pipe organ, and lots of interesting plaques on the walls. One plaque listed vicars since 1843. The names were all European, mostly English, but a few Dutch or German, until the 1960's, and all Sri Lankan thereafter. Another plaque explained that the person memorialized died in 1895 from an "abscess of the liver," which seems a little too much information. Several commemorated deaths of soldiers in South Africa, Libya, and elsewhere. The most poignant listed the names of four children, two boys and two girls, all from the same family and born from 1862 to 1873. Two died before their first birthday, one before his second, and the fourth just before her seventh birthday.
The church was very well maintained and had several stained glass windows. A small plaque stated that the three behind the altar commemorated the life and reign of Queen Victoria. A large window in the transept commemorated the attendance of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh at Easter Sunday service in 1954 and displayed the royal coat of arms.
Outside the well maintained cemetery was full of British graves, most from the early 20th century, but many from the 19th century. I think the oldest I saw was from the 1850's. There are some recent Sri Lankan graves, too. Yellow wildflowers grew all over the cemetery, which surrounded the church, with hundreds of headstones. Many of the dead had made it to old age, which is somewhat unusual for these cemeteries. Quite a few reached their 60's or 70's, and I saw at least one who died at 80 or more, and one who died at 90. One grave was shared by the husband and wife who ran St. Andrew's Hotel from 1933 to 1976. Their last name was De Zilwa, an apparent Dutchification of a Portuguese name. I had seen a picture of them at the hotel taken in 1966 at their 50th wedding anniversary. The wife died just after they sold the hotel. The husband moved to Australia to be with his children and died three year later. His ashes were brought back to his wife's grave.
I had lunch and then took a bus only two or three miles east to the Pedro Tea Estate and visited the four or five story factory. The tour was interesting and the building certainly smelled good. We were treated to a cup of tea after the tour. The factory had photos of the Duke of Edinburgh's visit to the tea estate in 1954. One photo shows him driving what a newspaper article reports is a Humber. The article complements his driving along the narrow country roads. It also commends his interest in the tea workers, asking what sort of pensions they will receive.
After the tour, two others who had been on the tour and I walked up through tea bushes to a waterfall, with great views on the way up, only about a 300 foot climb, of the surrounding tea fields, the factory, and the hills beyond under an increasingly cloudy sky. As we got higher we had good views of town. We also had a good view of a snake, a python I think, more than six feet long that quickly slithered right in front of us across the dirt road and into the tea bushes. In addition, we saw three long (six or eight inches) centipedes or millipedes. The cloudy sky grew increasingly dark as we ascended, with fog swirling in to cover the mountaintops surrounding town, but it didn't rain. We walked down the way we had come and took a tuktuk back to town about 4.
The next morning in the dark just after 5 I finally left in a van, with the two others I had met the afternoon before, for Horton Plains National Park. It was raining and windy as we left, a bad sign. Horton Plains is an undulating plateau at about 6500 to 7000 feet elevation about 20 miles south of Nuwara Eliya. At its southern edge an escarpment plunges almost 3000 feet to the southern plains. It took us over an hour to get to the entry gate. The sky began to get light about 5:30, but fog obscured the views. The narrow road made several switchbacks up to the grass covered, fog enshrouded plains. At the entry gate we spent a few moments considering the cold, rainy weather before deciding to pay the $20 or so entry fee for each of us (Sri Lankans pay less than 50 cents) and brave the trail in the foul weather.
At about a quarter to 7, with the wind blowing and fog swirling around, we, and a few others, started down the trail that makes about a six mile circuit, heading to the escarpment and a viewpoint called World's End and back. The first part of the trail is through undulating grass lands, with views of cloud forest on the top of ridges. It seems the area is so wet that trees can get a good foothold only at the top of ridges, which are better drained that lower areas. The grasslands were speckled with rhododendron bushes and dwarf trees, many with huge dark red blossoms. Despite the wind and fog and early morning chill, I was warm enough in a thin shirt, fleece, and windbreaker. My legs were a little cold under my thin trousers.
Soon the trail entered a spectacular cloud forest, which the trail wandered through for over a mile. The stunted, moss covered trees were some protection from the wind, though fog swirled in and out of the forest and the heavily water eroded trail. Ferns and dwarf bamboo and many other plants grew among the stunted trees. I walked slowly and enjoyed seeing everything. I saw a few birds, and heard a few more, but didn't see much other wildlife. There are purple faced langurs, wild pigs, sambar deer, and even leopards in Horton Plains, but none were to be seen on that rainy morning. There used to be elephants until about a century ago. I did see a squirrel, with much thicker fur than normal, an adaptation, I suppose, to living in such a chilly place.
Nearing World's End, the cloud forest alternated with more open grassland and the trail passed by a viewpoint called Small World's End, with a plunge of about 1000 feet down the escarpment, but the fog obscured the views. I could just barely make out the outline of a hillside with trees below. The path to World's End was beautiful, with cloud forest and grasslands, and I enjoyed it despite the weather.
I got to World's End before 8:30, and, lo and behold, I could see down the escarpment to the plains below. Immediately below is a the sloping valley of the stream coming down from Horton Plains called Behihul Oya ("oya" means "stream") with a few houses among the trees and grass. Beyond, further south, I could see the plains and the Uda Walawe Reservoir, where I had seen elephants a month earlier with the escarpment as a backdrop until it was obscured by clouds later that morning. I was surprised and thrilled to get to see the view. Even in good weather, the view down the escarpment is usually obscured by fog by 10 in the morning. When I started the hike on such a rainy day, I figured I would enjoy the hike but not be able to see the views south. The higher peaks along the escarpment, including Sri Lanka's second and third highest mountains, were hidden by clouds and clouds hovered out over the plains. The ridge on the other side of the beautiful little green valley of the Belihul Oya was mostly covered in clouds, but then they briefly blew away, revealing a gap in the ridge and views through the gap.
The clouds swirled back and forth, but the view south remained open. After looking around for a while, I sat on the rocky ledge of the escarpment and ate half of the sandwich I had brought with me. Clouds began to close in and soon the view was lost, after about a half hour. I waited for a while to see if it would open up again, and then took the trail leading away from World's End into rolling grasslands. It began to rain lightly, and with the strong wind in my face I got a little wet. I broke out my umbrella to use as a shield. The rain eventually diminished and then stopped as I continued through the pretty grasslands, with a view of the Belihul Oya up on the plateau, and then entered more cloud forest.
About 10, after an hour of slow walking from World's End, I reached the steep, muddy path through the cloud forest that leads down a little more than 100 feet to Baker's Falls. The path was slippery, but with great views of the scenic falls through the trees. Once I reached the rocky shore of the river just below the falls there were more great views of the falls and the river as it headed downstream. Some wonderful ferns lined the river.
I enjoyed the views for a while and then walked back up to the main trail, easier than coming down. A short distance along the main trail concrete stairs led to a viewing platform more or less eye level with the falls, with more fantastic views. The falls cascade down through several levels across a wide outcrop of rock.
Back on the main trail I climbed up through the twisted roots and gnarly trees of more spectacular cloud forest. Eventually, I climbed out of the cloud forest and was back in the undulating grasslands. Here I again was pelted with rain and resorted to my umbrella, which helped, but my lower pants legs got fairly wet. However, once the rain stopped, the fierce wind dried my clothes fairly rapidly. The path back eventually ran along the Belihul Oya, with many gnarly rhododendron trees with blood red blossoms along its banks. There were other wildflowers, too, including some very little delicate purple ones.
The last part of the trail left the stream, but there were still lots of rhododendrons along the path. The rain started up again and I again pulled out my umbrella. Just before the end several hundred noisy Sri Lankan teenagers, a school group, came along the path. I got back to the visitor center just before noon, after a five hour hike.
The other two had arrived before me and we immediately drove back, with fog covering the plains for several miles as we drove at about 7000 feet elevation. We descended and the fog lifted, revealing some beautiful forest. We stopped at the train station at Pattipola, six or seven miles from the visitor center. The other two wanted to take the train to Ella, but upon arriving were told the train would go only so far as Bandarawela (because of a landslide blocking the tracks further on) and that the train wouldn't arrive at Pattipola for another three hours. They decided to continue to Nuwara Eliya. On the way back I enjoyed seeing the green landscape that had been hidden by fog earlier that morning. I didn't see much tea, but I did see lots of vegetable gardens.
We got back to Nuwara Eliya just after 1. The hilltops surrounding the town were hidden by clinging clouds and the sky threatened rain. I was dropped off at my hotel while the other two headed to the bus station. At the hotel I ate the other half of my sandwich and some cookies and drank the rest of my water while it began to rain, quite heavily for a while. My clothes were still a little damp, my hotel a little chilly, so when the rain stopped I headed into the town center and to an internet cafe. I went to bed that night soon after 9 and slept for about ten hours.
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