Kandy is in the hills of central Sri Lanka and surrounded by water on three sides. It was under British control from 1815 until 1972 when Sri Lanka gained independence. It is the home of the Temple of the Tooth Relic, one of the most sacred places of worship in the Buddhist world and was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1988. The center of Kandy lies on Kandy Lake, an artificial lake built in 1807 next to the royal palace complex which houses the tooth. Our hotel (Ru Boutique) was right on the lake and we stayed in 2 adjoining rooms. It was a neat set up with the rooms separated by an outdoor bathroom and fenced archway. The bathroom adjacent to our room was awesome with a fantastic outdoor rain shower and a small courtyard with a table and chairs. There was a small plunge pool upstairs for adult lounging and kid entertainment. The next room over there was a pool table. The restaurant staff were very friendly and the food was great. They even had gluten-free bread.
The royal palace complex which houses the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic was a short walk from the hotel. We walked around the lake to meet Dan on the other side at the entrance to the temple. We only ran into a little trouble when we met up with the Asian water monitor shown above. Interesting fact…they were just recently found to have venom glands. The temple houses the relic of the tooth of the Buddha. According to Sri Lankan legend, when the Buddha passed away in 543 BCE his body was cremated in a sandalwood pyre and his left canine tooth was retrieved from the funeral pyre. This tooth is apparently housed in the aforementioned temple. Since ancient times, the relic has played an important role in local politics because it is believed that whomever holds the relic, holds the governance of the country. Daily worship is conducted in the inner chamber of the temple three times daily at dawn, noon, and in the evenings. On Wednesdays, there is a symbolic bathing of the relic with a herbal preparation made from scented water and fragrant flowers. This holy water is believed to contain healing powers and is distributed to those present. People bring offerings like lotus flowers to the temple throughout the day.
We removed our shoes and walked in with a crowd of white-clothed buddhists giving offerings of flowers to the tooth. There is a nice exhibit of artifacts upstairs from the temple that outlines the history of the relic. I am not really sure that the tooth even exists as we were not able to see it. Our guide Dan assures us that it is a tangible object and that it is larger than your average human canine tooth. We also saw a shrine to Raja, a very special elephant that was used for over 50 years to carry the tooth in the annual city festival. This festival is called the Kandy Esala Perahera and is held every year in July and August in Kandy. This historical procession consists of traditional local dances such as fire dances and performances in whip-dance garments in order to pay homage to the tooth relic. Raja was a Sri Lankan tusker elephant and was world famous for his noble behavior. He was declared a national treasure in recognition of his valuable services to the religion and culture of Sri Lanka. After Raja passed away in 1988, he was preserved and stuffed and put on display in a museum here.
From here we went to the Kandyan Culturle Center to see a show of native traditional dances and songs. The drumming, singing and dancing was mesmerizing. They saved the best for last though when they brought out the fire for demonstrations of fire swallowing and fire walking.
After leaving Kandy we drove on to Ella. This is a small town situated at an elevation of 3,415 ft above sea level. Ella is surrounded by hills and has a cooler climate due to its elevation that is perfect for tea plantations. We stopped at the Kinellan Tea factory to learn how tea moves from the bush to the teacup. This factory makes mostly black tea. It was really cool! The local tea guide (a retired tea man) was very knowledgable and showed us the terraced fields of tea bushes.
All tea is prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub native to China and other East Asian countries. After water, it is the most widely consumed drink in the world. There are many different types of tea, but all of the major types (which include white tea, yellow tea, green tea, oolong, dark tea and black tea) are all harvested from this same species of leaf. Although each type of tea has a different taste, smell, and visual appearance, tea processing for all tea types consists of a very similar set of methods with only minor variations. The only thing that distinguishes the different types from one another is how they are processed to attain varying levels of oxidation with black tea being the most oxidized and green being the least. The term herbal tea refers to drinks not made from Camellia sinensis. They are the infusions of fruit, leaves, or other plant parts. These may be called tisanes or herbal infusions to prevent confusion with tea made from the tea plant. The most commonly known herbal tea is coffee.
A tea plant will grow into a tree of up to 16 m (52 ft) if left undisturbed, but cultivated plants are generally pruned to waist height for ease of plucking. Also, the short plants bear more new shoots which provide new and tender leaves and increase the quality of the tea. Only the top 2.5–5 centimetres (1–2 in) of the mature plant are picked. These buds and leaves are called ‘flushes’. The bushes are consistently pruned to less than 4 feet so people can easily pick the new growth leaves without having to reach too far. A tea leaf picker is called a plucker. They pluck the leaves and put them in a basket that is attached to their back by a band around their forehead. Each plucker needs to pluck about 18 kg of leaves each day in order to be paid. This amount might be adjusted for a variety of factors like leaf growth rates, rain/weather complications, etc. A plant will grow a new flush every 7 to 15 days during the growing season so each plant is plucked about every two weeks. Tea has between 30 and 90 milligrams of caffeine per 250-ml (8+1⁄2 US fl oz) cup depending on the type, brand, and brewing method. Tea also contains small amounts of theobromine and theophylline, which are stimulants, and xanthines similar to caffeine. Black and green teas contain no essential nutrients in significant amounts, with the exception of manganese at 0.5 mg per cup (26% of the Reference Daily Intake (RDI).
The tea production process is shown above. Once the tea leaves are harvested they are moved to the factory in large bags and then dried on huge trays with warm air blowers to start withering. Tea leaves will begin to wilt soon after picking, with a gradual onset of enzymatic oxidation. Withering is used to remove excess water from the leaves and allows a very slight amount of oxidation. In a withering room, leaves are spread out along troughs for 8-14 hours, usually overnight. During this time 35 per cent of moisture is lost. This process is important in promoting the breakdown of leaf proteins into free amino acids and increases the availability of freed caffeine, both of which change the taste of the tea. The next stage in the process is called disruption or leaf maceration. Leaf disruption can be done by kneading, rolling, tearing, and crushing (usually by machinery) in order to promote and quicken oxidation. For teas that require oxidation, the leaves are left on their own in a climate-controlled room where they turn progressively darker. In this process the chlorophyll in the leaves is enzymatically broken down, and its tannins are released or transformed. The tea producer chooses when the oxidation should be stopped depending on what kind of tea they want. Oxidation is highly important in the formation of many taste and aroma compounds which give tea its color, strength, and briskness. This process is erroneously referred to as fermentation in the tea industry. The next stage is fixation. This is done to stop the tea leaf oxidation at a desired level and is accomplished by moderately heating tea leaves, thus deactivating their oxidative enzymes and removing unwanted scents in the leaves, without damaging the flavor of the tea. Drying is done to finish the tea for sale. Lastly, the dried tea leaves are sorted to remove physical impurities such as stems and seeds. Using sorting equipment to improve tea production efficiency is very common in tea processing plants, especially in black tea processing. In this factory a color sorter was used that some how distinguishes very black tea from dark brown tea to further classify the final product grades. The tea is then packed and shipped to countries where they are sold as loose tea or placed in tea bags. Interestingly, Russia accounts for about 75% of this factory’s tea exportation.
Somehow we repeatedly heard the word plucking as flucking and even asked for them to repeat it. I think the pronunciation of the PL and FL were a bit different and we were convinced up until we researched and wrote this blog that they were flucking the leaves. Trey clarified with Dan via WhatsApp and its definitely ‘plucker’ which does make more sense, but we were having a lot of fun with the thought that they were calling themselves fluckers.
After the tea factory we had a very late lunch at the Chill Cafe in Ella which is owned by one of Dan’s friends, a very humble man. It is a fantastic spot in the middle of town with a huge covered outdoor deck. The ambiance is very relaxed (hence the name) and comfortable…kind of like a no worries, be happy vibe. The food was really good and they make great combo fruit juices and fruit smoothies like passionfruit/mango/banana which was my personal favorite. Dan said that during Covid when the tourist business here tanked, the owner of the cafe sent groceries to all of the tour guides he knew who used to bring their clients into his restaurant because he knew they were struggling. Dan introduced him to us when we left so we could say hello and let him know that we really liked his place.
The town of Ella is awesome. There are young backpackers everywhere and there is a ton to do. It is definitely not to be missed if you are visiting Sri Lanka. Some highlights include riding the train from Kandy to Ella (we couldn’t do this due to Covid, but it is #1 on everone’s list of things to do), visiting the Nine Arch Bridge (more on this to come soon), hiking Ella Rock or Little Adams Peak (also more to come), visiting Diyaluma and Ravana Falls, tea factory tours, zip-lining, and chilling in Ella town eating and shopping.
We arrived at the hotel in Ella in the dark. It is a lovely place called Nine Skies that is perched in the hills just 15 minutes from Ella. It is the definition of a boutique hotel with only five bedrooms. Dan pulled up to the bottom of what google maps said was the driveway. It was an impassable, washed out, steep, dirt road. Hmmm. He contacted the hotel who said they would send tuk-tuks to get us, but while we were waiting a passing tuk-tuk driver told us the real driveway was just a few minutes away on the other side of the hill. The real driveway was a much improved dirt road and we made it up with no trouble. The hotel was beautiful with a nice outdoor patio for meals overlooking the pool and the surrounding valley and mountains. We put the kids to bed and sat up having homemade sorbet in their lounge.
The next morning we did a < 1 hour hike to Little Adams Peak. The hike itself is short and mostly stairs up to a scenic viewpoint where you can see the entire valley across to Ella Rock (a significantly harder peak to hike to). We went past a snake charmer with, I can only assume, a de-fanged cobra and a leashed monkey, several homemade fruit and water stands, an adventure company with a zip-line and a cafe selling drinks and ice cream. There is a small shrine to Buddha at the very top where the faithful were seen praying. Marin, Sy, Trey and Griffin wanted to do the zip-line down, but you had to weigh 60 lbs. Sy weighed in at 60 lbs exactly and Griffin at 50 lbs. He was crushed to be left out so I bought him an ice cream and told him he could take pictures of the others going down. Marin went down in style, waving happily. Trey and Sy went together and were quickly separated as Trey zoomed down and Sy almost stalled before the platform due to his light weight.
We followed this with a 45-minute hike to the Nine Arch Bridge which wound its way down a path past a youth hostel, a small village and through a tropical forest. A small cafe at the bottom offered cool drinks and snacks. The bridge is a viaduct bridge and one of the best examples of colonial-era railway construction in the country. It is a common tourist site due to the bridge’s architectural ingenuity and the profuse greenery in the nearby hillsides. We were all a little hot and tired at this point and the kids quickly latched on to the idea of taking tuk-tuks and racing up the hill and back to the van.
We drove on to Tangalle, one of the largest towns on the southern coast and a center of tourism in the area. We stayed at the Anantara Peace Haven which was one of my favorite hotels of the entire trip. The rooms were spacious, air conditioned and very clean. The buffet meals were great with a wide selection. There were 2 pools. Both of them were large and long enough for laps Over the course of our few days there we noticed an increasing number of guests coming with kids and speaking Russian. The hotel staff mentioned that they were from Ukraine which made us very sad. We used this hotel as our home base for a few morning adventures in the area and then enjoyed the pool in the afternoons.
The first excursion was whale watching. Dan told us the night prior via text that he would pick us up at 5 AM for the whale watching trip. We texted back, “Did you mean to say 5 AM?” Unfortunately, he meant it and we arrived at the harbor to board the Sail Lanka, a catamaran. We enjoyed the sunrise and walking through the colorful harbor past all the fishing boats. Our catamaran headed out into what I would call a rough sea. There was no way we would have survived the sea sickness without sea bands and a tab of orally dissolving Zofran for 3/5 of us. We all went to the cushioned roof area to sleep our way through the sea sickness while the determined captain headed out to sea in search of whales. Instead, we found a huge pod of dolphins that swam alongside and in front of the boat, jumping and twisting and putting on a great show. We stood on the front of the boat, and looking directly down, we could watch the dolphins playing. We anchored closer to shore and had a great seafood lunch on board. We enjoyed swimming in the refreshing water, jumping off the diving board at the bow, doing flips off the side and being towed around at high speeds on a paddle board. The captain was quite sad that we did not see any whales and speculated that the orcas that were seen the day prior had scared the whales off deeper into the Indian Ocean. We didn’t mind as the dolphins were amazing and we had a blast playing on the paddle board and swimming off the boat.
The next day we did a surf lesson at the Weligama City Beginner’s Surf Beach. This beach is one of the best places to learn to surf as the waves vary from small to mid-sized and are consistent with a very long shallow area and no rocks or reefs. There are many surf shops along the beach. We were given a lesson on the sand first to understand the rhythm of standing up on the board then we headed out to try it on real waves. Marin, Sy and Griffin got up right away and were able to repeatedly stand up on the board and ride it into the shallow waters. Trey had a harder time getting on due to his heavier weight. Each step placement matters and he finally found the perfect balance and got up a few times to ride the board in. Two hours passed quickly and we spent the next hour drinking fresh coconuts, watching an amazing hula hooper, petting puppies and talking with a couple who relocated here from Dubai, but were originally from CA and India. After a few minutes, we made the connection that the man’s sister works at PVSEC, another Bluepearl hospital, and is in the surgery training program! Very small world moment.
The last place that we went to in the area was to the Sea Turtle Conservation Project & Hatchery in Koggala where we learned that 5 different turtle breeds can be found in the waters surrounding Sri Lanka. They are injured mostly by fishing (nets and hooks). Several were missing limbs from being entangled in fishing nets. The missing limbs may get replaced with prosthetics once they have grown large enough and if the equipment can be obtained from Australia. One was blind from a fish hook and was being trained to be a vegetarian in hopes of releasing it someday (this type of turtle can transition from omnivore to herbivore later in life). Several turtles were floating on the top of the water due to ingesting too much plastic. The clinic gives them some kind of medication that softens the plastic and allows it to pass. Apparently, after this works, the turtles are able to dive to feed again and can be released into the wild. I tried to find out what this medication is, but the man giving the tour didn’t know the name of it. We were lucky enough to see baby turtles that hatched the night prior. They were scheduled to be released that night into the ocean. This turtle clinic survives on tourist entrance fees and donations exclusively. It is a pretty low budget affair, but doing some great work.
The last town we visited was Galle. It is a major city in Sri Lanka situated on the southwestern tip about 74 miles from Colombo. It was under Portuguese, Dutch and British control at various times in its history. Galle is the best example of a fortified city built by the Portuguese in Asia, showing the interaction between Portuguese architectural styles and native traditions. The city was extensively fortified by the Dutch during the 17th century in which they added Galle fort, a world heritage site and the largest remaining fortress in Asia built by European occupiers. It covers an area of 130 acres. As in other parts of Sri Lanka the city was devastated by the massive tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake which occurred off the coast of Indonesia a thousand miles away. Thousands were killed in the city alone. The country recognized the significance of the town and fort and did extensive renovations to return it to its former status. It is a stunning place! There are tiny one-lane streets that fit tuk-tuks, motorcycles and pedestrians better than cars or vans. We wandered around a street fair that had a ton of food tents, vendors and live music. We had street food and ice cream and window shopped our way home to the hotel through the fun, busy little streets. We stayed at a really cool “hotel,” The Fort Printers. It is an eighteenth-century mansion turned printing facility which now houses five stylish, antiques-filled suites with an interesting pool.
The next morning we met Sanjai, a local guide who did a walking tour of Galle for us. He gave the kids a little photo book of the sights to find and was very dynamic and entertaining. We learned about the history of Galle and some of the historically important buildings. It was quite hot, especially in the sun, so it was particularly nice that we ended the tour with gelato. We were told that the town/fort got its name from the word galle derived from the Latin word gallus, which means rooster. The Dutch used the rooster as a symbol of Galle. The other version is that it was a named after the word galaa, the Sinhalese word meaning place where cattle was herded (I think this is the likely, though less sexy, derivation). We walked around the ramparts and bastions of the fort. There are only two gates into the fort and lots of buildings and rooms to explore. There was an extensive shipping port at one time, but now it only for fishing vessels. We saw one fisherman (photo below, in green shirt) collecting his lunch in the port and de-inking an octopus in a gruesome display where he ripped the ink sac out of its neck. We were all a bit horrified especially after our octopus adventure in Hawaii. Griffin said, “That might be Apollo’s cousin!” We also watched some cricket from the walls of the fort. Galle is home to the Galle International Stadium which is considered to be one of the most picturesque cricket grounds in the world.
We went onto our last meal in Sri Lanka at lunch with the guide’s friends at Wasantha’s Sri Lanka Cuisine. This is a family run establishment that treated us like family and the food was spectacular. We had rice with a beet dish, fresh fish, banana flower and several other vegetable dishes. So far Sri Lanka is the only country we have found that makes food from the flower of the banana. They were very friendly and kind. They offer cooking classes and have a popular restaurant in the evenings. What a great meal to end our stay!
Sri Lanka surprised me. Trey pushed for us to visit here and I half-heartedly agreed since I got to add Egypt…one of my bucket list places. This is a great place to visit. The people are friendly and eager to help and the food was really fantastic with so much flavor. The land is beautiful and the Buddhist culture is so refreshing with an encompassing feeling of being kind to others. We had such an awesome experience and felt very safe and welcome. There were plenty of people backpacking and traveling around in groups, mostly from Europe. At this point in our lives, towing 3 kids, we felt more comfortable with a tour guide. Dan was a fantastic advocate for his country and we feel like we got a great sense of the people during our stay.
It is still a developing country, certainly, with plenty of people living without advantages in small villages with mud, brick and grass houses. There is apparently some governmental corruption (details beyond our scope), but education is a priority and they have universal health care (Duh!). People seem overall very caring and happy. If you are interested in traveling to Sri Lanka, let us know. We are happy to give more details.
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