Continuing on with Monica's visit:
We had one day off after Pollonaruwa and then it was off to Nuwara Eliya. This was a real trip up memory lane for me as Nuwara Eliya is the heart of tea country where I spent a lot of time when I lived in Sri Lanka before. I was really looking forward to it. We went with my friends Lalindra and his new bride Nishi. They live just around the corner from me, so it was easy to co-ordinate. Lalindra drove, so it was a good arrangement.
We left at a respectable hour and drove leisurely up country. We stopped at Mackwood's Labookellie tea centre to have our first taste of real single garden up country tea. What a disaster! The chocolate cake was OK, but the tea was served with diluted condensed milk. Made no matter to me, but for those people who take milk with or without sugar, it is terrible. Both Lalindra and I filled out complaint forms as the manager would only be back in half an hour (This is always the story.). I am sure they binned the forms as soon as we were out of the parking lot. Those going to Nuwara Eliya be warned. Do not stop at Mackwood's.
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| A tea factory with the house of an admin clerk in the foreground, |
Then it was on to Nuwara Eliya. It has not changed too much other than the fact that the houses have crept up the hills from the valley floor nearly to the top of the hills and every inch of land in an around the village that is not built on is under vegetable cultivation. The latter is not a bad thing.
We found our guest house, The Hill View Bungalow. It is above St. Andrews where I stayed frequently in my previous incarnation here and had many fun games of ping pong on those rainy and foggy Nuwara Eliya days. Fond memories of sipping bed tea with Devaraj discussing the Mahabharata in the mornings and drinking aquavit on the lounge in the afternoons. St Andrews has been taken over Jetwings, a large tour company. It is not the same, but I guess time can't stand still.
The place was very decent and the host very obliging. Even though it was Good Friday and they were Christians, they were able to accommodate us with a wonderful vegetarian dinner served with beer and all. Breakfast in the morning was also good.
I got some nasturtium plants with roots to plant back in my garden in Kandy. As it turns out, I don't think they will survive. Too bad. I also got a strawberry plant which is thriving after my landlady put a mesh fence around it to prevent critters from digging it up.
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| They had this old RCA gramophone in the lounge by our rooms. It actually worked. |
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| Canna lilies grow everywhere but especially in the hill country |
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| Tea on the hills with vegetables in the valley |
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| The view from our room |
Then it was on to the Hill Club for another reminiscence. The Hill Club is a planters' club founded in 1876 by English and Scots tea, coffee, and cinchona (the source of the anti-malarial prophylactic quinine) planters. It is still a private club, but non-members are allowed to stay in one of the few rooms or to dine there. I had stayed there a couple of times years ago and had gone for dinner and/or drinks a few times. They had a men's only lounge that I always made a great point of entering and demanding a drink. They did and still do demand neck ties for the men dining after 1900. I went there one time with Devaraj and Mahendra (my Indian boyfriend). Devaraj was dressed in traditional Sri Lankan garb with a white shirt and white lungi while Mahendra was dressed in a similar white shirt with Indian collar and white slacks. They refused to let us in because they did not have neck ties. Of course, I immediately got indignant.
The President of the Hill Club is always also the President of Sri Lanka. At that time it was J.R. Jayawardena. I asked them if President Jayawardena arrived dressed as these men were dressed in traditional dress, would they refuse him entry. They said no. Then why would they not allow Devaraj and Mahendra entry? In the end I made such a fuss they had to let us in.
This time, we arrived to be taken aside and informed that this was a private club but that if we wanted to have lunch we could buy a day membership for LKR100 each. We agreed and in we went. It had not changed one bit. I am sure they had reupholstered and such because everything was in good condition, but otherwise they had preserved everything as it has been for at least 50 years.
We sat down and were given menus. We ordered. After 30 minutes and questions about where our lunch was, it finally appeared. Not fabulous, but edible right until we ordered the profiteroles which had to be cut with a steak knife. They must have been thawed and refrozen countless times and were disgusting. We sent them back and demanded they be removed from the bill. When the bill finally came; which took another eternity, Nishi noticed that the prices were not what she had remembered from the menu. She asked to see a menu which was brought but she said it was not the same as the one she had seen when we had been seated. They then admitted that they had 2 menus; one for tourists and one for members. At once, we all said we had purchased memberships upon arrival and therefore were entitled to the member menu and in any event, that was the menu we had been presented with upon arrival. They equivocated and we continued to insist. After some discussion involving 3 waiters and 2 managers, one of the managers came back saying there had been a mistake and they would give us a 10% discount. I almost came out of my chair. I told him that they could not have it both ways, selling us a membership and charging us tourist prices as well and that what they would do is charge the prices from the member menu. He said he did not know how to do that. What an idiot! I explained that he would void the first bill and create a new bill using the member prices. After another 30 minutes and me threatening to charge them for my time, they came back with the proper bill. Another warning: If you go to the Hill Club make sure you are not ripped off and do not order the profiteroles. For my part, that is the last trip I will be making there.
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| The Hill Club, beautiful but a rip off |
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| The Heart of Nuwara Eliya is Gregory's Lake where people come to promenade and view the lovely rose gardens |
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| Gregory's Lake |
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| Swan shaped paddle boats on Gregory's Lake. Kitschy but cute |
Another feature of Nuwara Eliya is the racecourse. The first races took place in 1875 but the course was not laid out until 1900. I think the course and the buildings are still the originals. We did not bother to pay to go in as the parking lot is right beside the starting gate and within sight of the finish line, so we just hung out there for one race. This was something I had long wanted to do, so it was great fun.
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| Horses arriving |
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| And they're off! |
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| This is one of the original house across from the racecourse |
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| The Mosque |
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| Endless hills of tea, although less than there used to be |
The other long standing feature of Nuwara Eliya is the Grand Hotel. We decided to go for high tea. To wile away the time before tea, we toured the gardens around the hotel. They are magnificent.
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| There are a lot of topiaries |
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| Topiary hearts |
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| Standing among the pruned bushes |
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| Elephant |
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| Squirrel |
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| The hedge was carved with scenes for birds |
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| A topiary of a ceremonial lamp with a peacock on top |
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| Beautiful dahlias |
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| Cabbage |
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| One of the fountains |
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| The hotel |
High tea was to start at 1530, but nothing happened until 1615. There was a family of Sri Lankans visiting from Dubai who were getting desperate as they were so hungry. As usual, they were being completely ignored. Finally, were seated ourselves and they set up the buffet which technically is not high tea. The only edible thing was the Brandenburg cake (read marzipan which I will eat under any circumstances) and the banana fritters. The thing they had labelled as a scone tasted as if it had been made from sawdust. The only sandwiches were plastic processed cheese and tomato with horrible white bread with the crust cut off. You had to hunt down the waiter to get your initial cup of tea and had to almost threaten someone's life to get a refill. Another warning: don't bother with high tea at the Grand. Apparently the Indian and Thai restaurants are good though.
On the way out of town, we stopped to buy vegetables. A bit of a disappointment as I can get most of the stuff in Kandy in just as good shape. The one delight was that they had tamarillo (tree tomato or gus takali in Sinhalese) which only grows up there. I bought some immediately for the lunch the following Wednesday.
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| View of Kotmale reservoir from the Nuwara Eliya/Kandy road |
We stopped in Gampola on the way back to see Jez, get some cheese (bocconcini which was fabulous) and some Indian ganja which he had managed to get with some hassle. Monica was thrilled and managed to finish it all before she went home.
