Image: tea plantation, Nuwara Eliya
3 January 2024
Post 2 of 3
While the traditional Sri Lankan new year is celebrated in April in line with Sinhalese and Tamil customs, the Western calendar’s new year is still cause for much busyness. There is a strong belief that one must start the new year so fresh and so clean. The streets were full as people had their cars cleaned and serviced, homemakers bargained on the price of shiny pots and pans, and people donned their white outfits to visit temples and pray for the year ahead.
We were in Kandy for New Year’s Eve and the tourist advice was not to expect night-time carry-on. On this advice, I had booked a hotel with an amazing view, we had bought a bottle of champagne and we were set to celebrate new year about 9pm and go to bed shortly after.
Before we could start the new year we needed to be blessed so we visited the sacred temple, home to Buddha’s tooth. We sought Buddha’s spiritual guidance in maintaining our patience to deal with the few hundred stinky, pushy obnoxious tourists we were sharing the experience with. I gather we saw the tooth, but it was hard to identify it in the piles of gold, jewellery and trinkets.
Being blessed and being patient is hard work – our hungry tummies took us to a large, empty restaurant overlooking the lake.
I was still expecting to be home by 9pm at this point and was a bit annoyed at having to pay a cover charge to enter the restaurant. But it turns out we were up for the “party of the century” with MC “Party Monster” wanting us to give him “goosebumps”, “get ready, get ready, get ready to party” and “get in the mix with party monster”. With some marked up Chilean wine and a dodgy cover band, we were the party starters, carving up the dancefloor and making friends with everyone in the eventually packed-out restaurant. The restaurant owner got his staff to let off fireworks on the building across the road, with absolutely no safety considerations, so that the restaurant guests had the “best New Year’s ever”. We were home in bed at about 2am, fully blessed and ready for 2024.
New Year’s day was our tea plantation day. Unfortunately it is the only day of the year that the tea plantation machines don’t operate! The Tea Houses still cater to the tourists so I had my fill of tea for the year (and then couldn’t sleep because of the caffeine!). The government has strict controls on the growing and selling of tea in Sri Lanka. Most tea is sent to the tea market in Colombo where it is sold at auction. The factory we visited processes 3 tonnes of tea leaves a day and sends 80% to auction. Big labels like Dilmah and Lipton apparently buy tea leaves from a range of growers (say 75% of high quality tea and 25% of the not-so-great variety) and then combines the different quality tea leaves to make its own products.
Many of the tea plantations today import Indian Tamils as workers and provide accommodation on the plantation. Workers are expected to collect a minimum of 18kgs of tea leaves a day and bag the leaves in lots of 5kgs. If you collect more than 18kgs, you get paid a little bit more. The higher the tea plantation is in altitude, the tastier the tea. We visited the Damro Tea Plantation and I can confirm the tea was tasty.
Side note, Sri Lankan Tamils constitute about 15% of the Sri Lanka population and live mostly in the north. They are considered different to Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Moors, despite all speaking Tamil. Most Tamils are Hindu, although there are Tamils of every religion. The ancestry of Sri Lankan citizens is immensely diverse given Sri Lanka’s location on the sea trading route.
From Nuwara Eliya, we hired a jeep and driver to take us to Horton Plains National Park where we hoped to see World’s End and some native animals. Our new year blessings were already working because the rain kept the fog away so we got to see the view in all its glory. Apparently seeing the view is not a common occurrence with the clouds rolling in fast as we left.
Continuing our spiritual quest for blessings, I talked Chef into walking up Sri Lanka’s 4th highest mountain with me. At 2243m, Sri Pada (or Adam’s Peak) is higher than Mt Kosciuszko (2228m). At the peak of the mountain is a large hollow in a rock that apparently looks like a “footprint”. The Buddhists believe it is Buddha’s left foot. The Christians and Muslims believed that it was where Adam first stepped onto the earth after being thrown out of the Garden of Eden. The Hindu’s claim that it is the footprint of Lord Shiva. Today, the Buddhists “manage” access to the footprint and it is a sacred pilgrimage for many Sri Lankans. We met locals who were climbing to the top for their 6th time, keen for new blessings and guidance on the year ahead.
Most tourists start the walk about 2am to ensure they are at the top for sunrise. We started the climb just before 5am because we like our sleep and were happy to avoid the tourists. 5000 concrete stairs (or 203 floors) to the top. Chef was now known as Mountain Goat. Lots of photos because it was a pretty epic adventure.
Yep I can confirm that seeing Worlds end is not common – but I am glad I got the view in your photo. Adam’s peak hike looks lovely!