A CULTURAL FAREWELL AND A WELCOME TO TEA COUNTRY

The last night in Kandy we were able to see an incredible performance of typical Kandyan dancers.

 

Their costumes were bright Sri Lankan colors and they had great juggling, gymnastics and fun as well as fire eating and walking.  It was quite a spectacle!

Then on to the serene hills of tea country. We had the fun of taking the train from Kandy to Hadden which provides a spectacular look at the country side.  Here is the train.

 It is beautiful and so wonderful to see the tea fields that stretch for miles as well as the locals picking tea and then bringing their bags to be weighed.

It is a hard life as the pickers must climb up and down the
hills filling their bags.  They have to be incredibly
careful that they take only the tops and the buds of the
leaves making sure that enough is left so that the plants will
be able to put out new leaves as soon as possible.

The tea process is also labor intensive as we saw when
visiting one of the many tea factories.  There are no mammoth
machines but rather old fashioned machines that first wither the leaves or dry them out. Then they are pliable.  This allows the leaves to be rolled to break up the cells of the leaves before they can be fermented, fired, sifted and graded.

 Here is an example of how precisely the work must be conducted
as the factory worker carefully spreads the tea for fermentation
which takes about 2 hours before it is removed to the next step.

The food in Sri Lanka is flavorful and healthy.  We are staying at Tea Trails which is a hotel made up of converter bungalows that originally belonged to overseers of the plantations.  Each one is different with no more than 6 rooms and beautiful gardens which have the stamp of the colonial planters.

How much fun--the first night we got to help prepare the dinner!

 
This gives an idea of the number of ingredients
in any one dish and the beauty of the
finished product.