Tea Country

Delicate offerings at the temple

John blogs ...

Early start to meet at Queens Hotel. Dropped off at local Buddhist temple and was given orange wool wristbands and ‘prayed for’ by the priest. Arrived at the hotel 7.30, changed currency, met the team and our Rotarian guide for the day Vijay – a dentist. Unfortunately our transport didn’t arrive for an hour!

So made use of the hotel wireless internet whilst we could.

Winding drive towards Newara Eliya (pron. Noo-rey-lee-ah) and the sun came out, hooray! Beautiful scenery, waterfalls and sunshine, hooray! You can see how starved of sun we are.



Scenery in tea country

 Stopped for lovely cuppa at Labookelle Tea Factory, had a tour – very noisy - and took plenty of photos of tea-pickers.



Club President, Yogarajah

 Onto the Grand Hotel to meet our lunch hosts from the Rotary Club of Newara Eliya – Ramesh, Satheesh, Maheswaran, Chandran and their Club President Yogarajah. Gave our team brochure to them – this has turned out to be a very effective way of sharing a little about ourselves. Then to lunch for a spicy Sri Lankan lunch – one by one each of the team members went through various shades of pink to red and tingling lips and tongues. Very enjoyable nonetheless. Followed by exchange of banners and photos. (n.b. team leaders make sure you take plenty of banners and carry spares with you at all times, you never know when you’ll need one! We’re well through our stock of banners and not even halfway through the exchange.)

Nuwara Eliya market

A brief tour of the town and 20 minutes walking around the market. This was an especially new experience for Jenny who enjoyed the sights and smells of the veg and fish stalls.

Hard work picking tea

Back on the bus and long return back to Kandy. Beautiful scenery, winding roads, and no-one was sick, but a long 3 hour drive. Bought flowers from a gifted young athlete who could rival a mountain goat for sure-footedness as he ran straight down the hillsides whilst we drove around the hairpins. Five hairpins later we felt so sorry for him that we did stop and buy from him. Arrived at Queens Hotel 6.15, driven to Rosemarie and Ayesha’s apartments (amazing view over cricket ground and mountains in the background) to freshen up and change, Left at 7.30 (well done team for the amazingly quick turn around) and tired ragged little ducks had turned into elegant swans for the evening presentation.

Our presentation was successful despite some technical difficulties to overcome and several distractions. Well done team for keeping the story flowing. Met with Dudley Mills from North Cotswold Club who generously presented a donation to the flood disaster relief fund.

Fellowship, trio of musicians, warm evening – worried about mozzies, (but no bites appearing this morning), string hoppers and various curries, and good conversation and laughs. A great way to end a long and tiring but enjoyable day.