Whatshot

This week Serendipity is advertising the group tour that will be going off to Sri Lanka in June. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see this country of such intensity and eternal beauty. It is an opportunity for you our dear readers to discover a land of the kings.

This week we are in Nuwara Eliya, yes try saying the name without tying your tongue in a knot. Nuwara Eliya, no matter how many times we tried to remember the right pronunciation we never really got it right and we just ended up calling it Nowhere-really-here. Nuwara Eliya means "city on the plain" (table land) or "city of light" in Sinhala. It is a bustling little town, which reminded us very much of a quaint English village.

The city is the administrative capital of the Nuwara Eliya District, surrounded by picturesque landscapes and offering a temperate climate, it's no wonder the English loved it here. Perched at an altitude of 1,868m above sea level, it is considered to be the most important location for tea production in Sri Lanka. The city is overlooked by the majestic Pidurutalagala, the tallest mountain in Sri Lanka. Nuwara Eliya is known for its temperate, cool climate, the coolest area in Sri Lanka. We were enjoying the respite from incessant humidity.

You can certainly see the foreign influence here. Many of the buildings retain features from the colonial period such as the Queen's Cottage, General's House, Grand Hotel, Hill Club, St Andrew's Hotel and the Town's Post Office. Many of the new hotels are built and furnished in the colonial style. Visitors the city can wallow in its nostalgia of bygone days by visiting the landmark buildings. Many private homes maintain their old English-style lawns and gardens.

Though Nuwara Eliya had been inhabited during the early period of the kingdom of Kandy. "Eliya", which in native Sinhala means opening or clearing, a valley set amidst the wooded green mountains, wasn't known to the Colonial British until the accidental discovery by the colonial civil servant John Davy, in the year 1819. However the British were slow to realize the real potential of the city and its position.

It was a mercantile man Governor Edward Barnes, who during the 1830s converted Nuwara Eliya into a commercial node and coffee-planting centre. In 1847 along came another great colonial explorer, Samuel Baker. He is credited with introducing the farming of English vegetables in the Nuwara Eliya district. Now Nuwara Eliya is the leading producer of fresh European vegetables in Sri Lanka, and it distributes fresh vegetables to the rest of the island.

The Coffee Blight in Sri Lanka during the 1870s spelt disaster for the coffee farmers, destroying what was a thriving industry. Along came another colonialist, Sir James Taylor, and his idea to replace the coffee with tea plantations was met with huge success. The Nuwara Eliya district became the heart of the tea-growing region of the central highlands, of what was then called Ceylon.

The history of the tea industry was palpable as we travelled through the hills of Sri Lanka. The very first experimental plantation was started in 1867 at the Loolecondera Estate, which straddles the hills between Kandy and Nuwara Eliya. In 1885 they extended the highland railway track to Nanu Oya, which was just 5km south of Nuwara Eliya. We entered the town on Tuk Tuk so we saw so much. The tea houses which offer tastings and so many varieties of tea, some estates steeped in history, others modernised only slightly, but the ethos of tea-culture and Sri Lankan life seemed to intertwine in those hills.

The local Central Market is the centre of town, south of the market is Victoria Park, a sprawling 27 acres of gardened shrubs and trees with a clump of exceptionally tall eucalyptus trees, a stately reminder of the passage of time that has shaped this amazing place. River Nanu Oya runs through Victoria Park and pools into a few lakes, teeming with a variety of birdlife, including some rare Himalayan species, a birder's dream.

Founded by the British in the 19th century, the district is very much a travellers destination, where local and international tourists frequent, especially during April, the season of flowers, pony races, go cart races and even an auto rally.

We couldn't leave Nuwara Eliya before we had enjoyed high tea at the Grand Hotel Nuwara Eliya. It's as if nothing has changed in this grand setting and it feels like we have stepped back in time by 200 years, back to when Sri Lanka was called Ceylon and was ruled by the British. Only the guest`s modern clothes and smart-phones revealed that we were not back in 1835, the era of the British colonists, who chopped down the jungle in these hills and built the town of Nuwara Eliya, called it "Little England", and started planting tea bushes everywhere.

If you have not yet booked your adventure to Sri Lanka, now is the time to do it. Go check it out. Experience something truly unique and be dazzled.

Picturesque landscape offering a temperate climate.

You can certainly see the foreign influence here.

Many of the building retain feature from the colonial period.

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