8 days in Sri Lanka's Tea Country & the Safari

TIP: Sri Lanka has good weather on different parts of the island at different times of the year so you must do your research if you don't want to be disappointed! But the weather can also change any time so a little bit of luck helps. First decide what you want to do then find out the best times of the year to do those things.

The West and South of the island in July would be rainy so that means whale watching on the southern coast is out. Whale watching can be done on the East side of the island, which at this time of year is beautifully sunny, and the beaches at Trincomalee and Arugam Bay (great for surfing) would be gorgeous. But we wanted cool weather and to relax by a tea plantation with a nice pot of tea for a few days, so with the short amount of time we had we decided not go to the beaches.

We landed in Colombo at a very strange timing - 1:55am. Many of the flights on our preferred airlines landed at weird timings like this. Half asleep, we headed to our hostel to rest. We'd be waking up in less than 4 hours to take the train to Kandy.

TIP: Taking the train is a comfortable and cheap way to travel around Sri Lanka in my opinion. You can't book train tickets online, but you can make reservations through an agent, or get your hotel to help you buy tickets. We took the Observation Car for the Colombo - Kandy leg of our journey. The Observation Car is the last carriage on the train, so the seats face the backwards to give you an unobstructed view of the surroundings. It's a bit more expensive but could be worth it for the scenic parts of the train journey. The carriage is not air-conditioned but the windows open wide and there are fans so it is not too bad. The first class carriage has air-conditioning but the views are not good because the windows are very small. Sometimes the air-conditioner doesn't work. If you can't get the Observation Car seats as they are sometimes fully booked, the 2nd Class seats on the blue trains are fantastic. They are comfortable, and the windows are nice and big so you can open them to get some ventilation and also get great views. I got good advice on train travel in Sri Lanka here: www.seat61.com. If you reserve your tickets, you can collect them at the train station. Each travelling party gets 1 blue slip of paper about half an A4 size of paper, that lists the number of passengers travelling together. Keep your tickets with you at all times because when you're on the train the conductor will check them, and when you alight at your destination station a station master will collect the ticket back from you.

Horton Hears a "WHOOW this place is gorgeous"

We woke up at 430am today to head to Horton Plains National Park. Most hotels can prepare simple breakfast for you to eat on the way there. Our driver picked us up again and took us to the park. It is about an hour's drive from Nuwara Eliya to Horton Plains along steep winding mountain roads. The road was foggy at some parts and I felt like I was in Sir Arthur Connan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles. Nuwara Eliya is already more than 1km above sea level and the park is more than 2km above sea level! You can also view Sri Lanka's second- and third-highest mountains, Kirigalpotta (2395m) and Totapola (2359m) from Horton Plains National Park.

Tickets cost 2,000 rupees for foreigners and only 60 rupees for locals! We paid for ourselves, our driver, and a parking lot for the car to enter the park. After the ticketing booth the entrance to the park is a further 4km up more winding roads. But at the moment I was about to get car sick, the road opened up to wide, windy, endless plains that were so beautiful. I lost all that desire to puke and my jaw dropped to gape in awe instead at the magnificent plains that stretched before us.

The park is so beautiful and there is an easy to follow hiking route. It's one circle around the park with various sights along the way: World's End, Mini World's End, Baker's Well Waterfall.

TIP: THIS PARK IS A MUST VISIT. Wear comfortable shoes because the path gets uneven and steep at some points. Wear a good windbreaker and warm layers, and a beanie if you need to because the plains are very very very windy. When it gets warm you can start taking out layers.

The hiking path takes you through plains that stretch as far as the eye can see, through temperate forest, and up huge rocks. If you're lucky you can see birds or bear monkeys. The scenery is endless beauty and feels like it is out of the Jurassic Park or Lord of the Rings movies. World's End and Mini World's End were magnificent too, but we saw Mini World's End first so World's End was just as extension of it. The whole hike takes around 3 hours from start to finish, so you can make a half-day trip for the whole thing.

After the morning's exercise, we went to Heritance Tea Factory Hotel which is a nice place for tea and lunch with great views of the tea plantation. It isn't actually a tea plantation, but just a (really expensive) hotel in an old tea factory. There's a great history to the place, and they have a mini museum.

But my favourite is the Pedro Tea Factory which we also visited. You can have tea at the cafe with a view of their tea plantations! Their factory tour is also recommended but we didn't go for it because we already went to the one at Mackwoods (and I mean, tea is made the same way right, so.. we felt like we didn't need to go for another tour). The tours are at specific timings though, so if you do go for it, check the timings first! I remember there is one at 3pm. :) I feel like this tour might be more detailed than the one we went for at Mackwoods based on other visitor's reviews.

Still Chilling Out in Nuwara Eliya - we don't want to leave!

On a recommendation by the website YAMU, we visited the Adma Agro Strawberry Farm Shop. They sell lovely strawberry related desserts from the strawberries they grow themselves on their farm. We ordered a strawberry milkshake and an ice cream with strawberry sauce topped with fresh strawberries. They were indeed yummy! The entire place was green and red, themed after strawberries, naturally. There was also a little signboard explaining how strawberries are grown and some diseases they are susceptible to. Nice to see the owners are passionate about their work.

Victoria Park in the centre of the town looks pretty from the outside, but it wasn't much once we got in. We had to pay 600 rupees each to enter. It was a nice walk through the park though.

The Wonders of the Safari

Heading to the safari today! Away from the cold and on to the heat! The taxi driver we met in Nuwara Eliya drove us to Udawalawa. It was a 4 hour journey down the mountain and on to the countryside. The landscape got drier and more sandy.

Udawawale National Park spans more than 30,000 hectares, and is home to many different animals, primarily elephants. Udawawale is smaller than Yala National Park but it is the only park in Sri Lanka where elephant sightings are guaranteed for every safari visit. True enough, we saw at least 15 elephants in just 3 hours. We were lucky to get a sharp eyed young guide who has been working for the park for 2 years. We got our hotel to arrange a driver and guide for us, but you can easily get a driver outside the park. Our guide was picked at random i think. When we got in to buy tickets, our driver went up to some guides sitting in a group and suddenly our guide popped out to introduce himself. I'm glad we got him because he was sharp eyed. He spotted a tiny lizard camouflaged on a tree trunk! And an eagle that was hiding between some branches!

The safari was fun. We saw so many animals. In the 3 hours we were on the safari tour, we saw 15 elephants, Malarbar Pied Hornbills, eagles, peacocks, little green and blue birds like the Green Bee Eater and the Indian Holler, water buffalo, baby jackals, small lizards, monkeys, crocodiles, spotted deer, pelicans, and the best.. a king cobra!! They are so hard to spot and our guide and driver were so excited to see one. It was very very long. That was quite a thrill. :) You can go for tours at any time of the day but our guide says the early morning tours (before sunrise) are better for seeing birds, and the late afternoon ones allow you to see a wider range of animals.

All the animals are wild so you have to be lucky to see something that is near the public pathways where the jeeps drive on. The cobra happened to be crossing the road!!! But because the park is smaller than Yala, there is a higher chance of seeing animals.

There are also about 15 leopards in the park but those are harder to spot. Our guide has only seen leopards 30 times in the 2 years he has worked in the park.

It was so fun i would do it again!! Sorry about the photos of the animals. They were hidden in trees and bushes so you'd need a super zoom lens to get a good shot. My advice: go there and see them for yourself! :)

The Return to the Mountains

After the safari we headed back to the cool mountains by car, which the hotel in Udawalawa arranged for us. We dropped by the popular town of Ella for lunch. Ella is a very small town and many people come here to climb Little Adam's Peak, or visit some tea plantations. But the train ride to Ella from Nanu Oya (nearest station to Nuwara Eliya) is supposedly breathtaking, and it's why many people make the 3 hour train journey.

Back in Nuwara Eliya, we lazed around and had dinner at the Grand Thai, which is a fancy schmancy Thai restaurant. I know, a Thai restaurant in Sri Lanka?! But the food was really good.

Down forth to Kandy once again!

We are heading back towards Colombo and due to the shortage of time, and the desire to not take a bus to other towns, we wanted to stick to taking the train and so we headed back to Kandy. We heard lots of horror stories about taking the bus in Sri Lanka so we only travelled by train or by car. We didn't venture to other towns along the way back to Colombo by private car because it would be too expensive.

From Kandy, if we had time, we would have loved to go to the Dhambulla Caves, but we had less than a day in Sri Lanka's second largest city, so we had to scrap that idea.

We bummed around at the Miesna Tea Centre, which is a sweet cafe to chill out in, and bought a lot of souvenir tea. They had tea in pretty boxes, which are excellent for gifts.

Since we were nearby, we dropped by the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. It was a peaceful temple complex and many locals were at the temple to offer prayers. The carvings and paintings inside the temple were lovely and intricate. There was also a nice exhibition about how the tooth came to reside in Kandy.

Swinging Back to the Capital

We managed to find a driver who could take us back to Colombo at a very affordable rate, thus we decided to forgo the train tickets we had originally bought. The car ride took about 3 hours - about the same length of time as the train.

Okay, now, comes what is our favourite meal of all time in Sri Lanka. Lunch at the Ministry of Crab. Food here is expensive but WORTH EVERY RUPEE. And seriously, please make a reservation in advance because they were fully booked for dinner and we juuust managed to get one half a kilo Sri Lankan crab for lunch! That was one of the few crab options left when we came for lunch at 2pm. Crab availability depends on the season. The Ministry of Crab is housed at the Old Dutch Hospital Shopping District, which is a preserved colonial single story building complex, made up of restaurants, shops, bars, and I think I saw a spa.

We were indeed full but we still had time for tea, obviously. The t-lounge by Dilmah is also in the building complex and its another nice place to relax in. Honestly, the service we got at the lounge was below expectations, but maybe the staff who served us was having a bad day. He practically threw our teacups and pots onto the table and almost flung my cake onto my lap. He explained how to strain the tea extremely quickly and flailed his hands everywhere. I hope you get better service when you pay them a visit! It didn't spoil our time at the lounge though, we still had a nice time.

Colombo is a port city and we took a lovely evening stroll by Galle Face. Because it was a Sunday evening, there were many people by the beach, and there were street stalls setting up too!