Over the pass

After a very pleasant overnight stay at a old mansion that had recently been converted to a hotel we climbed on the beast again and headed for the southeast coast. The mansion had an interesting history because the prominent family that still owns it used to entertain famous people here. We can now say we walked the same floors as Mahatma Gandhi and Gregory Peck.

From Kandy we climbed up endless switchbacks, to the town of Nuwara-Eliya which has an elevation of 1980 meters (6,500 ft.). Part way up we stopped to buy some more lemon munchie biscuits at this little store perched on concrete stilts. The view from the extended slab looking out over the hills was fantastic. This area is tea country, where the hills are terraced with tea plantations, right up to the top of some incredibly steep mountains. The women who pick the leaves throw them into a bag that was slung on their backs. I could not help but think of the cotton pickers before modern harvesters were introduced.

Our next stop was at the edge of the hill country where we were awakened every morning at 5:30 by the call to prayer blaring from loudspeakers at the mosque across the street. This area has a large Muslim population who originally settled here to escape the Portuguese domination of the coastal areas.

The next day found us back in the rice paddies of the flat plains where we had made arrangements for a jeep safari into the Yala wildlife refuge.