The previous hotels they had "spring hoppers" with sambol and their version of tasteless dhall,Banana, papaya and Frech pan-cakes with honey. Imagine having these for breakfast continously for 2 days. I had my cereal bar and coffee that I brought along this trip.
So having the break fast in Kandy hotel was amazing, I filled my stomachs has much as I could because I kow we might not stop for lunch.
Our journey started to continue up hill to Nuwara Eliya, the lush green was getting more beautiful with mist hanging in between the hills. It was was raining the whole journey wet, cold weather.
So I kept my camera off and try to enjoy the scenery, as we were travelling and it was difficult to capture everything on the way.
On the way, we stopped at the famous Hanuman temple at the tea estate. The temple was small but it had a huge Hanuman statue. We were rushing to the temple as the was time for its closure.
Finally we get to meet him and we all had a good blessings with some Pongal (sweet rice) as prasadham. It continued to rain again after a while, we hopped back on to our bus as the next stop over would be the Tea Factory.
Along the journey there were amazing mazes of tea plantation all over the hill. It was so beautiful as the rain was adding some glow to the leaves.
We stopped at tea factory, I opted to have the free tea instead of visiting the factory. I have visited a tea factory before in my own country Malaysia and I am aware how they process the tea leaves. So the factory and processing of the tea leaves are quite similar.
The tea was served to the tourist as those who visit the factory or the tea shop. While others in my group were visiting the tea production factory, I was enjoying sipping a cup of tea as it was rain, the wind was chilling, with all it was just too wonderful to enjoy that moment with a tea was keeping me warm.
The rain wasn't gonna stop, so I hopped back on the bus, though I didn't get drenched. The wet journey continued back to Nuwara Eliya as the journey would be about 3 hours.
Finally we reached Nuwara Eliya about 3pm in evening.
Known as Little England of Sri Lanka, the tranquil, quaint little town on the hill is a real retreat to escape from the heat in Dambulla. Many of the buildings were still from the British colonial era's. I felt as I was transported back into the past. Some part of Nuwara Eliya had the remains of British originality preserved.
There is a huge lake here known as Gregory Lake. This is the picnic spot for the locals to enjoy in evenings. The view is splendid. I didn't get to stop over for the lake as we were rushing on our iternary.
Our first stop in Nuwara Eliya was the Sita Temple which is quite famous here.
In the Hindu epic Ramayana, Sita was abducted by Ravana and confined in Ashok Vatika in Lanka. Hanuman eventually found her there and gave her the ring of her beloved Ram. Well, Nuwara Eliya is the place where it all happened.
The Sita Eliya Temple is dedicated to Sita and is the place where she was held captive. There are even markings on the rock to show Hanuman’s footprints. It was raining and the temple was wet, slippery and extremely cold like ice. I was shievering and my feet was numb from the chillness and cold.
The priest was sharing some stories of Ravana and his secret tunnel from the temple to cave up on the hills that which he uses to check on Sita. The priest showed us the hill that looked like Hanuman's face and another story says the hill is a piece of the hill Hanuman carried which had the herbs to treat Rama for his injury.
As I reached Nuware Eliya, I had short time to see the place in day.I was staying a night as we have plans for Horton Plains the next day.
I really enjoyed a stay in Nuwara Eliya. I hope I had a little more time and get to explore a lot more or maybe it would be on my next trip back to Sri Lanka.
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