Last Moments in Sri Lanka

We left you last with a tuk tuk driving monk. We begin this time with a tuk tuk driving monkey! We did NOT feel comfortable going for a ride in this one.

"These travelers took the morning train..."
We left Ella for Haputale on the 6:43am train. Yep, we woke up early! It only happens in time zones other than EST. We shared the hour long ride with white-clad school-bound youngsters and obnoxious portly French tourists.


We paid for seats but instead wound up standing in the open doorways breathing in the crisp morning air and the vistas of lush green rice terraces turning into vegetable fields and then growing into steep tea plantations nestled in the morning fog. We passed along the same route we took to Ella Rock, and I was able to see the fruits of my "hard" rice transplanting labor. The entire field was now planted! No doubt that my contribution helped.

After we arrived in Haputale we took a 9km hike up the steeply winding roads that pass through the original tea plantations belonging to Mr. Lipton. We saw tea pickers dotting the fields in their brightly colored saris and climbing up the steep stone "shortcuts" between the switchbacks with their full 11kg bags of fresh tea leaves slung across their foreheads and down their backs. (We took the shortcuts, too, but only on the way down, and Avner complained of shin splints for days afterward.) At the top of the hikeis the "seat" from which Lipton would look out over his plantations. As we climbed, the clouds thickened and when we reached the top, the views were obscured by the cloud that surrounded us. Hence, no pictures.