As unique in its own way as the flora of a botanical garden in Hawaii, the tea plantations of Darjeeling, the waterfalls of Milford Sound in New Zealand, the mountains of Tahiti's Bali Hai, the terraced rice fields at Baguio in the Philippines, the Catskills of upper New York State, the friendly people of Fiji, and the temples of Burma - this is Sri Lanka.

A sensuous country, it fills your eyes with the glitter of its precious gemstones, the smells of its spices and sounds of the more than 200 species of birds.

Just to the south of India, the country is 353 km (219 miles) long from north to south and 183 km (113.5 miles) at its widest.  It is about the size of Ireland or Tasmania.  There are hundreds of miles of sandy beaches, but I explored the central mountain area, driving nearly 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) in 4 days.

My travel began on the 17th of August from Tokyo and I spent the night in Colombo before striking out on my adventure into the central highlands of the country.  That morning I turned to CNN to catch President Clinton broadcasting his apology to the nation.

Colombo is certainly the capital and business center of the country, but definitely not a tourist destination, so I proceeded immediately on the 18th with my driver/guide for the four hour drive to Dambulla.  Here we visited the Dambulla Cave Temple, dating from the 1st  century B.C.  Note the B.C.  The temples in this area are carved out of natural caves and painted. The Dambulla Cave contains a 15 meter ( 49.2 feet) statue of the reclining Buddha image.  The other four caves are filled with hundreds of Buddhist statues.  It is interesting to see paintings still very clear and colorful, though painted in about 1 B.C. 

Meeting with the tourist officials in Colombo delayed my departure until about 9:30am, so it was 3:30pm when I finally had lunch.  Traditionally, lunch here is about 1:30pm and dinner about 8pm, so travelers should be sure to eat a hearty breakfast.

We moved on to the ruined city of Polonnaruwa, passing through a national forest where there are herds of wild elephant.  Sure enough, off to the right foraging in the eucalyptus forest, was a young elephant.  This was the first time for me ever to see a truly wild elephant as those we see in other parts of Asia are mostly tamed.  We toured the ruins which reminded me of Ayutthaya, Thailand's ancient capital, north of Bangkok.

We saw what seemed to be lakes, but found that these are man-made reservoirs dating from the 12th century.  There is also a sluice system for irrigation.

Returning to the hotel just at dusk, we came upon a group of nearly 15 elephants foraging just 30 meters (100 feet) off the road to our left.  There were also several baby elephants in this group.  This was quite exciting as we could hear them clearly tearing at the jungle growth with their trunks.  There were at one time about 30,000 wild elephants in Sri Lanka but, due to poaching, only about 3,000 remain.

NOTE:  Here, as in Myanmar (Burma) and some other areas of Asia, you are requested to remove not only your shoes but also socks before entering Buddhist temples.  I suggest you carry along a pair of beach sandals and wear them from the first stop until the temple visits are completed.  This makes it much easier to slip in and out of each time and just leave the shoes and socks in the car.  Good shoes with support are a must for the climbing up stairs and hills for a closer view of the temples and panoramic scenic views.  My driver/guide assured me that, in these sightseeing areas, the car is absolutely secure and, I accordingly left my wallet and travel documents locked in the car and felt quite comfortable in doing so.  Be sure to have a bottle of insect repellent with you and (as I was not bothered at all during the daylight hours) apply it in the evening, prior to going to dinner, and especially around the ankle areas, as most of the dining rooms in the resort hotels are open sided and the odd mosquito makes its way under the table. 

I stayed at The Lodge at Habarana.  The Lodge is made up of villas, which are quite spacious, but be aware there is no satellite TV, and no mini-fridge.  Dinner is served in the one restaurant, buffet style from 8-10pm.  We had not returned from our tour until nearly 8pm, making for a very long day.

The next morning we got off to an early start for the drive to Kandy.  We began with a stop at Sigiriya, a spectacular rock mountain, about 200 meters (656 feet) tall, standing alone on the plain.  In 473AD, an adopted son of the king overthrew his father and atop this mountain built a fortress to protect himself from his half-brother, son of the true queen, who had fled to India, swearing revenge. It later became a monastic refuge, fell into disrepair, and was only rediscovered during the British era.  A series of steps curl up the side of the mountain to the top, quite a challenge to climb. Yes, I did, and made it to the top, but it was a feat that I will do only once in this lifetime!  About half way up, there is a separate steep, metal, circular stairway to take you to a niche, where there are painted murals of beautiful women, painted in the 5th century.  As they are in a cave-like indentation in the rock, they have been beautifully preserved.  These somewhat risque paintings are similar to those found in Ajanta, India. I heard the fortress described as something akin to a European chateau, plonked on top of Australia's Ayers Rock!

We made an interesting stop at a spice garden, where an expert took me through and pointed out the many plants grown in Sri Lanka to produce a host of spices, such as vanilla, pepper, chili peppers, curry, dill, cummin, mustard, anis, cloves and nutmeg.

Continuing to Kandy, I noticed a smooth orange-hued, coconut-sized fruit and was told this was a king coconut.  Its milk is sweeter than that of the green coconut, but it is for drinking only, not used in cooking, as is the standard coconut milk which is used as a base for curries and other Asian dishes.

There were school-age children everywhere and it was explained that they attend school for three months and then have a month off.  August is one of the holiday months.  School is compulsory until the age of 15yrs.

We left our hotel in Habarana at 8am, climbed Sigiriya, left there at 10:15am and reached Kandy at 1pm.  The place to stay in Kandy is the Mahaweli Reach Hotel, right on the banks of the Mahaweli Gange River.  After lunch, we proceeded to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth and then to the Botanical Gardens, where we were able actually to drive through the gardens.  This was fine, as it was trying to rain lightly.  The guide pointed out a tree, planted 14 March 1970 by the Apollo 12 astronauts, Captains Conrad, Gordon and Bean.  "Oh yes," he said pointing to another tree, "that tree is also very interesting, it was planted by some famous Japanese person."  I took a close look at the plaque.  It showed the tree had been planted by His Imperial Highness, Crown Prince Akihito of Japan, on 05 March 1981.  When I returned to the car, I assured the guide that it was indeed someone quite famous - the current Emperor of Japan!

The guide had arranged for me to attend a musical performance of traditional local dances, performed on special festival days in various parts of Sri Lanka.  I was not exactly thrilled by this as I have over the years attended many of these amateur performances which turned out to be less than exciting.  This one, however, turned out to be absolutely superb and moved along so quickly that there were 12 different presentations in the span of the one-hour show.  This is not to be missed!

The night before at The Lodge, I had retired about 8:30pm and at 9pm there was great banging at the door.  I couldn't imagine what was going on, so opened the door to find the housekeeping staff trying to get in to make up the bed for the night.  Seems they could not imagine anyone would go to bed so early.  The Europeans don't even go to dinner until 9pm!

I had planned an early evening again, here in Kandy, so this time I put the "Do not disturb" sign on the door.  I had just gone soundly to sleep and imagined I heard banging at the door.  I decided it was my imagination, so pulled up the blanket and ignored the noise.  Again during the night I heard banging, but decided it was my imagination again.  I was in the shower in the early morning and again thought I heard banging but, since the neighbor's door was actually closer to the shower than mine, I just assumed the sound made it seem like my door.  Finally, I packed up and left the room for breakfast, to notice I had reversed the card and had the "Make up room" sign on the door knob!

We proceeded from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya where I would spend the night at the wonderful Grand Hotel.  On top of this, the drive we took the next day passed through some of the most wonderful. scenic mountain views one could ever hope to experience.  We proceeded from tropical valleys to 2,200 meter (7,216 feet) mountain passes. where the vegetation turned to the most wonderful combination of tropical, mixed with towering alpine trees.  There were yellow cassia, tiny wild flowers, rushing streams and the neat rows of tea bushes everywhere as far as the eye could see.

Tea, originally from China, was brought to Ceylon from India, started by seed and then grown from cuttings.  Due to a shortage of laborers, the British, in colonial times, brought them from South India, to cut the forests and clear the land, build the terraces and begin planting the first tea, in the 1890's.  The plantations were all British-owned, producing tea for export to the British market.  Now the plantations have all been  nationalized and owned by the Sri Lankan government.

We stopped to visit one of the large plantations, Melfort Tea Garden, at Pussellawa.  I learned that the land had been cleared in 1867, with the use of elephants, and how the tea bushes cover carefully terraced hillsides, as far as the eye can see, the sea of green broken only by the scattered white dots of the factory buildings, with their cluster of small homes for the estate workers. 

There are eight basic steps in the production of tea:

1. Tea cultivation
2. Pruning
3. Plucking the 2 end leaves and the bud
4. Withering the leaves by placing them on long beds with screening on the bottom in the factories and then blowing warm air from under the green tea leaves.  This process takes about 6 hours.
5. Rolling the leaves to separate the various parts.
6. Fermentation
7. Drying.  This takes about 30 minutes, as hot air blasting stops the fermentation process.
8. Sorting the tea grades for packing.

The better tea is grown at an elevation of  about 1,200 meters (3,936 feet).

35% of tea here is low grown    Under 600 meters                Strong with deep color.

27% is mid-country grown                600 - 1,200 meters      Rich / mellow / good color.

38% is high grown                              1,200 meters and up      World-renowned flavor, bright
                         golden color.

We also stopped along the way to Nuwara Eliya to visit a very interesting new hotel - the Tea Factory Hotel, built in what was once a tea factory.  The building retains many of the old original machines used in the factory and the upper levels that were once used for drying and storing the tea have been turned into hotel accommodation.  Try one of the 3 suites for about US$100 and enjoy magnificent panoramic view of the tea plantations.

Travelling to Nuwara Eliya, we pass the highest elevation of our journey, at 1,856 meters (6,187 feet).  You should take along a jacket for the time you will spend in Nuwara Eliya.  Although it is not far from the Equator, the mornings are quite chilly, due to the high elevation.  Here, is an absolutely charming old English-style hotel, the Grand.  It was at one time the home of the British governor of the district.  The grounds are pleasant and the hotel is located next door to an 18 hole golf course.  The city is interesting, as many of the buildings, including the Post Office, are built in the British Victorian style.

I checked into the Grand and went to the main dining room to enjoy the buffet lunch.  It was absolutely overwhelming - I am sure you  will agree:

14 entr*es, 10 kinds of curry with 3 kinds of rice to go with it, a salad bar, vegetable soup and a desert selection to end any ideas of a low calorie lunch.  Fruit and nut ice cream, banana toddy, chocolate and banana bavordise, watalappam, ginger caramel, almond and raison blancmange, chocolate eclairs, apple and cherry puff pastry, curd (yogurt) and treacle, and for fruit, bananas, pineapple and watermelon.  Total cost - 450 rupies or about US$6.90.

My driver/guide, Brian Landsberger, suggested we had best get an early start for Colombo and my final day of driving.  Yes, his name is spelled correctly.  Many Sri Lankans have Dutch or Portuguese names, dating back to the occupation of the country prior to the arrival of the British in 1796.  In 1815 the British managed finally to win control of the kingdom of Kandy, becoming the first European power to rule the whole island.  They remained in control until 1948, when the country became an independent member of the British Commonwealth.

We took a minor route through the tea plantations, and via Haputale, rather than the more direct main road, a fabulous decision.  We enjoyed another morning of the most wondrous mountain scenery, with the tea fields spilling down the sides of the mountains.  Huge, bright yellow, acacia trees, in full bloom, added color to the deep green tea plantations.  Later, red would be added, from the flowers of the maple tree-sized red tulip trees.

We stopped along the way to take a look at a gem mine being dug in a rice field and then visited the Gem Bank. where there is a gem museum and gem retail store.

I spent the night at the Garden Hotel near the airport and left the next morning for Male, with wonderful memories of my short travels in Sri Lanka.

I had had no experience flying Airlanka, the national airline of Sri Lanka, so I had accepted their invitation to travel aboard their new A340 airbus service non-stop from Tokyo's Narita Airport to Colombo.  What a wonderful surprise it was to find, from check-in to baggage claim on return, that the service is top-class.

There is now a connecting service from the Tokyo flight that goes right on to Male, Maldive Islands.  I thought, why not try it?  The Four Seasons sales staff had been urging me to make a visit to their new resort at Kuda Huraa, so I did.  The Republic of Maldives is a nation of about 250,000 people, with a history, culture and language of its own.  None of the 1,192 islands is more than a couple of miles across or higher than a few feet above sea level.  The international airport at Male is about an hour's flight, due west of Colombo, Sri Lanka.  Only one resort is permitted on each of the selected islands for tourism.  The Four Seasons Resort is a 30-minute speed boat service from the airport, the perfect place to relax following a tour of Sri Lanka.

For more details on the Four Seasons Resort in the Maldives, see our Web site on the Internet.