Happy Thai Pongal!

On our way back from Lipton's Seat, we came across a Thai Pongal celebration at a local school.  Very cool!


Thai Pongal is a Tamil and Hindu harvest festival designed to give thanks to the Sun God for the abundant harvest.  In India, Thai Pongal lasts 4 days.  In Sri Lanka, it lasts 2 days.

On the 1st day, families eat rice boiled in milk, with spices, raisins, cashews, and other ingredients. The cooking must be done outside in the sunlight in a clay pot decorated with colourful patterns.
When the rice first begins to boil, they blow a horn/ “sanggu” and shout “Pongalo Pongal!/the pot is overflowing.” Which means you'll have good fortune for the year.

On the 2nd day, the oxen who help farmers work their rice fields are honoured. On this “day of cattle,” the animals are given a bath, and  are decorated with beautiful garlands.

 

At the school event, they did all of this in about 2 hours.  That was a long time to stand in the hot sun. But I'm really glad I got to watch. 

Pictures
1- On our way down from Lipton's Seat, we came across a few small groups of women in beautiful Saris.  When I told them how beautiful they were, they said "school event".  Thai Pongal!
2- 3 - At the beginning of the event, there was a short parade with kids dancing.
4- This is the calf who got washed and decorated.  His appearance was the last part of the ceremony.  We waited sooooo long to see it. And that part only lasted a minute!
5- The man in orange was the Hindu priest who officiated some of the event.  In this picture, they are boiling the milk.
6- These two kids stood at this decorated table throughout the whole event.  About 2 hours.  They were so cute!
7- Diane and Toby being silly on our walk.
8- A tea plucker village we saw.    Plantations seem to provide housing and services for their employees.  Goode thing.  Pluckers only make about 650 rupees /day.  About $4 Canadian.
9- Some ladies doing laundry in a stream.
10- We found a part of a school book on our walk.

Lipton’s Seat

What an amazing day!  We saw the sun rise at Lipton’s Seat.

Lipton’s Seat is a landmark at the top of Poonagala Hill near the town of Haputale.  It's named after Sir Thomas Lipton, who bought several tea plantations in the area in the late 1800s, and used the spot for surveying his plantations and entertaining.  

The” thing” to do is go watch the sun rise there.

For us, that meant getting up at 4 am, being in a tuk tuk by 4:30 am to arrive at a security gate and start the 1 km walk up a steep hill by 5:30. It was chilly but we were well dressed and brought blankets, so we were cozy warm.

On our way up, there were so many stars in the sky.  And this amazing calm quiet.  As we approached the top, the horizon started to glow.  A big part of the magic was watching as details of the valley revealed themselves.  To feel the wind. And soak up the hush...

They say that you can see all the way to the ocean from Lipton’s Seat.  I don’t think I did.  But wow……

An added plus….during the tuktuk ride up, the driver suddenly stopped.  To let a family of wild pigs cross the road!!!!   Apparently, they can be very destructive in gardens, and dangerous to humans. I didn’t see them well.  But they looked super cute to me, and I’m thrilled I got a glimpse!

Pictures

1- Pre dawn with Mr Lipton and the blanket from our hotel. Spiffy!

2- 4- It was so quiet and calm at the top.  Magic!

5- This tree was decorated with a whole bunch of pretty ribbons.  I loved the way they shimmered in the early morning glow.

6 - On a clear day, you can see all the way to the ocean from here...

7- Our hotel provided us with a boxed breakfast.  The bananas and boiled egg were great.  The sandwich was less. So we fed it to a dog who must have been nursing because she ate so much!  And seemed to be bringing some to pups.  The young woman in the picture is Diane from France.  She was great company.  I'm really glad we got to hang out a while.  Merci Diane!

8-9 just fun pictures!

 

Ella Days 1-3

 

Ella is a full-on tourist town.  For lots of good reasons. 

The landscape is beautiful.  The weather is warm during the day and cool at night.  There are lots of neat animals to see.  There are cute shops and restaurants to keep a person busy on a rainy day.

We stayed at Herbal Breeze.  Fairly high on a mountain with trees all around.  There was a bird/chippy feeder right in front of our porch.  It was fun to watch the interactions of the chipmunks and birds as they came to feed.

One of the best ways to get around Ella is to walk the train tracks.  It's illegal.  But everyone does it.  It's mostly safe because it's easy to hear the train coming. Except this one dog...  He stayed on the track as the train approached.  Unaware?  Playing chicken???  I don't know.  But he ducked between the ties as the train passed.  Then.  Crazy!!!  He got impatient??  Ran out between the train wheels as the last few cars went past.  It took me a little while to settle my emotions after that....

Pictures
1-Toby on our patio at Herbal Breeze.  It was really nice to have tea there in the morning and evening.
2- On our first night at Herbal Breeze, we ordered dinner for the patio.  We had no idea it would be so pretty.  All for 600 Rupees, about $4 Canadian.  And in the end, they didn't charge us for it.  Maybe because we extended our 3 day stay to 6 days?
3-On our first walk in Ella, we discovered a restaurant called Serenity.  The view from there was awesome!  The monkeys playing were super awesome!
4- The hosts at Herbal Breeze kept putting rice, bananas, etc on this feeder in front of our porch.  It was great to watch the animals and birds interact.
5- At a local cafe, we played a game of carom, a popular game in Sri Lanka.  Toby won, but it was pleasantly close! This Jewish man only spoke Yiddish, but he watched us play and cheered us on.   And when the game was done tried to get my last pieces into the little corner pockets.  Fun!
6- Walking the train tracks was really pleasant. 
7- The Nine Arches bridge was built in 1921.  It's especially remarkable because the metal for its construction was reallocated to the British front when WW1 started, so locals built it with only stone, bricks, and cement.
8- Some big pretty flowers in Ella.
9- This was a tiny food place beside the road to Nine Arches Bridge.  It was impressive because it was so cute and clean, and the food was tasty too!
10- There are lots of small/medium gardens/farms in Ella and the surrounding areas.  They're often irregular in shape and on little inclines.  The locals seem to use mostly/only hand tools to work, and hoses/buckets to water them. This man was growing tomatoes right beside the Nine Arches Bridge.
11- One of the many incredible views from the hills in Ella.  The pictures cannot convey the whole feeling of space and beauty

Tea at Halpewatte

Today, we visited the Halpewatte Tea Factory.  Very interesting!!!

The Halpewatte Tea Factory was built by the British in 1940.  During our tour, we learned that all types of tea come from the same evergreen shrub/tree, Camellia sinensis. Which is NOT the same plant that gives us tea tree oil, Melaleuca alternifolia.

In plantations, tea plants are usually about waist high for easy harvesting.  They're productive from 4 years of age up to 30 years. But if left uncut, they can grow to 4 meters tall and live for hundreds of  years.  Who knew?!

Harvesting is done about every two weeks. Each time, some new leaves are plucked by hand from each plant.

There are 6 steps to make black tea: air dry to wither the leaves, roll the leaves to crush the cells, ferment/oxidize, heat dry, sort/grade, and pack.  To make green tea, you skip the fermentation.  To make white tea, you only use the tiny new shoots and air dry them.

Orange pekoe tea is just a term for medium black tea. Chai, Earl Grey, and others are made by adding spices/other ingredients.  During our tea tasting, we learned that the darker tea has more caffeine, so is best for breakfast.  Light tea has less caffeine so is best for evening.

Pictures
1- This is one of the tea pluckers who worked at the Octagon's small tea garden.  She had her bag tied to her waist.  Most pluckers have a strap over their head/forehead to hold their bag.  It looks like it can get heavy.
2- This is the Demodara tea factory.  Many of the tea factories look like this.
3- This is the air drying area.  It has lots of nice windows.  Each section/drying bed is well labelled.  The amount of time this step takes depends on the humidity in the air.
4-This set of machines rolls the leaves.
5- The leaves are piled about 3 inches deep for fermentation. Our guide stuck his hand into the piles and pulled out tea for us to touch and smell.  It was warm and mildly tea tangy.
6- One of the furnaces used to burn wood to heat dry the tea.
7- Amazing new technology!  Infrared light is used to separate the black (lower quality) and brown tea (higher quality).
8-I'm not sure what this step is.  But it shows that a lot of the work is still manual.  And all the employees there wore tidy green uniforms.  Tho most wore either flip flops or no shoes at all.  Like many Sri Lankans.
9- The bags of processed tea are ready for shipping to auctions.  At the auctions, buyers get to smell and taste tea from each bag/group of bags.  This lets them select the tea that has the characteristics that they are looking for.

PS - It was pretty amazing that we got to walk so close to all of these machines!  And we got to touch product as it was made.

The Octagon and Pepper Corns

For the last 7 days we stayed at the Octagon.  It was really really nice.

The Octagon is located about 20 minutes from Peridiniya, where we visited the Royal Botanical Gardens.  It was built in 2013 by an Irish poet called Richard Murphy.  Whose father was the last British Mayor of Colombo in 1935.  The monks at the Rockhill Hermitage blessed the Octagon when it was built.  I love all these little facts about the place.

I also love the place itself!!!  The Octagon has 8 sides.  Each with a big window or door.  The building is surrounded by a pretty garden with tea plants, black pepper plants, and likely more we didn't identify.  It's airy and bright.  With a balcony all around.  It was possibly modeled after the Sri Dalada Maligawa / the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, a very famous Buddhist temple in Kandy which is only about 45 minutes away. 

My wish is to have a simple version of the Octagon as a cottage....

Pictures
1-The entrance to the Octagon.  Elegant.
2-Desmond, the caretaker delivered a beautiful breakfast to us every morning.  An omelet, toast/butter/jelly, fruit, tea.  It was a delight to the eyes and mouth!
3- 3a Toby and the resident cat.  Looking regal on his elephant!
4- The ceiling in the Octagon was very cool to look at!  
5-7 Who knew???  Pepper corns grow on vines.  The vines need a tree, preferably with rough bark, to climb.  You pick the pepper before they're ripe.  When the pepper on the lower part of the vine just starts to turn red.  Then you let the pepper dry in the sun, And shell them. Picture 5 is Upali picking the pepper corns.
8-10 - Inside and outside of the Octagon.  So pleasant!!!!