Nuwara Eliya
Locate
at 179 kilometres from the capital of Sri Lanka
Colombo nearly 6400 meters up the sea level
is the haven of the country the crest of Island’s
Paradise, Nuwara Eliya. The Hill Country is
exceptionally beautiful, with crystal clear
waterfalls and tea plantations dotted throughout.
The temperature in this region stays cool all
year round, in an atmosphere of early morning
Spring. Everything is green and lush and the
landscape is elevated with layers of grass knolls
and jagged waterfalls with dense mountain forest
clinging to the upper slopes. The days drift
by in the hill country with not much to do but
drink tea and absorb the serenity and breathtaking
walks and views.
There are
also some majestic feats of nature to explore,
namely Worlds End and Adams Peak. Worlds End
is located in the Horton Plains, which is a
rolling highland terrain of grassland interspersed
with forest and unusual high-altitude vegetation.
The plains reach over 2000 meters high with
the mountains of Kirigalpotta and Totapola looming
up from the edges of the plateau. The most tremendous
feature of the strange silent world of the plains
however is Worlds End, where the plains abruptly
stop leaving you hovering over a straight drop
of 880 meters
Nuwara Eliya offers a combination of attractions,
such as healing climate, scenic beauty, wooded
wilderness, flowery meadows and its high plateau.
The Ambewala Dairy hosts the best greenery in
the country the grass land similar to New Zealand
and Australia is one of the main attractions
that lure both the local and the foreign tourists
to this town. The Huggala gardens, the race
course, Sita temple where it is believed that
the demonic king of the then Ceylon has housed
the Princess Sita of Great epic Ramanaya who
he abducted to avenge her husband Ram and the
Victoria Gollf course one of the best in South
Asian region are also nearby attractions surrounding
the town that is an oval shaped mountain valley.
Nuwara Eliya produces tea with a unique flavor.
The air is scented with the fragrance of the
cypress trees that grow in abundance and mentholated
with the wild mint and eucalyptus. It is a combination
of all these factors that produces a tea that
is recognized by connoisseurs of tea in the
world. The tea when brewed is light but has
an exquisite flavor and aroma. It has truly
been said that Nuwara Eliya is to Ceylon Tea
what Champagne is to French Wine.
Everything in Nuwara Eliya is at walking pace,
there is no vehicular scramble, no pedestrian
rat race and the drivers are the best behaved
anywhere. Yet for Nuwara Eliya the sun is shining
in August. Not enough to drive away the cold
entirely, of course, but there is sunshine nevertheless.
It falls on the flowers in the park, the grass
on the race course and the waters of Lake Gregory.
Even when the town is wrapped in that fine thin
rain so characteristic of it, the air is luminous
with the sun. It is even possible to go about
without too much warm clothing.
What strikes you about Nuwara Eliya is its paradoxical
size. The centre of the town is like anywhere
else, no bigger or smaller and cluttered with
the monuments to commerce such as banks, shopping
centres and restaurants but beyond these immediate
bounds lies a different spatial dimension. The
town then begins to stretch outwards in the
rolling acres which carry you up to the residential
districts or those leafy, flowery streets leading
out to Lake Gregory or the remoter roads which
take you in different directions, to Kandapola,
to Welimada and the other outposts in the hills.
Everything in Nuwara Eliya is at walking pace.
There is no vehicular scramble, no pedestrian
rat race and the drivers are the best behaved
anywhere. And to savour Nuwara Eliya too you
have to walk. Along those wide, winding leaf-laden
roads, past those gingerbread houses with their
smoking chimneys, past the churchyards and the
graveyards. Even the meaner parts of the city
are covered with their own gloss.
Nuwara Eliya is, of course, a town in a cocoon.
To look at the splendor of the town, its hills
and gardens and lakes, and even the lowly plantation
workers going about in their second-hand warm
clothing, is to be transported to another planet,
a slice of the Home Countries in Britain where
all those planters and military officers from
the colonies retired to spend the evening of
their lives. To look at the Grand Hotel and
the Hill Club and the race course is to be reminded
of the days of imperial glory when the White
Raj rode on his steed.
