After Kandy we headed off into the mountains, which is always a bit of a relief when sweating in the tropics. As soon as we started to climb up the switchback roads, we immediately found ourselves in tea plantation country. In Sri Lanka, aka Ceylon, tea is still hand picked by Indian Tamil people whom the British brought in to work for their tea plantations. Today descendants of those original Indians continue to do the back breaking work in rain and shine. The higher the elevation of the tea, the better the quality. The women out picking tea leaves seem happy to be photographed, perhaps to break up the monotony of their days. Tea leaves are picked every 10-12 days, so finding pickers to photograph can be tricky.
I visited a tea factory where the tea is converted from green leaf to final cut black tea. Interestingly, the factories only operate at night to keep the tea cool during the processing. When you tour the factory they can only show you the machinery. They also cut and sort tea to different grades/sizes that influence the strength of the tea and then sell it that way wholesale to tea retailers. The tea retailers then mix up the grades to create their own blends.
I decided to join the throngs of Buddhist pilgrims to climb the 5,200 steps to the top of Adam’s Peak, one of the taller mountains in Sri Lanka. Adam’s Peak is where, legend has it, Adam stepped down to earth from the heavens. The scuttlebutt on hiking to the top is that you wake up at 2am (!) and start climbing the steps by 2:30am in order to get to the top before sunrise and witness the beauty of the surrounding mountain ranges at dawn. The route is fairly well lit and actually has booths of food, trinkets, and toys all the way up it. When you first leave your guesthouse to start the climb you can see the trail of lights heading straight up into the sky, which looks pretty impressive.
Unfortunately, I chose an unusually busy day to attempt the climb. I probably got up around 4000 steps before I came to a screeching halt behind hundreds or thousands of Buddhist pilgrims trying to do the same thing – or possibly even making the climb for legitimate religious reasons (there is a temple on top). I waited in the line for about two hours while it didn’t budge. The sun rose, so I decided to bail and at least photograph what I could on the descent. Yes, it was a hard climb and a difficult-on-your-knees decent, but it was nice to see the mountains from near up top. In fairness to those in line for genuine religious reasons, it was probably best for me to give up my space in line, anyway.
Afterwards my driver scheduled me in for a nice surprise Ayurueda treatment to have my legs massaged. Very nice, and I think it certainly helped.
