Sri Lanka: Unspoilt splendour

Text and photos By Sadiq Shaban
As the flight from Dubai to Colombo starts its descent, motley little canals crisscrossing the historic city come into view. Originally built by the Dutch, these canals have traditionally linked various streams, lakes and lagoons on the island nation, creating a continuous line of waterways. A lot of travellers who arrive in Bandaranaike International Airport head to Negombo, a modest beach resort about 20 minutes away. As you meander your way through the busy centre of Negombo, the first thing you notice is that most men wear sarongs, a traditional Sri Lankan dress with woven plaid or checkered patterns. Curiously, during our nightlong stay in Negombo, we witnessed a couple of wedding processions and a few funerals - the cycle of joy and mourning is ubiquitous the world over - a reminder, perhaps, that life's rotation is simply universal. 
Negombo has great beaches and an old quarter with an interesting history. The Jetwing Group has some amazing properties around here. We stayed in Jetwing Blue, a lovely boutique hotel with more than a hundred rooms. There are a few pleasures like eating your meal by the seaside on a rain swept evening. Our onward journey to Kandy was replete with beautiful mise en scène of lush fields with rural people quietly working on their crops. Female traffic cops, clad in khaki skirts and black helmets, regulated the flow of vehicles in several towns along the way. At the Elephant orphanage in Pinnawala, we ran into the largest herd of captive elephants in the world. Established in 1975 by the Sri Lanka Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), the orphanage is home to more than 80 wild beasts that have personalised mahouts to take care of all their needs - right from washing and walking to feeding. 

Kandy, my next pit stop, is the capital of the Central Province. This is also the cultural hub of the island. A very scenic city with plenty of tropical plantations, like tea, around its suburbs, Kandy attracts people from all over Sri Lanka, mainly because it houses the famed Temple of the Tooth. The golden-roofed temple is Sri Lanka's most important Buddhist relic - a tooth of Lord Buddha. We joined a long queue of devotees to see the pearly white, only to be disappointed because you can't actually see it. The tooth is enclosed in a golden casket shaped like a stupa. Visitors (and there must have been at least a couple of hundred when I visited) catch a brief glimpse of the casket, before the stern-looking monk signals you to move on.

After all the pushing and walking around (without your shoes) in the huge temple complex, if you want to relax and catch your breath, hop into the Kandyan Cultural Centre nearby. We enjoyed the Kulu Natuma (harvest dance) and fire-walking by the very talented local Kandyan artists. If you like the hour-long spectacle that includes Mayura Natuma (peacock dance) and Ves Natuma (performed in an amazing 64 ornament garment), you can drop the lads a little tip at the gate.
It takes you a little over two hours to reach Nuwara Eliya from Kandy. This is tea country. Suddenly the terrain transmogrifies, as if touched by some magical elf. Nuwara Eliya is Sri Lanka's Little England. With a toy-town ambience, complete with rose-tinted English country homes, you can even find a brick Victorian post office here. The hill station has a well-tended golf course, serene colonial bungalows and immaculate hedgerows. A little distance ahead of Nuwara Eliya town - on the way to the famed Horton Plains - lie a series of beautiful dairy farms on high-altitude grasslands. Ambewela Farm and New Zealand Farm (with Ayrshire cattle and Friesian cows respectively) are straight out of a Hollywood movie set. With plenty of tall grass, rolling hills and mellow tintinnabulation coming from bells on some nearby cow, this is tranquility like you will experience nowhere else. 
Nestled in the central highlands of Sri Lanka and covered by montane grasslands and cloud forests, Horton Plains National Park is a protected area. The park offers breathtaking sights that include hikes around Sri Lanka's second- and third-highest mountains, Kirigalpotta (2,395m) and Totapola (2,359m). Forming an undulating plateau over 2,000m, wild grasslands cover Horton Plains all over. It was raining when we got there, but nothing would deter a holidaymaker who made it to the Plains. Following nature's trail along a thick forest cover, rocky outcrops and misty lakes, we got to the 'World's End' - where the plateau comes to an abrupt end, plunging 1,000m to the valley floor. Resembling the highlands of England, we resumed our trek, only to stop by Baker's Fall, a tributary of Belihul Oya. The 66ft fall, surrounded by wild Rhododendron and fern bushes, has an almost hypnotic quality to it. The noise of gushing waters here is psychedelic.

There are, perhaps, only a few things more exciting than encountering wildlife when you walk around with a boisterous group of fellow travellers. Horton Plains hosts a wide range of endemic wildlife. A sambar deer, with rugged antlers and a cinnamon-coat, ambled past me, unafraid, as if it genuinely enjoyed the human infraction. Nearby a yellow-eared bulbul trilled. Two flycatchers suspiciously eyed a Ceylon blue magpie. The bird shook its chestnut head and wings, several times, clearly enjoying the attention. Marvelling the myriad shades of nature, we walked on.
Sri Lanka's breathtaking hill country evokes a sense of picturesque drama. The local guide, Vijendra Sarath, a veteran with more than a decade of experience, explained how the various grades of tea - black, green, connoisseurs' special, herbal and flavoured are graded and packed in modern tea factories. The entire tea plantation had sari-clad tea-pluckers carefully working their way around, like a kaleidoscope of butterflies. A complimentary cup of golden tea in the old colonial ambience, far from the maddening crowd, seals the trip with a kiss.  

Great places to stay in Sri Lanka . Jetwing Blue, Negombo
. Jetwing Beach, Negombo
. Jetwing St. Andrews, Nuwara Eliya
. Jetwing Lighthouse, Galle
. Ozo, Kandy
. Hotel Suisse, Kandy
. Araliya Green Hills, Nuwara Eliya
. Ramada, Colombo

-sadiq@khaleejtimes.com