Three for tea

We wake to the sound of cockerels, crows and persistent traffic in the city below. No peacocks with their plaintiff cat-like cries here or the chatter of monkeys as our alarm call. There are monkeys here of course but they are city monkeys. Savvy. They’d steal your grandma if they thought she had a Werther’s original in her pocket, so doors and bags have to be tightly shut. The country monkeys sit nonchalantly in trees munching on leaves ignoring your presence. The city monkeys are a gang of artful Dodgers with their eyes on you at all times.

The mountains on the other side of the valley are enveloped in a thick morning mist and whilst it’s still very warm the humidity has dropped making it feel so much cooler than when we were in the jungle.

Dhiravamso’s tuk tuk got to the hotel bright and early. So once we’d given him 15 pots of tea and allowed time for everyone to kneel at his feet we made our way further into the mountains. Tea country. The journey is slow as the roads wind but the view is stunning.

We stopped at a viewpoint with opportunities to buy multiple Buddha and elephant souvenirs (we bought none) and in the mountains we stopped again at a tea factory with multiple opportunities to buy tea (we bought lots). I thought I had no interest in tea, but it was actually fascinating. Who knew that the process of making tea leaves was so complicated? All picked by hand so it’s hard work for the women who do it (they say it’s because they have smaller hands to pick better but I imagine it’s because they are willing to do hard work for low pay) then it’s loaded onto conveyor belts to dry out, then it gets oxidised and fermented and chopped. Then somewhere at the end of it all you get tea leaves. A large percentage of these have to be sold at market in Colombo by order of the government. Tea is currency here.