Endowed with a cool climate, green, lush forest and rolling hills covered with tea plantations, the hill country of Sri Lanka is a perfect place to take long, slow walks through the countryside. This area is the heart of the tea growing industry in Sri Lanka and contains a large number of Tamils brought over by the British from India to work as laborers on the plantations. Traveling throughout the hill country by train is absolutely the best form of transportation. The train passes through dramatic mountains, cascading waterfalls, deep ravines and brilliant green tea plantations. First class observation tickets between the cities and villages of the hill country are insanely cheap and provide you with stunning panoramas of the countryside. For example, a first class, observation ticket from Nuwara Eliya to Ella for two people cost 300 rupees (approximately $3 USD).
Nuwara Eliya lies at a cool and rainy 1,889 meters above sea level and is one of the most English of all the hill stations that we have visited in Asia. Lush flower gardens and vegetable plots grow alongside stately English country homes making a stroll around Nuwara Eliya a very colonial experience. We were both a little under the weather in Nuwara Eliya so we decided to stay around town and sample the bars of the various English colonial institutions. First, we started with our hotel, The Glendower. Although built recently, The Glendower retains the architectural style of an English colonial hill station. It has an extremely cozy bar staffed with a friendly bartender, Anil, who proclaims it is his job to get you drunk and make sure you have a good time. And he does a wonderful job, we might add.
We moved on to the Nuwara Eliya Golf Club built in 1889. Now neither one of us play golf but sitting by the fireplace sipping gin and tonics listening to the sound of golf clubs hitting their targets makes for a very pleasant evening. We saved the grandaddy of conlonial buildings for last, The Hill Club. The Hill Club is an immense brick building surrounded by flowering gardens and towering pine trees that was strictly a male bastion until 1970. It still has a male only bar but now graciously allows women into the mixed bar, library and hotel rooms. We sat down in the deep, plush chairs, ordered hot toddies (whiskey, hot water, honey, lime and cinnamon) and looked wistfully out the windows at the English countryside. Oh, wait a minute, we're in Sri Lanka.
