of the bad guys among the Hindu
gods, Ravana, abducted Sita the
consort of good god Rama, and took
her to Sri Lanka. Rama sent monkey
god Hanuman to look for her and he
found her at this waterfall. I looked,
but while I saw many good-looking
young women I didn’t see any Hindu
goddesses. Maybe you have to be a
monkey. There were quite a few of
those, looking pretty busy looking
but I suspect they were after food
not goddesses.
After a night in a pleasant and
comfortable b&b and dinner at a
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headed back down the mountain
to see the waterfall in sunshine
and then continued west through
the high country. Overnight was at
Rivendell, a stylish new guesthouse
overlooking the Castlereagh Reservoir
and extensive tea plantations. You
can pick them by the big, multi-storey
processing sheds (tea factories) dotted
among the tea bushes.TWO FOR TEA
I didn’t know that it was the British
who brought tea cultivation to Sri
Lanka. They also kickstarted the other
major cash crops, coffee and rubber.
Today we rode through almost
endless tea plantations, completely
unmistakable for the soft, rounded
shape that the cropped bushes give
the hills. Tea likes well-drained soil,
and it covers vast stretches of uplandSri Lanka. Tea plantations also exist
in some lower parts of the island,
but they produce poorer quality
tea according to Rohan’s friend
Kenny Congreve. There is an upper
elevation limit to tea production,
too, and we reached it when we came
to the entrance of Horton Plains
National Park. This was also where
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understandable entry fee policy which
charges foreigners about ten times
as much as locals. Sri Lanka, after all,
depends on tourist rupees. The park
is dedicated mostly to deer, and we
saw a few of those. But it’s also an
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open, windswept grasslands and
twisted, stunted trees.