We left our Kandy guest house for Hanthana, a remote tea picking area an hour’s drive from Kandy where we’re now staying for 3 nights.  

Uduwela is the local village about a 20 minute walk away from the lovely villa we’re staying in that looks far out across the Knuckles mountain range and tea plantations. On arrival we orientated ourselves with a stroll around the village with its little temple, rustic bakery, barking dogs and friendly residents. We finished the day with an out of this world dahl, aubergine curry and rice cooked for us by the housekeeper, Rani.

Uduwela Village 

Pekoe Trail Stage 1

You may not have heard of the The Pekoe Trail – I hadn’t until a year ago and most Sri Lankans I mentioned it to hadn’t either. It’s a 300+km walking trail traversing the central highlands and consisting of 22 stages with each being about 12-15km long. These are the trails that the tea pickers have used for many decades and which now allows visitors to discover the varying terrain, history, culture, food, and local communities across the region by foot. 

Stage 1 that we trekked today was 12.8km and it took us 4.5 hours including a couple of short stops. It became hard after a couple of hours as it got very hot very quickly despite starting at 7.30am. We hired a guide who pointed out lots of fascinating things such as the significance of the mountain ranges in Sri Lankan mythology, the colonial history of tea and coffee growing in the region and we met a lone monk living in a cave with rattlesnakes. We needed our leech socks for this stage but fortunately we were not pestered by them. 

Enjoy our video of our day

Tomorrow we’ve decide to set off at 6am to catch the rising sun, enjoy the earlier hours and stay as cool as possible. 

Further sponsorship – I’ve now reached 95% of my £30,000 target! If you’d like to help me to help those who have various forms of need in Sri Lanka, whilst being assured every penny will get to those who need it, then please donate by clicking on this link. Don’t forget if you’re a tax payer to declare gift aid when doing so which will increase your donation by 25% at no cost to you. Alternatively, if you know of anyone or any organisation who may have an interest in this cause please share this blog link with them. And, if you’d like to get involved in anyway please get in touch with me at marciasummers@hotmail.com

Next up: Stage 2 of the Pekoe Trail

If you missed the last blog then here it is

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