Day Six - Kandy to Nuwara Eliya

Today was mostly a 'travel day'. Not in our air conditioned Honda estate though. We were heading up to the tea plantations by train.  Mahesh was taking our luggage ahead by car.  He dropped us off at the station before Kandy 

Here we discovered we were travelling third class BUT we did have reserved seats, facing backwards and not at the window, in a carriage with 19 Chinese, some of whom were musicians.

The scenery was spectacular. The journey took four and a half hours. It was noisy both with our fellow travellers (the Chinese were drumming and singing AND hanging out the door of the train getting their pictures taken from the next carriage - outside)  and the ancient old train clanking up and down the hilly area. 

Hard to take decent photos as the windows only half opened and had bars across the middle. 

Four and a half hours later we got off the train, shaken and stirred!  We stepped off the train and it was Baltic. 17 degrees. After a bit of confusion we met up with Mahesh again. First thing we saw was a tea plantation with this sign

Mahesh took us to our hotel, The Hill Club - an old colonial stomping ground. 

Beautiful grounds with a golf course in front. Our room is enormous filled with old traditional furniture. Fortunately for me the gentlemen's drinking bar has been changed recently to 

Tiny gin servings though 😥😥😥

Howard has to borrow a jacket and tie for dinner - I've yet to find out if I am going to be turned away for wearing sandals. 

This area is known as Little England as there are lots of colonial houses dotted around the hillsides but the town itself looks like everywhere else we've been. Lots of traffic, shops, mayhem etc. 

Tomorrow we'll explore the tea plantations a little more and the waterfalls before heading south again to a wildlife centre.