by Clare Gleeson
If Rupert Brooke had visited Nuwara Eilya he would have felt completely at home. The Sri Lankan hill station, developed by the British in the mid-19th century, retains many legacies of the Raj, despite more than 60 years of independence. Nuwara Eilya is proud of its Englishness.
The train from Colombo had brought us nearly 2000 metres up into the Sri Lankan Highlands amid acres of tea plantations. For six hours we climbed higher and higher leaving the urban sprawl of the capital, travelling through tangled jungle to reach the patchwork neatness of the tea country. We left the train at Nanu Oya and bumped along the potholed road to Nuwara Eilya in a taxi, passing hillside tea plantations with names such as Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Nuwara Eilya was founded in 1846 by Samuel Baker, a British Nile explorer. Here in the coolness of the Highlands the ruling British could pursue many familiar country pursuits such as fox hunting, cricket, polo, fishing, golf and horse racing.
Entering Nuwara Eilya the dilapidated race track was immediately in front of us. Our taxi driver assured us that two meetings a year were still held here although this seemed unlikely. In front of the down-at-heel grandstand the final straight was uneven and unkempt and the fence outside the perimeter of the track was falling down. Ponies available for tourist hire grazed on the track. The condition of the racetrack was a stark contrast to that of the nearby golf course which was immaculate.
Our hotel, the Glendower, built in mock Tudor style, had once been a gentleman’s country house and was set in a cottage garden. It had a cosy feel to it, with a billards table and an over-furnished English bar.
Breakfast was a Sri Lankan interpretation of the English meal consisting of fried chicken ham, accompanied by two unusual looking eggs, served on hard white toast. The pièce de résistance was the padded tea cosy featuring villages of the Lake District proudly brought to our table and carefully snuggled over the china teapot by our young, smiling waiter.
Even the weather has a claim to Englishness. Much cooler than Colombo and Kandy, Nuwara Eilya was damp and drizzly for much of our time there. This makes it an ideal climate for the many English vegetables it grows such as leeks, tomatoes, beetroot, beans and strawberries, and has also enabled gardens full of familiar flowers to flourish. Roses, petunias, begonias – everything you could imagine in a herbaceous border – were evident throughout the town and in the impressive gardens of Victoria Park.
Nuwara Eilya is not large and easy to get around on foot but we also used tuk tuks for novelty or to escape the rain. On our first morning we strolled about looking at the variety of colonial homes, many of which are now small hotels. Although some look tired they wouldn’t be out of place in an English village and sit on large pieces of land, quite a contrast to most of Sri Lanka’s housing. Cows grazing on the side of the road and an old, wet, bedraggled and barefoot man walking near one of the houses made a strange contrast and reminded me that this was Sri Lanka.
Walking into the commercial part of the town we explored the shops and market before crossing the road to one of Nuwara Eilya’s most distinctive buildings to post a card home. Slightly elevated, the pretty Victorian brick post office has a tiled roof, gables and a clock spire. From the outside it reminded me of something from an English village and the lines from Brook sprang to mind ‘Stands the church clock at 10 to 3, and is there honey still for tea?’ but inside the somnolent air was dispelled by the eager and noisy customers.
Leaving the post office crowds were gathering along the roadside and the rhythmic banging of large leather drums could be heard. Standing by a British red post box we watched a long line of local monks parade through the main street, cheering up the drizzle with their bright orange robes and assorted umbrellas. Some were very young, probably no more than 8 or 9 years old, and policewomen walked beside them.
Sheltering from the rain we took a tuk tuk up the hill to the gothic looking Holy Trinity Anglican Church built in 1863. The church has a cemetery full of the graves of British civil servants, soldiers, diplomats, planters, their wives and children. Although cared for this corner of a foreign field felt sad and lonely, marking forever the resting place of those who remained behind long after their families had left for Home.
At the planters’ Hill Club that evening we sipped our coffee sunk deep in Sanderson couches in front of a roaring fire. Gazing over us were a youthful Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, whose portraits, along with that of the Sri Lankan President, hung above the fireplace. Following gin and tonics we had eaten a four course dinner, completely alone, in a dining room which can seat 50. We had been attended by four white-gloved waiters and the chef hovered in the nearby corridor as we made our selection from the menu. The Hill Club has reciprocal rights with the St James Club in London and a dress code which had placed considerable strain on our travelling wardrobes. I don’t think I could have handled being a memsahib but Rupert Brooke would have felt completely at home in this corner of a foreign field.
If You Go:
♦ Getting there: Travel by train or bus to Nuwara Eilya. The train journey from Colombo takes most of the day but is a fascinating trip. There is also a bus from Kandy.
♦ Tuk tuks and taxis are readily available.
♦ Accommodation: Nuwara Eilya has a range of accommodation from small to large hotels. www.nuwaraeliya.org
♦ Eating: A number of restaurants serving Sri Lankan and European food.
About the author:
Clare Gleeson is a New Zealand historian, librarian and travel writer who enjoys exploring her own country as well as those further afield. She has a travel blog at www.thewanderinghistorian.com.
All photos are by Clare Gleeson:
A tea picker
British post box
Parade on the main street
The Hill Club – islanka.com
Instead of water, they came face to face with a soldier. Not a miniature soldier, but a life-sized models, in terracotta. And, there were more. The size of the models varied with the status of the soldier being modeled; the officer was always taller than the foot-soldier, and the Generals were tallest of all.
There was much more than the few figures that the farmers found. Here was rank upon rank of model soldiers, each one different; it was believed that actual soldiers had acted as models for each piece. If this was the case, their facial characteristics, and differences in their dress and equipment show from what a large area the soldiers were recruited. There were archers, cavalrymen, charioteers and foot-soldiers. Most of them held real weapons; some of these still exist, but many of these have either decayed over time, or been looted in the past.
Originally, the figures were brightly painted, but this has faded almost to nothing over the ages. It’s believed there are many more still to be discovered; some estimates put the total figure at over 8000. But any further excavation has been put on hold, for it’s thought that any still to be discovered figures may have retained their original colours, so they’re waiting until such time as a method of fixing those colours can be devised.
The public aren’t allowed into the pits themselves. That’s a privilege normally reserved only for trained archaeologists and visiting Heads of State. There’s a balcony around each pit, though, from which they can be viewed. But, if you want some close-up images, there’s a gallery within the museum in which some selected figures are displayed in glass cases … most spectacular of which is the bronze chariot, provided to convey the Emperor in the afterlife.
Amazingly one of the largest mosques in Central Asia was built in just five years as Timur rushed in architects to finish the job. This lack of patience, as well as humility, fatally undermined the building and as large cracks appeared in the masonry it fell into disuse before an earthquake in 1897 leveled a significant section. The mosque is still in this semi-ruined state. The main prayer hall sits beneath a light blue dome which crouching behind another large tiled entrance façade. The sky blue dome is now crowned by a growth of moss and along the outside walls parts of the tiled covering have crumbled away littering the ground with dark and light blue fragments.
Only a small part of the Ak-Sarai is left but it’s enough to demonstrate the scale of the palace. Two towers of brick would have been connected into a giant arch but are now separated. Standing at 65m the towers dwarf anything in Samarkand. Whilst now two huge piles of brick, at the time the towers would have been awash with the ubiquitous blues and turquoise of Timur’s other constructions. Some traces of this beauty are found on the walls lining the gulf between these two towers. Hesitantly I climbed the interior stairs to reach the flat open air top. At first there was little I could do but stand in the middle of the platform gazing at the flat green country around. When I nervously approached the edge and took a quick look over a low wobbly fence to the distant ground below a sudden bout of dizziness quickly made me step back.
The most famous set of buildings in Samarkand are the three madrasas standing together on Registan Square. Once again I was staring up at large brick structures over laid with an array of blue tiles. Here though it is the decoration rather than the size which was meant to leave an impression. The three buildings form a square with one side left open, perhaps meant to be filled by a line of astonished onlookers. The area between, the ‘Sandy Place’ (Registan), was the main public square of Samarkand. The three madrasas seem to lean in and shrink the already small square.
Opposite, the 15th century Ulugh Beg Madrasa presents lighter colours, with yellows and purples adding to the traditional blue and turquoise. On the third side of the square sits the madrasa of Tilya Kan with a light blue dome poking up on the left side. Each of the buildings would be a major landmark on their own were they to be separated. Together they form an utterly unique space. Yet as I crisscrossed the square from one building to another there was the sad feeling that the space is a little too well restored. The cleaned and polished buildings, missing not a single inch of tile despite being several hundred years old, bear the hallmarks of a professional but perhaps overly zealous restoration.
Despite the hours, a co-teacher and I decided to spend one of our short weekends out of town, and made a bee-line from our Seoul address to the town of Samcheok on the eastern coastline.
Outside of notorious areas in South East Asia, I had normally found traveling through Asia to be (at least on the surface) a sexually tame area. Tradition and protocol seem to dictate that people keep modesty and save face. So it was a bit of a shock to come across such blatant eroticism in South Korea and of course begs the question as to why these penises exist in the first place.
We spent the day wandering among these outlandish statues, laughing and taking ridiculous photos. The dark colors of the penises blended beautifully with deep azure of the Pacific Ocean. After the park we walked along the beach and along with dozens of other families we frolicked in the shallow water, some cold beers in our hands. As the sun slowly set and we made our way back to the bus stand, our brief voyage into the world of South Korean dicks came to end. I pondered in my head how a park such as this would be received back in parts of the United States, and I realized that maybe South Korea wasn’t so prudish after all.
What a majestic creature! That hunts with Precision, Planning and Speed. We were very fortunate to see this majestic creature hunting in Zone- 3. Being there and observing the hunt from a distance, we could sense the fear that the prey (deer & sambars) felt while running for life in the lake. This bolt happened after one member from the herd made the call and informed others of the danger.
Some of the animals and birds showed curiosity towards the tourists entering their territory and some behaved as if they have been eagerly waiting for you to click their pictures, especially the Langoors. An interesting thing to note about them was that all of them were so used to humans visiting their habitat that they were least bothered and continued doing what they were busy with.
