Nuwara Eliya

The big thing about Nuwara Eliya is that it was the favourite hill station of the British. Its cooler (even cold at night) and was supposedly kitted out like some British village. Indeed the impression they try to give is that some retired tea planter would still feel at home here. Indeed it is not only a tourist sight for travelling Brits but a great favourite of local socialites.

Now, lets get real. None of its buildings are like an any English village I have ever seen. There is really little to see for the tourist other than the hotels largely converted from old colonial houses. A tour of the town on foot shouldn't take more than a couple of hours. The only thing about it is that it isn't quite as ramshackle as every other town in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka would be a great advert for the Green Belt. There is endless ribbon development, so if you travel by road almost all the roadsides bar in the very most precipitous sites are covered by shacks. And poster sites. Signs shout at you from everywhere - all rather tacky. One particular poster for lemon puffs stuck in my mind for its ubiquity and the ecstatic face of the young Sri Lankan chap advertising it - a look which should only be brought on by height of orgasm or one's team winning promotion. Certainly not by a biscuit.

Nuwara Eliya doe have a little bit of worthwhile architecture, but still does have a lot of the shambolic building which exists everywhere else. Furthermore, while things have survived from the colonial era, only a few bits have been maintained properly - mostly the hotels!

Ok, so lets go on tour of the pretty bits. Buddhist temple to start.

 The the racecourse. Apparently racing still takes place here in April, which is surprising as it is at best semi-derelict and the horses grazing on it look in a  pretty sorry state.

 The racecourse circuit is all around here. Its not exactly Ascot.

Now the Victoria Gardens down the middle of town are lovely. They are not free, and for tourists far more expensive than for locals, but even for tourists not much more than a pound, so its surprising in a relatively bustling place to find them almost empty. Nevertheless there were two people in the ticket booth to see me my ticket, and then passing through the gate one of three people in the security box - about 5 yards from the ticket booth - having been able to watch me buy my ticket - dashed out to do their important job - tearing my ticket in half.

Anyway, the gardens are lovely and at first sight well-maintained.

 So, beautiful isn't it? Down the middle. But just go to the edge of the park, and this is what you get. Might not some of those people sitting around waiting to tear a ticket be better placed doing a bit of weeding or rubbish picking? Yes, but I guess not as restful a job. What is so annoying is that a group of kids could clean up this pond in an afternoon.

 But back to the nice bits

This the war memorial (First and Second World, not with the Tamils)

The renowned pink post office. A nice vernacular building but not like any English village post-office. And where else would a post office be the top tourist attraction. I think there was a German tour party hanging around it as I was trying to take this photo.

 The market was wonderfully colourful - well at least the fruit and veg part. But sadly this blog doesn't have a snatch 'n' sniff function. If it did you might now be gagging at the smell of the fish stalls. No refrigeration. And its afternoon.

The golf course which runs parallel to the Park. Not too hard to get a space on the tee I guess.

Now, I might add that while the rest of my party were in the smart St Andrews Hotel, I was in a Guest House called the Cocoon Hills. This sounded very nice and its aim was to suggest a Victorian Home. In fact of course it was packed with repro furniture and was more like a gran's house from the 1980s. Imagine Fawlty Towers without the professionalism. Despite only having 6 guest rooms, they insisted on numbering these 801, 802, 803, etc, as if they wanted to give the impression that they had another 800 rooms in the back, or cleverly disguised another 7 floors.

I was presented with the a la carte menu. Now you know you are in trouble when the item topping the main courses is fish fingers and chips. I thought I had picked the safe option by choosing chicken soup followed by a mushroom omelette with fries. How could you go wrong? Well, they dispensed with the tradition of serving first course followed by main - they arrived together. No bread with the soup is one thing, but no fries with my little omelette sat on a little plate with a tiny piece of lettuce. I enquired about the missing fries. "Yes, its fried" said the little waiter. You could just imagine Manuel saying that. I gave up at that point.

My room was nice enough. It even had tea and coffee making facilities - a kettle sitting on the repro dressing table. I duly filled it up - and then noticed the absence of a socket in which to plug it. After scouting about the room I found one at floor level behind a wardrobe. It was in the wall, but not actually attached thereto. So to insert or unplug you had to hold the socket with all its wires in one hand while manouvering the plug with the other.

Anyway, this is what the lobby looked like from the dining table.