Kandy to Nuwara Elia (basically a city in the clouds)

Day... 5?

Took off from Kandy towards Nuwara Eliya.
It was a windy drive through the mountains, as Nuwara Eliya is something like 4,500 ft above sea level. The first stop was a fruit stand along the side of the road. Delicious!



After that, we went to a tea plantation, and I got a brief tour of one of the factories. This one isn't really in full industrial production, but is essentially just like the others nearby that are. After the tour, you get to have some tea fresh from the factory. The whole areas is just basically rolling hills / mountains of tea fields.



Then a small Hindu temple. This region apparently is a majority Tamil region, but not the "original Tamils". The Tamils in the north are the "indigenous" Tamils to Sri Lanka, and this other population was apparently brought later to work in the tea fields. Anyway, the Sinhala are mostly Buddhist, and the Tamils are mostly Hindu.



We ate lunch at the Ramboda Falls. Pretty neat waterfall, which seems to have a hotel and restaurant attached. The path to get there isn't very far, but it's pretty steep. The falls have a little canal for carrying away excess water, because otherwise it causes floods further downstream. I followed some Germans across to the other side for some extra pictures.
Side note - this place is literally crawling with Germans. If you see a random tourist, you're probably better off speaking to them in German, because chances are they're German. My tea tour was in German, which was just fine and lucky for the woman there who didn't understand a ton of English... Incredible that there are even any Sri Lankans who speak it.



More pictures along the way...



Now, Nuwara Eliya! Probably my favorite big city so far, but unfortunately it started raining while I was out exploring (and has been going on and off ever since). Maybe it was just the rain clouds coming in, but the whole city and area seemed to be in the clouds. Pretty neat.