For the definition of "verdant", they should just have a picture of the tea country in Sri Lanka.
Today was our favorite day of the trip.
We started with a tour of the tea factory. I had no idea how much work went into making tea. The regular tour guide was not available so our tour was given by the 76 year-old director of the factory. He is in fantastic shape and he owes it all to the at least 7 cups of Sri Lankan tea he drinks a day. He's been working in the tea business for over 50 years so you can just imagine how interesting the tour was.
We had no idea how many steps go into making tea. There's withering, rolling, mashing, sorting, fermenting, drying, straining, packaging and tasting. At the end, we tasted some tea that was in leaf form just yesterday.
This particular factory picks all the tea by hand but after that most of the process is done by machine.
I wish I could capture how wonderful this room smelled.
After the tour, we went on a hike through the tea country. It rained on and off but it was still great.
Pictures don't do it justice so here's a video
The food at this hotel has been exceptional except for the dessert that tasted like that soap in your grandmother's powder room that you are not allowed to use. They don't have menus and instead go over the options for lunch and dinner with you. 3 courses for lunch and 4 courses for dinner.
We went for another hike after lunch.
Here's a canopy tree planted especially to provide shade for the tea plants.
Leeches! Sri Lanka has leeches which come out after it rains. Henry was "leeched." We didn't actually see the leech as it dropped off after becoming fully engorged. However, it bleeds. A lot.
Henry learning how to wear a sarong. That's our chef and our butler helping him.
Trying all the Sri Lankan food... "Wild Elephant" is Sri Lankan Redbull. Although it is caramel in color, it tastes like Grape Nehi.
The bread basket this morning was accompanied by a bottle of Marmite.
Henry is always up for an adventure so I told him "Marmite is horrible. Try some." Without any hesitation, he tasted it. Not only did he agree that it was horrible but he said it was horrible in every possible dimension - texture, smell, look and taste; it checks no boxes. Marmite is very similar to the Australian Vegemite so I leave you with a video from the heyday of MTV
Tomorrow morning, we take a seaplane off the mountain directly to Yala National Park for 2 days of safari. Not sure what the wifi situation will be so the pictures might be limited.
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