things to in srilanka – Harrytinkers travelog

Beautiful Gardens in Sri Lanka

Posted on February 19, 2021March 15, 2021 by harrytinkers

For Nature lovers Sri Lanka is the best place to enjoys the nature’s beauty. The whole country is blessed with lush greenery. On your visit to Sri Lanka do visit the below places:

Tea Estate: Nuwara Eliya

Tea gardens are always very enchanting because its mostly situated in the hilly regions with misty ambience. Everything looks so dreamy around them. Being a Bollywood fan, I get reminded of lots of songs shot in Tea garden and every time I visit a tea estate, I hum these songs, Super filmy you know.

One such place was the Blue field Tea estate in Nuwara Eliya. We had a tea factory tour in which we were familiarized with the different grades of tea leaves and the process of making the export quality tea leaves. The tea gardens were beautiful as always. What we loved the most is the tea cake which was served with our complimentary varieties of tea

Royal Botanical Garden: Kandy

Being a nature enthusiast, I have fond of flowers and gardens to an extensive level. My happiness level automatically jumps to 100% when I’m with the flowers.

We happen to visit Royal Botanical Garden in Kandy. The total area of the botanical garden is 147 acres and the entrance fees is 1500 Sri Lankan Rupees. The botanical garden welcomes you with sky high tree on either side of the footpath. You can hear birds chirping, squirrels playing, bees and butterflies swarming everywhere. It was a totally magical place for me. I wanted to capture each and every moment in this garden, that’s how crazy I become.

The garden is renowned for its orchid varieties and palm framed pathways and has a dedicated space for the same. A small and neat orchid house built inside the Royal Botanical Gardens exhibits some of the best orchid species.

It’s the oldest gardens in Sri Lanka dated back to 1300s. this spectacular garden is enclosed on three sides by a large bend in the longest river in Sri Lanka: Mahaweli River.

It is the best botanical garden in the whole of Asia. The gardens are attached to the National Herbarium of Sri Lanka. It’s said that The Royal Botanical Gardens of Peradeniya was used as the South-east Asian Headquarters of the Allied Forces during the Second World War.

You would probably need the whole day to explore the gardens extensively. The garden is divided in 30 different parts namely Double coconut, Pinetum, Palm collection, Cooks pine avenue, Orchid house, spice garden and many more. We just had Half a day to explore this so we couldn’t cover most of the area.

Timings: 8 AM – 6 PM

Spice Garden:

Never ever thought about visiting a place like this, a garden full of spices. Also, it truly resembled like my grandmother’s backyard garden with all the plants and trees famous for the spices, We visited Sirilak spice and herbal botanical garden Kawudupelella, Sri Lanka.

Got to observe many new plants which I never knew about so it was a good learning experience. Me being a plant lover I m always keen to enlighten myself with more and more plant knowledge. The best one was Vanilla plant.

We were also offered a spice tea which we were little skeptical about and surprisingly it was super delicious.

Do visit a spice garden on your visit to Sri Lanka.

A visit to Sri Lanka is incomplete without visiting these beautiful gardens
Harrytinkers

Srilanka

A Road trip from Kandy to Nuwara eliya

Posted on January 29, 2021January 28, 2021 by harrytinkers

Nuwara Eliya or Seetha Eliya or Little England of Sri Lanka is well known for is forest looking ambience all around. The temperature is towards a lower side in this city as it’s a hill station. The climate is very pleasant in the daytime and its starts turning quite cold at night. Nuwara Eliya is blessed with nature’s bounty and that’s the major reason it attracts plenty of tourists per year.

We travelled by road from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya and its scenic beauty is incomparable. We are glad that we took this decision to go by road. Lots of tourists prefer travelling by train, the only reason we chose by road journey because we wanted to visit Ramboda Falls.

Ramboda falls

Ramboda falls is 11^th highest waterfalls in Sri Lanka and 729^th in the world. Its 109 m (358 ft) high Its also called the Y shaped waterfall because of its look. You have to trek for about 30 mins to reach the viewpoint. The entrace fees is 50 Sri Lankan Rupees.The passage is muddy with steep and broken steps in between. You can witness beautiful bamboo forest and some interesting bamboo formations on your climb uphill. Also beware of the slippery stones because of the waterfall droplets in the air makes its marshy.

You can see some concrete steps by the time you are about to reach the Falls. The trek is easy but be careful on your steps. The waterfall is very enchanting, and the water is pretty cold. The flow of water which forms a cascade looks mesmerizing. The place in total is very peaceful and you can spend some time just with nature.

Mlesna St Claire tea castle

This is something we found on the way to Nuwara Eliya. We had a pitstop as a view point for Devon falls and the Tea castle is just opposite to the Devon falls view point. St Claire tea castle is one of the largest teashops in the world. Amidst the tea estates and hills the tea castle looks nothing less than a fairytale. This place serves wide variety of aromatic teas and the ambience is bright and comforting.

Devon falls

Devon falls aka “veil of the valley” aptly named because it’s a hidden treasure in the beautiful valley. Its named after Devon (a pioneer English coffee planter) whose plantation was situated near this fall.

Shri Bhakta hanuman temple

A hanuman temple situated at the top of a hill in Ramboda. This temple was built by Chinmaya mission in Sri Lanka. This temple is devoted for Lord Hanuman. The timings are 7 am -1pm, 3;30 pm -6:30 p.m. reached at this place at 2pm so we had to wait till the temple was opened. It exactly looks like temples in India with stalls offering puja items near the temple. Apart from the 16ft tall hanuman statue carved in granite in the temple, one would love the scenic beauty from the top of the hill. You can also relish onto some traditional Indian meal from the onsite restaurant. Photography is prohibited inside the temple premises.

A memorable road trip with a view filled with tea estates , hills and misty atmosphere is a treat for soul
Harrytinkers

adventure activity, Srilanka, things to do

Millennium elephant park

Posted on January 1, 2021December 24, 2020 by harrytinkers

Sri Lanka is well known for its wildlife , especially for its massive herds of Asian elephants residing in forests and the national parks.

We started by 9 am from Colombo and it takes about 2.5 Hrs. (70.9 km) to reach Kagalle.

Millennium elephant foundation is a charity organization which rescues captive Asian elephants and take care of them.

There are different visiting package fares which you can choose from and it’s a contribution for the elephant welfare. We took the Tour package of 2000 Sri Lankan rupees which included elephant museum, elephant bathing and tour of the park.

This park is fascinating and huge. It offers a very natural habitat to the elephants. The elephant tamers are very kind towards the animals and look after them generously.

I am not very fond of touching animals and this time I got to touch an elephant which was a very different experience. What I noticed is they have very rough skin and have thick har on then which is merely visible because of their skin texture.

Elephants are very human friendly creatures and I find them to be super cute.

Check out our time at elephant foundation below:

The park is very well maintained and its takes about an hours’ time to take a stroll around the park. The park is covered with beautiful flowers and coconut trees.