Train Wisdom

Train wisdom

A great joy of this trip is of course the train travel.  Craig purchased all the tickets on line and requested the first class  given that this both reserved us seats and some luggage storage space and might, sometimes,  include some air conditioning.  The cost difference to us, not much,  but many travelers go reserved second class.  Today on our third trip we DO have air con!  

What I love.  Well everything but in this country, many folks do live along the tracks and so their houses walkways come right off the train and suddenly here I’m the highlands you get a sudden glimpse of a tidy flowery lane to a front yard,  also in these mountains are so many ravines and waterfalls and tunnels.  I expected to spend lots of our train time reading but it will not happen 

About train observation cars.  Guess what! They look so wonderful in the photos and they are but— key thing — since they are at the END of the car you will be observing the past not the future!  An interesting twist on travel— time traveling? 

Also — air conditioning? Mostly — Not! Instead in.most of these older Great classic British 1940s trains, fans feebly push the air around until everyone gives up and opens the windows wide. Problem is they don’t actually look openable so on our first voyage we were all newbies and all pretty hot for a very long time til someone walked in and cranked them up!!

Trains up in the high country seem to run on dog power if you count the number of calm sweet yellow dogs. 

 

Gardens and crops 

Up in highlands it’s not just about tea... we saw beautiful gardens of cabbages and of carrots and of green onions and of leeks and nearby they grow new potatoes.  The garden rows are planted right up to the walls of each house, food is that important, and homes that don’t grow vegetables grow flowers or nursery plants. 

The soil is a rich black mulch in places while other spots it’s the orange iron rich color from the local rocks. 

Beautiful feature of our Spring garden hotel - 

At night I could see stars and hear birds all night long -not the whiff of traffic noise in this smallish town, Nuwara Eliya, that is a destination valley high in the mountains, not a waypoint to somewhere else.  If you’ve arrived here it’s because you are meant to be here.

About Sri Lankan Ayurvedic Massage

Let’s face it — they are OILY!  I think it’s a key medicinal value, oil and scent!  But ... if you’ve acquired the love of a drier massage, if you love hair free of stickiness, a Sri Lankan Ayurvedic oil massage is going to be something to sample once — or maybe twice— just to make sure you don’t really desire to change to this mode of massage.  What IS to be treasured is the steam box afterwards— never done anything like that— a coffin like box that is lined with fresh herbal leaves and has steam coming up from, I guess, simmering liquid under or nearby.  I don’t really get how they keep you from scalding but it’s wonderful.