sasri2016 - Day trip to Ella from Wellawaya by tuk-tuk

Today was time to take a tuk-tuk and drive to Ella, from Wellawaya.
I wanted to see Ruwana Falls, Nine Arched Bridge and Ella as a city.

To my surprise, Ella wasn't actually a city. It was totally a tourist location, on a hilly spot. So first we went up a long way, with the tuk-tuk and then we came a lot down, when getting back to Wellawaya. ;)

In between we stopped to Ruwana Falls. This is a nice place, if you want to get a refreshing moment, or just your feet wet. I didn't go to water, because hadn't really prepared for anything like that.

When we got to Ella, did some shopping and driver asked for directions to Nine Arched Bridge. I think the visit to Nine Arched Bridge was worth the effort, but it did actually require some effort. I don't know if my driver was just given bad directions from locals, but our route wasn't too comfortable and he didn't dare to drive the tuk-tuk all the way (well you even can't drive it to the very end, but one tuk-tuk came past me, when I was getting back higher to the point where he was left).
Ella is at the altitude of 1041 meters. The old tuk-tuk was having quite a time with the ascending road. Sometimes going was so slow, that I could have slept there at the back seat (could you imagine sleeping in a normal tuk-tuk drive at these chaotic roads?).

About shopping - old truth came up again - try to find a local shop/market place, where locals do their shopping and buy things from other shops only after that. I forget this almost on every trip and when I found a good local, common market (like Tesco's Big-C in Phuket) I start to remember this. But anyway, some things were like half the price, that they would have been elsewhere. Though it's a bit annoying, that everyone starts to stare at you in the market place, because they are not used to tourists in those places. Cashier girls, in the market place, were school age. That seems as odd to me, as seeing someone older than my grandparents, serving food at Wendy's in Florida. (Well, my grandparents are dead, but I don't mean that Wendy's has undead serving food.)

We stopped for a lunch at Ella. There are not too many places and couple restaurants seemed better than others. I ate Kottu (was spelled Kohthtu here) with Chicken and cheese again. I couldn't even eat it all. My body has probably got used to these smaller dishes, which are also much lighter, than food back home. And Kottu is actually quite heavy. Gladly this didn't have potatos in it.
I got a video of making my Kottu dinner. Asked from waiter, if it's okay to take a video of chef making the food and he said it's totally fine.


Next I am going to have a dinner at hotel's restaurant. They have a'la carte -list also, so I think I am going with that, as chef's menu didn't seem that much appealing to me (and price is over 2400 rupies for that menu, well this is a splurge hotel, so it comes with the territory). A'la carte dinners were more like 1000 rupies, which is pretty much what upper scale dinners here should cost. Like in Tissamaharama and Mirissa's beach restaurants, in better restaurants dinners and lunch costed about 700 - 1000 rupies, depending on the type of food that you order.

sasri2016 - Rice and curry lunch (in better hotel's restaurant)

This is quite typical, but better made Sri Lankan curry. 

Items on plate: 

Dhal-curry on the left on the rice pile, 

capsicum separately on the right side of the plate, 

Okra separately on the left (that was yummy!), 

barramundi fish -curry on right (see the chuncks), 

with fried strings on top

and a piece of papadam on left corner of the plate.

This was really good rice and curry. Well it was pricey too.

sasri2016 - Food in Sri Lanka

So far (until Monday 4.4.2016 night) I have eaten following foods:

• Breakfast with some western and Sri Lankan foods (The Ocean Colombo hotel)
• Rice and Curry with chicken (Food court in Majestic City, “Suna Dewli” restaurant at Mirissa Beach, I & I restaurant in Mirissa)
• Kofta (Sugar Bistro, Colombo)
• Chicken enchilada with some french fries (Food court (ThaiExpress) in Majestic City)
• Calamari Roti (“Amarasinghe” restaurant at Mirissa)
• Grilled Fish (“Amarasinghe” restaurant at Mirissa)
• Cheese Kottu with chicken (Pilawoos street restaurant in Colombo Galle road, “Amarasinghe” restaurant at Mirissa)

Cheese Kottu from Pilawoos at Colombo and Kofta at Sugar Bistro have been kind of highlights of food so far.

Though they are totally different style as Sugar is fine-dining place at poshier part of Colombo and Pilawoos is a roti place/street restaurant at lower part of Colombo. Kottu was very big and filling, while Kofta was quite small. It was still enough to make the hunger go away and it had SO amazing taste!

Yesterday (Tuesday 5.4.2016) I had an awesome vegetable rice & curry at Amarasinghe restaurant, just besides my hotel Riverside Cabanas. There is one hotel, ExtremeHost -hotel between Amarasinghe and Riverside Cabanas. This is also a good addition for Riverside Cabanas, to have such a good restaurant nearby. By the way, I noticed food menus here on the hotel's pillar at the lobby. I asked from concierge about the menus and he said that because it's now already an off season, no need to make food. All people just go out to nearby restaurants.

I also ate fried rice with seafood for lunch yesterday, at I & I restaurant. It costed something like 460 LKR (about 3 euros) with small sprite making 70 LKR from that price. It was okay and nice to have a lunch, that wasn't so spice, for a change.

sasri2016 - Ceylon tea

This is my first meet with my own bought ceylon tea.

First tea I brought on this trip were already on my first visit to Majestic City in Colombo. There was a some kind of a luxury tea shop (with probably high prices, but seemed still okay to get something even for budget traveler). I bought a pack of five different Ceylon teas, eached packed into their own package, so I could taste them. Packages were colored like this:

• Red: Nuware Eliya
• Brown: Matale
• Black: Ruhunu
• Blue: Dimbula
• Green: Uva

I had no way to make them (as they were sliced tea leaves, that were not in a ready to use tea bag) in Colombo hotel, although I had a tea/coffee maker in my room there. So in Mirissa hotel, I asked them to make my breakfast tea from “Uva” package and gave it to them night before.

When I got to breakfast next morning, they made the tea pan from my Uva tea. That was surprisingly light and not so dark tea. I simply loved it! Adding honey to this tea, would probably suite like fist into the eye.

I did the same procedure next day (last night actually) and I am now at the breakfast, in the hotel's lobby.
This time I gave them Dimbulla tea (from the blue package). This is not as good as the Uva tea. This is also milder and not so heavy as ceylon tea often is. I don't say that this isn't okay, but as Uva was so amazing tea, this was kind of a disappointment after that one.

- Updated at the end of the trip -

I still like Uva tea most. Though one tea, which probably was flavored, was quite good. It had sugar in it, but combination was strangely working. I did get it as a surprise offering from Bala at Sea Zone hotel (you can read about it in my Nilaweli post).

People mostly use Dilmah tea bags here, which I really don't like that much. I think that some people in Finland might like it. Too dark and strong for me. It doesn't offer the light sweetness at all, but only the sour part. Like one acupuncturist said to me, I eat too much sour things and should eat more things like salad leaves. 

Did you know, that China had six necessities of life, which palace could not tax? These were firewood, rice, cooking oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar. Guess which was the seventh necessity added to the list? Yes, tea of course.