Our plan for today was to sightsee in and around Nuwara Eliya. It was a cold, misty day with chances of rain, but we were prepared. Our first stop was the Seetha Amman Temple, where Raavan is supposed to have held Sita captive after she was kidnapped by him. It is here that Lord Hanuman brought a message from Lord Ram for Sita, and there is, what is believed to be, an imprint of his heavy footprint in the premises.
After a fulfilling visit to the temple, we left to visit the Hakgala Botanical Garden. Compared to the beautiful Botanical Garden of Kandy, this was a complete disappointment. There were no flowers or any good flora to feast one’s eyes upon. The planting was still in progress, and the paths and the beds were full of slush. We did not spend too much time in the park and headed out after doing a circuit.
We then drove around a few tea estates, admiring their beauty and the greenery in the drizzle that had begun. It reminded us of Munnar and the tea gardens that we had seen there. After a few pictures, we drove towards the city centre.
The City Centre at Nuwara Eliya is not exactly what you would call bustling with activity. One of the main attractions here is the ‘Jacket Market’. It’s a fairly large indoor market with a few hundred shops, all selling Jackets, Windcheaters, Sweatshirts and Warm Clothing. All the latest fashions and brand names can be found here, except that they are supposedly original export rejects and are hence available at a fraction of the price listed in the brand showrooms. Well, as for us, winter would be practically over by the time we returned to Delhi so carrying all that heavy winter wear was not a good idea. I did however pick up a few baseball caps with the Sri Lanka logo as souvenirs.
Just across from here is the Post Office. It is a beautiful colonial red-coloured building and one just couldn’t help but admire it. It is fully functional, you can transact postal business here, buy stamps, postcards, send letters and speed post too. Ever since my school days, I have been fascinated by post offices. There was no email or WhatsApp in the 1960’s and the postman was the person you looked forward to seeing because he would bring letters from friends, relatives and grandparents. I also exchanged letters with penfriends from different parts of the world, and I enjoyed writing to them and hearing from them. NDA Khadakvasla had a small post office and I would sometimes go there early in the day, before the postman left the post office for his delivery round. The idea was to intercept him there, and pick up our mail, if any, rather than wait anxiously for him to come on his delivery round, which would be a couple of hours later. On some days I would be there when the mailbags arrived. I would stand at the window, watch them open the bags and sort the mail into the various pigeonholes. I loved the manner and the speed at which they would flick the letter in, without looking up, never missing, always into the correct pigeonhole, eyes only on the address on the letter. By now I knew exactly which pigeonhole was for our D3 Area and many times, I would be able to recognise a letter from my penfriend while it was being sorted, and I would feel pleased when the postman would hand it to me later. There was no such thing as dumb scrolling on Instagram those days, and these were the ways we used to keep ourselves amused.
We had a quick lunch at one of the local restaurants here and then went towards Lake Gregory, a popular water picnic spot. People were speedboating, taking boat rides, walking along the edge of the lake on the walking path, eating ice cream and generally having a good time. We too went for a boat ride which took about thirty minutes.
It was getting late and the skies were turning grey, looking ominous. We decided it was time to return to the hotel. Time to pack up as we head for Bentota – an almost six-hour drive – tomorrow. We had accomplished a lot during the day.