Sri Lanka: The island of the eternal smile

With no respite from jet lag, I get up early in the morning to climb the mountain of Pidurangala and watch the sunrise in front of the well-known Sigiriya, or "Lion Rock", which is the one most tourists usually climb.

The ascent of Pidurangala is a bit more complex than that of Sigiriya, but the reward of watching the sunrise from the top is incredible. That night, I sleep cradled by the croaking of frogs at Santani Eco Lodge, an exclusive sustainable resort located a few kilometers from the city of Kandy, known as the mountain capital of Sri Lanka and for being the heartland of Buddhism.

The Buddha figure is omnipresent throughout the country. The temples of Dambulla, a complex of 80 caves inside the mountain that house more than 150 statues of Buddha, are one of the wonders of Buddhist art one must-see and, to this day, are still used as a place of worship for locals. There I discovered that I could not take a selfie with Buddha as it is not allowed to ever turn my back to this deity.

Already in Kandy, another of the Buddhist monuments par excellence: The Temple of the Tooth. Walk among a large number of women and men dressed in white who queue patiently to deposit their offering of colorful flowers to Buddha and ask him to guide them on the path of enlightenment to achieve Nirvana.

Among the tea fields

At Kandy station, I boarded one of the most iconic trains in the world. The arch-photographed blue Main Line train, which was built between 1864 and 1867 to link Kandy and Colombo, covers the route to Hatton and, for just over two hours, transports me back to the means of travel of a past era.

I preferred to travel in third class, next to the locals with whom I shared a good time chatting while the train passed green palm trees and the fascinating hills of the tea plantations. I entertained myself by doing some of the typical and sometimes risky photographs, sticking half my body through the non-existent door of the train. At an altitude of over 1,000 meters, the temperature is ideal for enjoying the journey, the scenery, and the company.

After getting off the train, I arrived at my next destination: a beautiful Victorian colonial-style bungalow in the middle of the tea fields facing Lake Castlereagh, which would be my home for the next 24 hours. I say home because the lodges of Ceylon Tea Trails were formerly the houses of the foremen of the tea plantations and today have become cozy accommodations with rooms and common areas like the living room, where, sitting in front of the fireplace sipping a good cup of tea, I browsed through the history books and antique objects that are part of the culture and life of that little piece of Sri Lanka.
 

A few kilometers from the bungalow, at the Dunkeld State factory, I discovered that tea culture could be another of Sri Lanka's religions. After a plague devastated the coffee plantations imported by Portuguese settlers at the end of the 19th century, the Scotsman James Taylor planted a tea seed smuggled from China and that is how an industry that has turned Sri Lanka into the fourth largest tea producer in the world, after China, India, and Kenya, flourished and grew. Although all experts agree that Sri Lankan tea is the best quality due to the island's favorable climatic conditions. Along with the export of cinnamon, the tea industry is among the most important in the country.