THE MILKMAN IN SRI LANKA

I’m in a jeep, singing along to world's worst songs together with my Sri Lankan driver, on my way to a beautiful tea plantation.

mini skirts

A special journey, where happy people wearing bright, colourful clothes fly past me as I speed past them. The rest of the people are working, it seems. Building more like. It seems as if people are (re)building their houses. Some people live in a partly finished house, and the whole scene of it just looks messy. So props to them for doing this!

The people, are clothed in the most vivid, shining colours and materials. Women mostly wear sarees, and I see men wearing a sarong, those too made with the most beautiful materials.  It looks so comfy. I see different lengths on the men, spotting the occasional and thus rare mini-sarong on some men. Exquisite material and a beautiful sight this is.

ouzo-effect

We stop on the way for a cup of tea. We stop randomly,in some kind of dangerous bend along the way, and enter a tiny cafe which sells tea. It’s ready as soon as we walk in. A little bit like in the olden(Dutch)days, your grandma would have a can of filter coffee ready for you as soon as you walked in the door. I get a good vibe from the place itself, even though the tea isn’t top-notch. It reminds me of the ouzo-effect (or am I the only one who loves to drink ouzo when vacationing in Greece?), except this time I’m in Sri Lanka, on a “tea journey”, somewhere in the mountains. At the end of the day, drinking tea is always nice, whether you put sugar and milk in it, or not.

chilling dogs

Talking about the olden days, there’s also a lot of milkmen driving around, only this time they have massive trucks. People need milk though, so it’s only logical it comes where somewhere. We drive on and start the uphill drive on the mountains. Dry landscapes slowly make way for green hilltop mountains, sometimes resembling a jungle. De air gets colder, much like the temperature and the oxygen level lower. This kinda feels nice. Throughout the journey uphill, we make frequent hard brakes for dogs that are just casually chilling on or alongside the road. At one point , we scrammed for a gigantic iguana. I. Was. Shocked. We re-continue our journey, singing our way up the mountain, and by 6PM we arrive at the plantation.

villa in paradise

This particular plantation is located at the height of 1300m above ground, in the higher altitudes of the region Nwualia. But even here there’s a railway. I bet that would be such a nice thing to see from a train, this remarkable place. Next time I come back, I’ll make sure to have some more time, and take a train trip around the place. We turn into the area where the tea actually grows, and everywhere I look I see tiny waterfalls and lakes. It’s really nice weather too, not too hot nor cold, just a fresh breeze that suits my view. I hear crickets and birds chirping, and somehow, it all looks so peaceful. The vast field we’re driving by looks stunning, the bushes well-kept and the tea growing so... beautiful. We drive through the mountains to the bungalow of the manager. In hindsight, it turned out to be some colonial villa that was preserved. This place looks like paradise, and sure feels like what I imagine it to be. Peaceful sights of divine fields. Let’s go meet the farmer then!