Out and About with Diane

Day 69(March 14)-Colombo, Sri Lanka

Written by

Diane

in

Today I went on an excursion to a tea and rubber plantation. It was fun. We drove about two hours to get to the plantation where we had tea and cake before seeing the rubber trees and going to the tea factory. The drive thru the villages and countryside was fascinating.

We docked at a 750 acre working port and the exit from the pier was 5 kilometers from the ship. There was a shuttle bus that took us to the entrance because there were lots of trucks carrying containers along the way. The port handles 70 million metric tons of cargo a year.

Women are paid 1000 Sri Lanken rupees(about $3.50) for each 20kg of leaves they pick. Ninety percent of the tea grown is export and not used locally.

Random tidbits from Colombo

  • In 1972 they became a republic and changed the name from Ceylon to Sri Lanka
  • The population is 22 million- mainly Buddhists. But it’s a multi-ethnic and multi-religion country. It has 90+ percent literacy with free education until university and the life expectancy is 70-75 years
  • Two years ago they had financial issues but they are recovering but 1 million people are below poverty.
notice the stuffed animals in our vehicle and the variety of vehicles on the road
Our bus/van at the tea plantation (the fields around the bus are waiting to be planted with tea or rubber). Regular busses are brightly painted
When we arrived at the tea & rubber plantation, we were served tea and cake. They also had a small store where I purchased tea.
Diane at tea factory where greeter gave us a tea leaf necklace- surprisingly the tea leaves have no fragrance
Woman worker carrying full bag of tea leaves- the insert shows the size of the leaves.
Tea tasting at the factory- the lightest one is from white tea. White tea is expensive because it is made from the tea buds only and doesn’t include tea leaves
Rubber tree- the white stripe on the tree is where they have cut the tree to get the sap which is used to make rubber. You can just barely see the small dark container that’s used to collect the sap.
This Sri Lanken White-throated Kingfisher was perching on the tree limb right near the tea factory.
View of the port with lotus tower in the background as we we’re leaving