In the Hill Country among Buddhas, elephants and tea plantations

Among the sinuous hills of the Hill Country revealed, as dawn breaks, by the lifting of the veil of fog that momentarily conceals its beauty during the early hours of the morning, one is seized by the wonder of finding oneself in a landscape carpeted with tea plantations, sprinkled with vertiginous waterfalls and slower, more docile streams that can be ploughed on rafts and where wild elephants water. The heart of this exploration is the city of Kandy nestled between the peaks of the central highlands, where around the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one crosses the leafy threshold of lush gardens or enters forests populated by colourful birds at Peradeniya and Udawatta Kele. On the other hand, going on safari in the Uda Walawe National Park, on the border between the provinces of Sabaragamuwa and Uva, amidst swamps, grasslands and forests bordered by the course of the Walawe River, one encounters, in addition to elephants, the fisher cat, the Sri Lankan leopard, the water buffalo and the golden jackal. The site of Buduruwagala is undoubtedly exceptional: the statues of the Buddha carved into the rock date back a millennium, while the fifteen-metre-high standing Buddha retains traces of its original plaster structure and its former bright colours. At his feet, young monks eat rice from their bowls, happily recounting the legends and beliefs of Prince Sudhana and Mahayana Buddhism's Avalokiteśvara or Great Compassion. Before leaving, it is imperative to visit the Ceylon Tea Museum spread over four floors and surrounded by the peaks of the Hunnasgiriya, Knuckles Range and Matale mountains, surrounded by cultivations, where the history and fortunes of the plant produced in Kandy at altitudes estimated between 600 and 1200 metres above sea level in the early months of the year, when the climate is cooler. And then it is time to peep into the plantations themselves, particularly at the Ceylon Estate Teas and the Kadugannawa Tea Factory.