On the Road to Nuwara Eliya

Donald Nugawela

The Nuwara Eliya road (A5 highway) takes one to the delightful city of flowers and a weather that could chill one out in a moment. The road unwinds on the bridge across the Mahaweli at the ancient city of Gampola and takes one through acres and acres of lush green tea fields. From across the bridge, a short way out is Atabage the gateway to the hills and Pussellawa standing sentinel like to let one pass further up to breathe deep the cool mountain air and gaze with awed wonder while nature unfolds her splendours.

It is all there to see and experience and to even feel irked at the pockets of clammy mist and the thin drizzles, the chilly air, and then welcome with relief the sun on the back to yet again wonder why nature could be so capricious - on the road to Nuwara Eliya.

Re-laid, widened, carpeted with many of its blind corners and wicked elbow bends taken out, it has made motoring a calming experience rather than the strain and stress one felt in the years that were. It is a road now beautifully landscaped with all the kudos going to the road maintenance authorities for a job well done. The first of the tea lands to greet one’s eyes would be the Delta Group with its neatly groomed rows of contour lined tea and those nearer to the highway rich with flush - the legendary two leaves and a bud quivering in the breeze awaiting for the nimble fingers of the plucker.

The Sogama Group just as neat and tidy as the Delta encircles the Pussellawa town that was once a straggling bazaar now modernized and enlarged. Stop a while at the Tourist Board run Rest House, expanded, modernized and comfortable. It has replaced the charming little English cottage type Rest Inn that hosted many a wearied wayfarer in those far off times. I missed much of the warmth it provided under Martin, the old Rest House Keeper dressed in spotless white cloth and coat and his fund of anecdotes that would light up many a dreary evening for us in those more spacious times.

If the Sogama Group embraces the Pussellawa town, then Rothschild Group cuts a swathe to swamp a vast area going into thousands of acres of tea.

History has it that once the property of the millionaire Englishman Baron Rothschild were the first to have introduced the China variety of tea to the Nuwara Eliya district. We may by-pass Katukitula bazaar sleepy and indolent yet, would come alive at sundown in those days when swarms of labour invaded the toddy tavern. I missed this wayside tavern which perhaps now may have been relocated or given way to rotgut and high kicks. Tawalantenne is not to be by-passed. It is an important junction leading to the Kotmale Valley, the catchment, the new town and further down to Punduluoya.

Ramboda - the small enclave of the Thondaman clan and Wavendon Estate which holds much memories for me, when in my youth I apprenticed or crept to learn my tea work by kind courtesy of its owner S. Thondaman kind and genial gentleman. I crept under its Superintendent James Scott who put me through the mill, come rain or sunshine.

To digress a moment, why I abandoned a career in the cool mountain air of a tea estate and immersed myself in hot air, printing ink, night shifts and even suffered bouts of claustrophobia in a newspaper production unit for almost three decades is a story best left untold.

Ramboda town now plays a more important role with the influx of tourists both local and foreign and has as its two showpieces - the beautiful Bridal Veil Falls originating from above the Frotoft Group is a sight one could sit on the verge of the road and not tire watching the water turn to a veil, and the cascading waters of the Ramboda Falls as it rolls down to the gulch far below for the waters to rush to join the Kotmaloya. The legendary Ramboda Pass starts right above the town and with improved road conditions and tunnel to drive through in an area that was wet and treacherous is a wonderful experience.

Driving further up we may again stop outside the congenially sighted road side eatery run by the Labookelle Group and to sip a hot and well brewed cup of tea and to relax to sniff the aroma of tea under manufacture in its factory.

We are in the midst of rich high grown tea and as we motor further up we are greeted by screaming and imploring children, rosy cheeked and bright eyed waving bunches of flowers and fistful of carrots and beet. We may leave them behind disappointed and perhaps angry at our lack of enthusiasm for not buying their carrots, beets and cauliflower. Those eager children will never understand that a traveller going up to Nuwara Eliya would hardly dare carry coals to New Castle.

To end on a discordant note, motoring to Nuwara Eliya on an elegantly landscaped road, one’s delight and elation turns sour at the appalling road manners of a new generation of drivers.

Those vintage courtesies and concern for other road users and the culture of decency and safety have been replaced with selfish arrogance and gross violation of ones rights. Sadly even the beautiful road to Nuwara Eliya has not been spared by these callous road ghouls.