National Tea Day ... and throwing it back to visiting the tea plantations in Sri Lanka

In July 2018, I travelled to Sri Lanka with my husband and daughter to visit family who live there and run an animal charity in Negombo.  It was a big deal for me, a long flight and a holiday in a 'developing' country that I wasn't at all sure I would cope with.  And our daughter was going to do some voluntary work to help with writing her personal statement for her application to Norland College. 

We had an amazing holiday, I coped, in fact I more than coped and I'd love to go back one day.  It makes me feel quite sad though at how travel and tourism in Sri Lanka (and around the world) has changed since that trip in 2018.  Sri Lanka suffered hugely from the Easter Sunday bombings in 2019 and tourism that year hardly recovered only to be hit in 2020 by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.  It seems unreal and I often think of the wonderful Sri Lankan people we met during that holiday.  So friendly, so welcoming but so in need of the income from the visiting tourists.

Trying out traditional tea picking at the Mini Tea Factory, Heritance Hotel, Sri Lanka

So when I saw that Tuesday 21st April 2020 is National Tea Day in the UK it immediately bought back memories of our visit to the stunning tea plantations in Sri Lanka.  We stayed in the Heritance Hotel converted from an old tea factory.  The views were magnificent, the local people so friendly, we had a suite and the windows spanned one side of the building overlooking the village.  Early evening we could hear traditional music fill the hills.  It was one of the areas we visited where we got really close to traditional life, untouched by modern society.

I hope that one day we will go back to Sri Lanka.  I hope that very soon travel can start to get back to normal.  Whilst I appreciate the benefits of less pollution from air travel and I am enjoying the peace and quiet from less road noise and less planes overhead, we do need tourism and I for one have a lot of places on my bucket list I'd still like to visit.

So on National Tea Day, I will join in the #NationalVirtualTeaParty by enjoying a cup of tea made from the leaves we picked ourselves at the Mini Tea Factory at the Heritance Hotel and I can't resist dunking a couple of Digestive biscuits too!

If you'd like to read more about my trip to Sri Lanka you can find all the posts here.

And specifically my post about the tea plantations is here.

Where do you fancy travelling to when we can plan our holidays again?

Love from
Michelle xx
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Travelling by train through the tea plantations - this was a highlight for me!

Tea leaves ... Labookellie Tea Plantation, Sri Lanka

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Is This Mutton
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