Hotel and Hill Station, with Tea
We were getting used to touts. One met us at the bus station and insisted on showing us the way to his hotel, next door to the Glendower Hotel where we intended to stay and where we ended up. The review by ’gtbg’ is mine. I make a point of reviewing all the hotels I stay at. I suppose you could always stalk me after the event!
It was a pleasant walk, past Victoria Park, past the usual crop of kids who laugh at Al’s long blond mane, now sadly cropped for work, and past a man sitting on a very small pony indeed suggesting we might want to go horse riding. And the very ’Home Counties’ in black and white, and croquet set and billiard table hove into view.
We negotiated the room rate down. But this is a ’luxury hotel’ and attracts luxury tax, so, with 10% service charge (doesn’t go to the staff in most establishments) and 17.5% luxury tax (like VAT?), you get to pay ~30% more than the ticket price on everything. Even billiards is 300 rupees for 30 minutes! Plus 30%, naturally.
It smells of a strange furniture polish everywhere. It’s almost mothballs, but mostly floor and furniture polish. It gleams! It has bathtubs, too! The room was great, they added a third bed for Al, and we headed into the town to have a look around.
Nuwara Eliya was built by the British as a recreation resort for Planters and Soldiers. So it ought to be full of brothels and gin bars! It did have trams, like Blackpool, until they wore out after independence, and the brothels and bars, if they were ever there, have gone as well.
What remains is a bus station, a high street, some awful eateries - truly awful, please do not bother at all, even with the alleged Grand Indian attached to the Grand Hotel - (one of) the official residence(s) of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister [No photography, please. A minister is asleep(!)], an open air fruit market and an indoor market.
As hill stations go it’s apparently both typical (though is has a horse race track!),and very British. We expected a polo lawn. As places to visit go, well, this was not a mind blowing success. But you do have to see a hill station once in your life. or, in Al’s case, twice, because he’s been to one in India as well. I know the mayor will hate me, but it is a bit of a rat hole!
We wandered around. We had a foul lunch in the better of the two lonely planet half recommended eateries, had a look at the markets, bought some fruit in the rain, and wandered back, wetly, to the hotel to play billiards. Al was amazed that I beat him. Me too. A fluke as usual.
It wasn’t as bad as that, honestly. And it wasn’t the rain. It’s just an odd place, with begging women shipped in by bus, and locals who just plain did not return smiles. We didn’t understand that.
The hotel proved to be mean, too. We asked for a heater for the room. We were rented for 400 rupees a night a one bar antique electric fire that made no difference at all to the room temperature. They got that back for the second night. Meanness like that irks me. Luxury tax ought to mean luxury.
We stayed two nights. The service was good, the food was good and the staff were cheerful. Eccentric, but cheerful. "Three gin and tonics, please?"
One large bottle of tonic arrived, label separately. Much rattling behind the bar and nothing else came. Al left the India/ Sri Lanka Test Match to go and find that the barman had vanished. A little prodding and three gins arrived, too.
Have I mentioned that Sri Lanka is famous for great service? It’s just that it lets it down by delivering random stuff well! But just wait for the Galle Fort Hotel!
We were here for two reasons: to see a tea factory, and to visit the Botanical Gardens.