05/09/2026
Nuwara Eliya - Sri Lanka
Last visited this area in 1999 when it had 3 hotels, a race course, a cricket pitch and a post office. We stayed at the Grand Hotel which was then quite a modest place with a dark public bar and a snooker hall.
Revisiting after 26 years and the town, area and the hotel are very different. The charm of the town has been destroyed with unmanaged development and now has over 5000 hotels of various sizes. The once modest Grand Hotel now has 150 rooms. We visited and had a wander through the hotel chatting to the staff. The old bar and snooker room still remain but everything else is new extensions. The gentleman managing the snooker room had been there 44 years so remembered what it was like when we came. He was very proud of his little domain but I did get the feeling it didn’t get much use anymore.
The race course is now a run down area where people graze their ponies and sell rides to tourists. It was all a bit sad and not the Little England that made it such a popular destination previously.
We escaped the town by Tuk Tuk and walked stage 22 of the Pekoe Trail. This gets you up into the tea hills and villages away from the pollution and noise of modern Nuwara Eliya. Came across a group of tea pickers having their bags weighed and they shared some food with us which was lovely. They pick a minimum of 20 Kg of leaves a day during an 8 hour shift. The 11 km walk takes about 3.5 hours and ends at the Pedro Tea Estate factory where we celebrated with a nice cup of tea!
