Ceylon Tea Trails - Relais and Chateaux

- to be caught in the rain. Castlereigh bungalow has only 5 rooms so the atmosphere is one of a house party. The tall figure from Birmingham, the military man, the Belgian lyricist (or is he a detective), the motorcyclist with a ponytail make quite a cast. All of us in a bungalow built in 1925 with a vibe of the 20s, 30s and 40s inside. The bedrooms without AC but a fan is enough at the altitude of the tea plantation. It really is all inclusive with a first class chef and staff, Singh stands out as really knowing his profession. If you stayed for 6 days as we did you could easily leave with a Michelin man physique. Food is Sri Lankan or European as you wish and jolly good. There is a pool and the pretty garden is well looked after. We went to 3 of the other 4 bungalows and our second choice would be Teitsen. Castlereigh though seemed the most authentic and comfortable. Let the rain pitter patter But it really doesn’t matter If the skies are grey Long as I can be with you It’s a lovely day

If you want to experience what was Tea planters’life , go to Ceylon Tea Trails. We spent 2 nights at the Summerville cottage, in the Master suite. Beautiful suite, british colonial style with a Private garden where we had our breakfast. There are only 5 rooms in each cottage which guarantee you calm and opportunity to meet with extraordinary people. Thanks to Richard (from DC) we enjoyed havina drink all together. From the cottage as well as from the pool, you have a beautiful panorama : Castlereagh lake and Tea plantations. Service is amazing. You can visit the Tea plantation & The Tea factory with a guide, former Tea tester with more that 30’s years of expertise. We also had a fantastic « pique-nique » organised by our personal butler: Lunch was prepared by the chief using the tiffins box. Just unique & special !

Several people ( including a travel agent) told us that a 5 day stay at Ceylon Tea Trails would be too long. In fact we stayed for 6 nights and could happily have stayed even longer. I do appreciate that many people stop here on a tour of Sri Lanka, but I can also highly recommend it as a destination in its own right. We have been to Sri Lanka several times before and booked the 6 night walking package at CTT before moving to the coast for 5 nights. I booked directly with the company, which was very easy: they arranged car transfers from the airport and onward to Tangalle. If you are pushed for time and/ or happy to spend the extra, I would recommend trying the float plane as it would have saved us a lot of time, especially on the journey to the coast, which took about 6 hours. The walking package gives you 3 nights in one bungalow then 3 nights in another ( in our case Castlereagh and Norwood), but we visited all the properties. The bungalows are all lovely, and staff are delightful. The thing that really made the holiday for us was Dhanushka, our walking guide. We had him with us for three out of the six days. The first walk he took us on was probably the easiest- we walked from Castlereagh to Norwood (had lunch there) and walked back a different route. He took us on a wonderful walk from Castlereagh to Somerville (4 hours - we had a picnic lunch en route) - the distance between these two bungalows is not far but we walked a long way round, avoiding the road completely other than crossing the dam, and walking up high on the ridge. Beautiful views and very quiet. The last of the three was from Norwood to Tientsin ( 4 hours) - we took a packed breakfast and had lunch at Tientsin. Dhanushka showed us routes that we would have struggled to find on our own and was great company- he was also good at spotting wildlife etc. The walks are fairly easy with some decent hills . Trainers or walking shoes are fine. We really loved the walking and saw few people other than tea pickers and the occasional group of children playing cricket. We also had a tea tour with Bernard (highly recommended) and a planters lunch, which was lovely. We also got a heavenly foot massage after each walk, which was wonderful. The bungalows themselves are spacious and well appointed. Food varied from good to outstanding , though the packed breakfasts/ lunches could have been a bit more exciting. Things to know It’s useful to have a small day pack for walking (D carried water and food for me, but it’s handy to have somewhere for sunscreen, lip balm, camera etc) and I would recommend taking swim suits so you can have a dip when you arrive at your destination. Take light weight clothing for walking which dries quickly- I wore t shirts with a long sleeved linen shirt which was fine, or sportswear. If you can face carrying them, binoculars would be great to have too. The bungalows tend to be very sociable with everyone gathering for drinks before dinner etc. we enjoyed meeting a lot o