South Sri Lanka,
two large national parks
Despite its overall modest dimensions (435 km north-south and 225 km east-west at the widest point and therefore a surface comparable for example to that of our 2nd largest region in mainland France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes), the island has managed to keep, and even develop beautiful national parks.
From our accommodation in Hikkaduwa, we will visit two neighboring parks in the south of the island.
One is Udawalawa National Park , on the edge of an artificial lake whose horizon is bared by mountain peaks as in an African legend.
The other is the Sinharaja Forest Reserve Park, a little to the west of the first, very well known for its endemic primary forest.
For the first, our driver, young and efficient, drives us straight to our destination.
For the second, we will have to endure the driving of another clumsy driver.
Even under the benevolent protection of the little Buddha in a meditation position, fixed above the dashboard of his car, the slightest journey has been endless.
So for the longer ones, and in particular the outward and return journey between Hikkaduwa and Kandy via the southern suburbs of Colombo !!
Despite our efforts to urge our French-speaking interlocutor in Hikkaduwa to replace him, we will have to endure it for almost a week, at first irritated, then finally amused.
Sri Lanka, sumptuous nature,
busy early morning
Even if as the crow flies, we are not more than 100 km from the second park, the furthest away, the undulation of the road contours is incessant.
In the days when the fastest transportations were on the backs of buffalo or elephants, they carefully bypassed all obstacles in the terrain.
For tourists, departures are therefore very early to take advantage of the full day each time. Because the duration of the journey is always longer than you think.
So much so that the opportunity is given to us to see the departures of the population towards the early morning work. Very early in the morning, we can see in the beam of headlights people walking or cycling along the roads, sometimes to cover kilometers as our guide tells us.
In the air, there would be almost a happiness of the moment, a fluidity of vehicles and postures, a smiling tranquility. Is this there Buddhist culture?
Feminine saris, even on a background of rowdy advertisements would embellish the most plump and enhance a kind of palpable elegance, a true state of aesthetic grace, a nobility of posture maybe typically Sri Lankan.
However, when approaching the towns crossed, everything becomes hectic, intense and noisy, punctuated honking without aggressive intention, just to signal the arrival of the vehicle.
Our driver Buddhist (the second) is a very great practitioner.
Later when the sun rises, it is the schoolchildren all dressed in white who go by all means to their school, on foot, by motorbike, by bus, protected at the crossroads by an active and obedient but debonair police force.
In the golden light, the lush vegetation makes a sumptuous setting with the slightest perspective.
A rice field flooded with gold dazzles in the kingdom of the first day ; cow lying against a bus stop counts cars and tuk tuks passing by without even looking away, fearless and sacred, abusing with condescending detachment of its status as a ritually protected bovine.
Even skinny dogs get caught up in the game, basking in the sun on the asphalt still cool at night, cleverly bypassed by vehicles.
Full Moon Festival or other event, we greet or implore Buddha ("may buddha bless you ") at the entrance of a city, by a colored arch like the inflatable porticoes of the Tour de France.
For example by entering Embilipitiya before arriving at our destination of Udawalawa Park.
But for the inhabitants, it is the banality of everyday life needy who awaits them, and nothing else.
Sri Lanka,
Udawalawa National Park
A little before the Park itself, we meet the small family business that organizes, among others in the area, the visit of Udawalawa Park. The 4x4 have a high platform, equipped with seats, which allows to see the environment without limitation.
Not very discreet because it is clearly visible - we do not try to hide - but above all very noisy, and necessarily disturbing for the large fauna that we are going to meet.
We selfishly find that we won't have to share the vehicle with other tourists, which allows for a more personalized relationship with the very knowledgeable driver-guide.
Precisely, the sun this morning is radiant.
As they say, "the morning is radiant" also for two elephants "maximus" (it is the name of the Asian variety, although it is nevertheless smaller than its African cousin) who wander along the edges of the track and act as spontaneous welcome guests.
This noun "maximus" does indeed nothing to do with the following.
Indeed, the voy (ag) eurs, -envious mockery for the men, frank laughter for the women-, are impressed by these "master-stallions" in heat, sex in pre-erection, meter-standard, or double-meter ... which there in its semi-deployment almost reaches the ground.
Save who can young elephants !! ... Except those who find them pretty boys.
The road leading to the park follows the rectilinear dike of the large earth dam retaining the lake called "Reservoir Uda Walawa", and which forms part of the southern limit of the Park, above a lush valley.
The dam lake was built around the 1960s on the Walawe River.
Our first elephant "grazes" peacefully inside the (electric?) Barrier which delimits the whole park, on the grassy slope of the dike along the lake where two people are fishing.
Accompanied by his favorite egrets (or should we call them "elephant-pike"?), He is not bothered by our stop and takes his noble step.
Our guide indicates that he is a regular, a little fed also by the local population.
Further on, we reach the very entrance to the park.
Small concentration of a few vehicles like ours, which cross because the early risers witnessed the sunrise over the lake and the park.
While the matriarchal cell with mothers and cubs forms group, the males isolate themselves and often go in pairs, like here.
Our visit, where we finally meet few other vehicles, crisscrosses the park on all kinds of tracks for about 3 hours. We stop rare minutes to watch, finally in silence and our whispers.
The vegetation is low, sometimes raised by isolated tall trees, often dead and gaunt as in a western setting.
Many backwaters fed by the waters of the lake are bristling of bare teak wood trunks.
In the distance, the central mountain range forms a bluish barrier, the "blue line of Kandy?"
Along the way, here are beautiful birds with golden heads and blue wings, or a kind of multicolored kingfisher,
Further on, on the immediate outskirts of the lake, where large muddy surfaces stretched interspersed with small marshes, these are Asian buffaloes. (necessarily) who take their mud bath lying down.
They get rid this way their coat of the parasites which encrust themselves there and keep away flies and mosquitoes.
A whole group is there, obeying their gregarious instincts, surrounded by immaculate active bullhorns.
From a distance, and 3/4 hidden in the mud, the animals appear to be modest in size.
In fact, the male weighs 900 kg on average, which is almost half a ton more. than a bull or an ox.
It is understandable that the buffalo has long been domesticated here for work and building; despite the mechanization, we still see a few, quite rare, in the rice fields.
When dried, the mud forms a kind of armor through which insects cannot sting and which also traps parasites: when the animal rubs against the bark of trees, ticks and fleas fall with the ground reduced to dust.
Their bath also protects the buffaloes from heat, and the thermal inertia of the wet mud after bathing (send the bathrobe!) Lengthens the duration of evaporation and prolongs the cooling effect.
Buffaloes rub shoulders with a motionless crocodile, mouth open.
Should we say LE crocodile (on duty)? In any case the only one that we will see. It ensures its thermal regulation by keeping its jaw gaping, as we have seen others do in Florida or Cuba.
The cohabitation is there peaceful.
But, during the birthing season, beware of the still tender buffalo! ... As a tasty appetizer, a real treat of the saurian.
Elsewhere, it is other elephants, sometimes solitary who tear branches or grass with their trunk with incredible capacities. They roll it up and carry the food to the mouth with tremendous agility, and until there.
Then they sink in silence, almost light, in the middle of the shrubs so as not to be subjected to noise pollution from tourists.
There is in their step, from the top of their long legs a quiet elegance, to which the unfolding of the foot brings a kind of relaxation.
Perhaps here a female with long eyelashes and still a little smooth skin. A pretty just pubescent female who could not resist the seduction of our "maximus" pretty heart at the start.
One would easily take affection for such pachyderms, who observe us without fear.
Then still other elephants, mothers with well-surrounded adolescents, while other buffaloes bathe.
The only toucans seen here belong to a different variety from the one we had admired in Costa Rica , on the gaunt branches of a mighty dead tree, tortured like a Brughel's demon.
A couple not very united, distant and sulky. They are the only ones here and they have to bicker ...
Elsewhere, they are banal raptors.
Suddenly in a small clearing, here are silhouettes of a remarkable delicacy: kinds of deer, in small groups. They are apparently female Axis deer .
The guide points out that the group is moving first under tall shrubs at the foot of which they seem to find food.
Noises at the top of them, furtive movements: they are monkeys, the Gray Langur , very widespread.
Shelling the berries, they throw the husk on the ground, which makes the feast of the slender deer. A fine example of symbiosis.
We meet along the paths a wild blue peacock whose country seems customary.
Soon maybe the rainy season, because it is said that this is when the rainy season begins. loves and that it makes the wheel and opens out its plumage ("the extravagance of its tail" as the Larousse says), right side up and upside down; but without pushing his cry "leon !!" like in France.
Or does he speak Sinhala, and we will have Not understood...
So customary in the country that information panels on the highway warn about the presence of this bird , as in Quebec it is done for "large fauna" and moose ...
Do we have to meet them too often for them to arouse such caution? Or would Buddhist culture, so respectful of life, lead motorists to untimely deviations to spare a peacock lost on the track?
Very stealthy and wilder, here is, on the guide's indication, a couple of mongooses that we barely see fleeing in the undergrowth. Further away, a monitor of more than 1.5 meters crosses the track peacefully.
Of these, we will see other examples elsewhere.
Sri Lanka,
Sinharaja Forest Reserve
Another day, this time in the company of our Buddhist driver as well as Nandana, our French-speaking guide who himself does not drive, we set off in the direction of the Sinharaja forest reserve.
From our accommodation in Hikkaduwa, the path is shorter as the crow flies than to Udawalawa Park. However, it will take longer.
Because this time our driver is this clumsy Buddhist driver already mentioned.
But above all, one of the routes taken is being widened. We have to follow her over a few kilometers on a section whose works have made it a wide, often muddy track. Corn congested in the early morning with the same traffic as elsewhere since it is a very busy road axis. Obligation to ease off, a happiness for our driver!
In the constant splendor of the morning light, in the hollow of flat valleys drawn between small lush mountains, we walk along superb rice fields whose golden gradations reflect the various degrees of ripening of the grains.
The takes place a small manual harvest.
Our guide indicates that the next day he will collect rice himself near his home, from which he will extract a few bags of grain that he will store for his family use.
Small local trade, barter, outline of a solidarity economy, ancestral village habits?
On the way to the reserve
We conclude in passing that the town planning rules give way largely to road priorities: many houses and buildings bordering the road. road under construction are amputated, the facades destroyed leaving the rooms gutted, the sections of the walls crudely knocked down to allow the widening and future alignment of each side of the road.
Not a chaotic destruction like after bombings or a cataclysm, but an organized destruction, obviously brutal.
The expression "being struck with alignment" here takes on almost a proper meaning. It is probable that the administrative delays for compensation - if any - are much longer than those of the works.
Then the mountain becomes steeper, clearing wide valleys. Our reserve is in fact at low altitude and ranges up to 1200m.
The road becomes narrower and winding, less congested with traffic, until it becomes totally deserted as if we reached the deeper in the country.
Egrets or peckers come to peck in whole flights the fields cut after picking.
Elsewhere, here and there, the sides of short mountains are covered with tea productions, regularly surmounted by shrubs which are said to be rubber trees.
We speak of "rice fields" for surfaces producing rice; why can't we talk about "teapots" for those who give tea ???? Well no, it's already taken.
Nice discovery of these very regular plantations, whose cultivation is entirely manual and the picking very demanding.
In the villages, some people transport and sell bunches of pink coconuts. others must consume jackfruit, very large, coarsely grainy rind (which is also sold at Tang Paris 13ème).
But there, directly from the tree.
And here is a superb, nicely speckled monitor lizard, barely disturbed by our car, which crosses the road without haste, here rather cemented than asphalted.
The entrance to the reserve is modest, deliberately lacking in comfort, but well documented.
A team of eight guides in uniform is there to welcome and then support tourists, whose instant quota is managed.
But that day, few people.
It is a guide, one of the young women from a group of 3 in the team, who is assigned to us. Discreet and pugnacious, assuming with embarrassed awkwardness her femininity in this predominantly male activity, not very expansive, she will endeavor to fulfill her mission. with seriousness, dedication, and a discreet but intense cordiality, the eye trained to show what escapes us.
She will guide us with his hoarse voice and at our own pace in our short hike, accompanied by our French-speaking guide, who came to complete his culture and his knowledge.
The forest reserve has been classified since 1989 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Indeed, she is considered to be the last viable area of primary humid evergreen forest (specialists say "evergreen") in the country.
Over a total area of almost 90 km², it concentrates many endemic varieties (with a high rate of endemism, a rate that can be measured specialists) for both flora and fauna, at altitudes of between 300 and 1200 m spreading over rugged terrain, which in itself is quite protective.
It is also a "relic of Gondwana", this famous super-continent which was one of the stages-avatars of the Earth in the continental drift, between -600 and -160 million years. Which makes the reserve even more precious.
It is however exposed to wild deforestation, to the work of gem researchers, to poachers. But the Sri Lankan agency that manages it gives top priority to its protection.
Sinharaja, UNESCO World Heritage
Modest hike of about 2 hours (at our choice), with a small loop, which climbs the slope a little, crosses beautiful streams, then inevitably come down.
But that leaves a little taste of frustration: even if the particular blooms encountered evoke primary forest, as for example one meets on the island of Reunion, or in the Canaries, nothing is added spectacular and particularly original concerning the flora.
a little flora
Just as we were leaving, our French-speaking guide caught our eye on my right Achilles tendon (of course, we were in shorts and a T-shirt): a leech clings to my skinny calf, yet not very appetizing. I slap it down, even if the bloody head remains a bit.
Another fell from who knows where on my rear collar; I get rid of it too.
We did not have the precaution like others to come in pants or gaiters.
The ambient humidity, the mild temperature at this low altitude and other perfect circumstances make a suitable environment for this disagreeable animal.
But the local solution exists: the guide and ours pass us a small bucket filled with "tiger balm" with which we smear ourselves.
No more leeches, radical !!!
Ibn Battuta already tells about the island in the 14th century : " It is in this place that we saw the flying leech that the Sinhalese call zulû [...] It is said that a pilgrim passed by there and that leeches attached themselves to his skin. He endured his pain. .] The leeches sucked all his blood until death ensued. His name was Bâbâ Khûzi and a nearby cave bears his name . "
The almost giant ferns opposite, the archbishop's crooks above are commonplace even in our tropical French Antilles.
the perfectly straight bole and dizzying height of this tropical tree is remarkable.
The Kandy Botanical Garden has in store for us other extraordinary and more explicit species of at least comparable dimensions.
We are more willing to focus on kinds of powerful lianas that could be similar to a worm (helical growth) or to big bits to drill the earth.
In the same way, we remain stunned by the intertwining natural rattan (above).
It looks like a kind of giant trap, a fantastic knot flowing, a flexible tube that hugs the slopes of the relief, ramp on the ground then, modest Plant antée, sets out again, twirls and flies away to go around the trunks to a little height, then dive back down to the ground, embrace mutually, without being able to find the beginning or the end.
From time to time, a wild orchid, a carnivorous plant flycatcher punctuate the course.
... and now some more wildlife
Another richness is that of the fauna, even if there we will only see the smallest. Apart from birds that we often hear but won't see, here are some beautiful tropical butterflies.
Elsewhere a beautiful spider on its superb perfectly regular web.
On leaves or branches, motionless, head erect, fingers incredibly long, adepts full tan, several lizards , colorful or brown, with or without a crest.
They are presented to us as chameleons, which cannot be true, simply because the eyes have no independence of mobility, an unstoppable criterion of recognition.
One of them, fat slacker or more pooch that the others meet at the exit at the exact place where we saw it at the entrance.
We understand a posteriori that our interpretation of the word "chameleon" by the guide is a misunderstanding on our part.
In any case, the most original variety is the green species, of a slender, almost delicate elegance. Frequent on our course, the jaded eye, he plays effectively, and yet without being, a "chameleon" function on tropical leaves of exact and similar color.
We will also see a few times some sort of huge (at least 10cm long) centipede, shiny black body and white paws that make like a brush, those we would not want even in our nightmares; in any case perfectly ringed and spectacular.
Naturally, it was missing this frame of reptiles . A long, skinny and harmless green snake, also "camaleonic" serves as a bracelet for the guide of a another small group that we meet.
Elsewhere, it is an impressive bronze snake which slips between the stones.
It is also difficult to see between the leaves the disturbing love of another snake flushed out by the guide, from which she will advise us to stay away.
Let us keep for the end this impressive animal, wild among savages, which is said to be endemic to Sri Lanka and of which it would also be the national bird.
He wanders on the tracks all spurs outside, at a sufficient distance from his female, gallinaceous of the purest species, and which moreover here takes an almost Gallic name: it is .... " the Rooster of Lafayette ".
Bright colors, striped feathers and of modest size, he has the hard eye and the busy paw of the dominant little ones who are not counted ..
And ... really wild, pulling away enough distance from us when we try to get close.
Sri Lanka, tea hills
Very opportunely, the way back is different from that of the outward journey, under a gray sky which clings some clouds to the rounded summits or which hides the valleys.
In particular, it winds between the croups of small mountains, where we discover the well-ordered organization of tea plantations, which closely follow the surfaces.
The opportunity for an informative visit to the fields of the famous "Ceylon tea".
Sri Lanka is the 3rd or 4th largest producer in the world (depending on the year of observation for which it is difficult to find the most recent figures). In any case in 2013, Sri Lankan production represented 6.4% of world production, after China in 1st place with 36%, then India with almost 23% and Kenya with more than 8%).
In any case, the island has remained the world's leading exporter since the 1980s.
Our French-speaking guide indicates that the plants produce 20 to 25 years, then it is necessary to uproot and replant.
Every 4 years, the feet are trimmed short; they do not become usable again and only produce 6 months after pruning.
Picking is permanent and covers all the plants every week; it is done from the bottom to the top of the slope, by teams of women exclusively. The content of a daily harvest weighs in the order of 20 kg (the most recent tender leaves and buds), but which is said to be up to 35 kg.
These women are generally "Indian Tamils" of the 3rd generation, of this workforce imported by the English. from India in colonial times, and who are not the "Sinhalese" Tamils of the north, established long before.
Here is one opposite with her bag of leaves that she wears on her head.
Chance of the moment, we will not see any in the fields.
The pickers thus bring their full bag back every day to a place where a flatbed truck will pass to pick them up, towards the treatment , which does not suffer any delay.
Even appropriately, there is something delicate about the French term "picking" that recalls the fresh childhood of the cherry or strawberry season.
Nothing to do with the exhausting and repetitive side of our pickers Tamils.
Despite the know-how of the pickers whose easy dexterity is proverbial, and out of respect for the tired and resigned face of this one, we feel some scruples even in taking the pose above the green leaves, for the only souvenir photo.
We can imagine with what difficulty they sneak in the middle of the leafy branches between the dense and narrow stems (10,000 plants per hectare), to pick, and to pick again, since it is not possible to reach all the plants from the only passages of culture, too spaced.
But further on, other plantations seem better accessible for picking.
and to know (a little) more about tea
Question: what is the second most drunk drink in the world after water? Not sodas, alcohol, or herbal teas , but tea. Which results in the absorption by mankind of 15 000 to 25,000 cups of tea per second in the world, ... depending on the capacity of the cup.
The tea tree or tea plant has three varieties: Assam, Yunnan, Cambodian.
It is the first which is most adapted to the hot and humid climate like that of Sri Lanka.
Yunnan is mainly produced in North Asia.
Originally from Asia, tea was exported to the Arab world from the 9th century, then to Europe by the Portuguese in the 16th and the Dutch from 1606.
In Ceylon, from 1865 to 1890, the little mushroom named "coffee rust" destroyed all the coffee plantations introduced by the Dutch in 1834. This devastation was added to the collapse in the price of coffee from 1850.
The planting of a first cutting in Kandy in 1824 (or 1839?) Proves the adaptability of tea on the island.
A little later, two Scots cross their destinies around this culture.
James Taylor , who arrived in Ceylon at the age of 17 in 1852, plants in 1867 (and not in 1857 as some claim sources) tea cuttings on 8 hectares (19 acres) of the central heights of the island at Loolecondera, between Kandy the capital of an ancient kingdom and Nuwara Eliya further south.
The acclimatization is total and the success resounding. That of Taylor much less since he died in 1892 ruined and ill, without having been able to exploit the commercial potential of his cuttings.
In fact, in 20 years, tea supplanted the coffee in the plantations and is very successful on the export market. It's to another Scottish man from Glasgow, born to Irish parents, Thomas Lipton (opposite on the right), who enjoys the glory of making the culture of tea grow worldwide. Already a millionaire for having developed chain stores in England and the USA, this rider dandy sportsman (he took part in the "America Cup") met Taylor in Ceylon in 1890, bought the coffee plantations from ruined farmers, whom he reconverted into tea plantations. And gets richer disproportionately; only his name and not that of his compatriot remains illustrious.
In addition to the tropical climate, all the conditions are met here: altitude (which tempers the climate and modulates the taste tea obtained), acidic and ferruginous earth, rainfall, slopes which avoid saturating the soil with water.
The English set up the recruiting system for tea workers called the " cangany system ": the "cangany" is itself Tamil Indian (not ancestral Sinhalese Tamil), who, paid by the English, will recruit workers in India. tea, then on the spot administers them and supervises the work (opposite, a cangany supervising two pickers in 1894, and in the photo above a group of migrants). Sinhalese generally refuse to perform these tasks.
The different types of tea do not depend very much on the "grape varieties", but essentially on two parameters:
- what do we pick ; one distinguishes indeed the "imperial" picking which takes only the bud, called "pekoe", the "fine" picking with the pekoe + 2 young leaves, and the "normal" picking with the pekoe and at least 3 young leaves.
- and especially how the picking is then processed .
In total, we can distinguish up to the following 8 steps:
I- picking
II- wilting (natural drying of fresh leaves for 18 to 32 hours)
III- desiccation
IV- oxidation (heating and humidity for 1 to 3h)
V- taxiing (30 minutes to better allow the fermentation)
VI- drying (20 minutes to stop fermentation)
VII- sorting or sieving
VIII- cooking or roasting.
Depending on the varieties desired, some are excluded, for example oxidation for green tea, or shortened, fitted ...
This concise presentation should not make us forget the infinity of nuances of all kinds, which Asians are experts in, and which height of refinement: grades for black tea, intermediate varieties, altitude, flavoring, blends, "periods of over-taste" ....
This is the case for black tea alone, depending on the leaves picked beyond the pekoe (illustration above) ...
The main varieties of tea are:
- black tea because of the black color of its leaves, but which is called red tea by the Chinese because of the color of the infusion
- green tea , which does not undergo stage IV oxidation
- Oolong tea (or Wulong), semi-oxidized tea between green tea and black tea, called blue-green tea in China
- yellow tea , from the buds only, Chinese only, slightly fermented, fine and delicate taste, rare
- white tea , Chinese only, very delicate, with very slight oxidation, from the bud and 3 leaves
- post-fermented tea , the one that the Chinese call "black tea", called "dark" tea or "black-black" tea by Westerners. It results from a particular oxidation method. After roasting, it is compressed and stored for years for a long fermentation. It is therefore vintage.
Sri Lanka mainly produces green and black teas, of very good quality. However, the 6 major producing regions and the gardens deliver "particular characters and flavors". The island is one of the only producing countries where the picking is done all year round.