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Hike through Lipton’s tea plantation a cool climb into another cool culture

Lipton's tea plantation employs about 400 tea pickers, mostly Tamils originally from South India.

Sir Thomas Lipton, the Scottish tea baron who founded the most popular tea in the English-speaking world, owned this land from about 1890-1930. It covers some 2,500 acres, stretching up to over 5,500 feet into the clouds. Today, tea contributes $700 million into the Sri Lankan economy, the fourth largest producer in the world. Tea plantations cover 727 square miles, about 4 percent of Sri Lanka’s landmass.

The landmass I’m on is an absolute mountain, a green, undulating garden of tea. It also has some of the most breathtaking views in Sri Lanka. Inspired by Haputale’s cooler temperatures, not to mention my sloth-like existence through my first week on the beach, I needed to hike. I need to sweat somewhere besides an Internet cafe.
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Sri Lanka’s Hill Country is my cup of Lipton Tea

The town of Haputale is in the middle of tea plantations, including the Lipton empire.

We’re in Sri Lanka’s Hill Country, a boring but accurate name for its central region which is another world from the beach paradise I left behind. At least, it’s another elevation. Hapatule is at 1,341 meters, a short hike under a mile high. I’m writing this in the midst of a tea plantation that stretches as far as the eye can see. Undulated green lines of small tea plants go on forever, like strands in a very large green sweater. It’s a nice landing spot to catch my breath, wipe away the sweat and ease a sunburn that makes sleeping on my back a new adventure in pain.
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Giant green sea turtles laying eggs in Sri Lanka

Green turtles lay up to 1,000 eggs at a time -- and do it at the same nexting spot seven times during their lives.

REKAWA, Sri Lanka — I am normally a lousy target for street hustling. My street instincts are pretty accurate. Through 37 years of international travel, I can tell when a “special price” isn’t special, when a “tour” is short for “tourist trap.” The last time I trusted a cab driver was in 1997 in Rio […]

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Galle’s Fort a clean, crisp escape into Sri Lanka’s Dutch colonial past.

Despite being a historical relic, the Fort still functions today with its lighthouse and post office.

The Fort is huge. And it’s not just a log-cabin structure with a flag sticking out of the top. It’s like a city that still functions. The stone walls stand about 30 feet high and stretch along the odd-shaped peninsula sticking into the Indian Ocean. I walked through a huge gate that immediately separated me from the grime of South Asia and introduced me to clean, colonial 19th century Ceylon. Everything in the Fort is spotless. It’s like the Fort is Galle’s one gem and they polish it every day. Even the souvenir hawkers look cleaner. You could eat off the narrow roads that meander past the Dutch colonial-style buildings.
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Sri Lanka’s Goyambokka Beach still standing tall after 2004 tsunami

Goyambokka Beach on Sri Lanka's south coast lost only three people in the 2004 tsunami.

A narrow path leads from the dirt road outside my guesthouse down through the jungle for about 100 meters. At the end it opens up to a spectacular perfect half-moon bay, lined with palm trees facing a turquoise sea. Gentle waves ripple against sugary white sand without a pebble in sight. A few comfy, cushioned lanais chairs sit under umbrellas next two little beach bars on stilts. I grabbed one lounge chair and a friendly, pot-bellied man said hi.
“KEY-a-duh?” (“How much?” in Sinhala.) I said, pointing at the chair.
“You eat here lunch, it’s free,” he said.
Deal.
I spent the next six hours going from gorgeous sunshine to under the umbrella to a sea as warm as bath water.
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Road to paradise pockmarked with potholes of dying cell phones, Indian visas and chaotic Sri Lankan bus stations

My Goyambokka Guesthouse atop a hill above one of the prettiest beaches in Asia.

It took us one hour to get out of Colombo. I saw nothing appealing. Not one nice park, a pretty building, a nice restaurant. It’s like a city designed to sell electronics and cheap clothes. I haven’t seen a postcard. However, once we cleared city limits the country opened up like a flower. Giant green palm trees were everywhere. Entire forests enveloped small houses where people gathered and chatted on bicycles. Houses stood on stilts where people on their balconies could touch the palm trees that were nearly as big as their decks. Red clay roads snaked up into the jungle. I saw a sign reading, “DANGER: PEACOCKS AHEAD.”

On the coast road I saw the moon, full as a big wheel of cheese, shining above a relatively clean river as it flowed toward the sea. It screamed for a photograph. Instead, I screamed for a beer.
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Sri Lanka: The war is over but my war with technology has just begun as my iPhone is dying

This tea picker won my heart and about 12 cents.

As I embark on a dream month-long journey to Sri Lanka and India, Sri Lanka is six years removed from the longest war in Asian history. People are smiling again. The roads are safe again. India’s economy is booming and I am headed to Kerala, the sliver of a state that hugs India’s southwest corner and is the most educated, safest and least densely populated state in the country.

Yet I am faced with no Internet, no Facebook photos, no Whatsapp. The prospects are numbing. I have become so modernized, so chained to my iPhone, it’s like losing my backpack or passport. How will I survive?
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Tour of Teatro di Marcello, Jewish Ghetto, Tiberina Island covers 2,000 years of Roman history

Teatro di Marcello looks like the Colosseum but it was built nearly 100 years earlier.

I took a guided tour today of three of Rome’s oft-overlooked sites, all of which remain close to my heart: Teatro di Marcello, the Jewish Ghetto and Tiberina Island. Since I moved to the nearby Testaccio neighborhood a year ago, Teatro di Marcello has been my bus stop where I oft wait until the wee hours of the morning to be whisked along the Tiber River and home. I’d stand there with a collection of Bangladeshi kitchen help getting off work and tipsy teens and look into the darkened windows of the old theater. But not all of them are dark. The top floor is now apartments. Talk about a room with a view. Conducting the tour was Massimiliano Francia, the best guide in Rome, a man whose vast knowledge makes me wonder if he actually knew Nero personally.
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New A.S. Roma stadium will combine Ancient Rome with future architecture

Architect Dan Meis explains to a packed crowd how he'll make Stadio della Roma a new destination in Rome.

However, last night I saw Rome all modernized and glittery. And I liked it. A lot. It’s not in the form of a water park or a business center or a god-forsaken mall. It’s a stadium. My beloved A.S. Roma, which started in 1927 in old Stadio Testaccio near my apartment the next year and has played in iconic Stadio Olimpico since 1953, is moving into new digs. Stadio della Roma will be the envy of every stadium in Europe. Fans of cross-town Lazio may as well hide their eyes when they drive by it on the way to the beach. It is going to combine the visionary trappings of modern commercialization with features from the Roman Colosseum. Considering the Colosseum was built in 79 AD and the stadium is tentatively scheduled to open in 2016 AD, this project is taking “back to the future” to a level never seen before.
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Rome’s war of the sexes makes relationships a battlefield

The InterNations Friday night aperitivo at the Radisson Blu was a major gathering of Rome's beautiful people.

Every morning I wake up to see a map of Italy hanging from my closet door. After living here a year and witnessing the fractured relationships between men and women, I now understand why the Italian mainland is shaped like a boot. It’s actually a woman’s thigh-high leather stiletto and the island of Sicily it appears to be kicking is a man’s testicle.

Italy has a vicious war of the sexes. In Rome it is especially savage. The modern Roman woman has transformed from a stay-at-home cook and mother into an independent, career woman in need of a man about as much as a poodle. Most men are stuck in the early 20th century. In a woman, they want a cook, a mistress and a barista. She must look especially hot when making him that morning cappuccino.

Here in Rome I have many friends, both male and female, and have been fascinated by the sexual dynamics in one of the world’s sexiest cities.
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One-year anniversary in Rome reminds me of all the reasons I love living here

Today is my one-year anniversary in Rome and I know I won't have any problems eating well to celebrate.

One year ago today I landed in Rome, a roller bag in hand, a duffel bag and backpack draped over my shoulders and a boarding pass from a one-way ticket in my pocket. Today marks my one-year anniversary of retiring to Rome and it has simply been the most amazing adventure in a life full of them. After 94 countries, I finally found the one I want to live in the rest of my life. Yes, I know I ranted in my blog two weeks ago (https://johnhendersontravel.com/2014/12/31/public-services-make-italy-resemble-a-third-world-coumtry/ that some of the more advanced tribes in the Amazon Rain Forest have better public services than Italy. Look, I’m a retired sportswriter. I have to practice my whining.

But the positives of this culture far outweigh the bad. Living in Rome and putting up with its public services is like living with Kate Upton and putting up with her eating Clif Bars in bed.
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