The demise of Camellia Sinensis

He was daydreaming, gazing out the window looking down at the old habour area of Colombo. With imagination one could easily visualize in a bygone day, the busy habour in the 19^th century full of ocean-going wooden vessels loading and unloading their precious cargo – loading of the heavy wooden tea chests – full of cuttings from the bushy shrub named camellia sinensis. Destined for a teapot and the additional pouring of steaming hot water to make the delicious and refreshing golden nectar - tea. Destined for the white linen tables and fine china of the higher classes of Europe, and the world. The tall, large square sails at peace, resting, wrapped around the sturdy masts of the tea clippers sheltering in the habour, ready to loosen their mooring lines and set sail. Being prepared for their tempestuous ocean journeys to faraway lands with their delicious cargo for the thirsty tea drinking populace of the world.

That was long ago.

Now it was a stagnant remnant of the past, overgrown with vegetation and trees leaning towards the water, allowing shade and shelter for the pelicans, storks, and large sea birds. Another haunting scene from an island containing so many skeletons and ghosts from bygone days.

His working days in a tower block overlooking the derelict harbour were tedious, and long. His only respite was the coffee shop within the building. The small array of shops, small restaurants, and an interesting but busy coffee shop was an easy distraction. The inviting chairs and tables scattered haphazardly within and outside the entrance attracted like-minded passing traffic inside. Joe often had coffee there. It appealed to his lazy mood, passing the time browsing used paperbacks on the bring and take bookshelf looking for a good read, or reading the complimentary free newspapers tied to a miniature ship’s mast to prevent it from absconding the premises. All to keep the customers entertained, beguiled even to consider a second cup. There was a small notice board anybody could pin up their advertisements. Joe often lingered to read the notices pinned up for a passerby to peruse.

One notice caught his attention with interest, it read.

“Visit Knuckles and the Central Highlands with Sid” there was a small tab with the same number that you could pull from the bottom of the notice to ring later.

Joe thought after the previous solo weekend venture, a guide might be worthwhile. He phoned the number, and a polite well-spoken young man answered, and introduced himself as Sid’s tours. He was full of excitement and enthusiasm. With his overelaborate flowery language sounding more at home on the pages of a Dickens novel, he painted pictures in the mind of a paradise lost – Knuckles and the Central Highland. He suggested that they travel via Kandy to Knuckles national park. He promised wonderful accommodation, and a trekker to take them around the surrounding wild hilly landscape. This included visiting a bat cave, and with weather permitting a campfire experience at night under the starry heavens. An experience to beat all other experiences.

“Even better that you have a rental car.” He concluded, and they arranged for their mystery tour to commence that weekend.

Joe took some advice from his work colleagues, nobody had ever ventured to Knuckles nature park, but he seldom found anybody that ventured outside of the city. He understood why based on his earlier horrendous road trip to Galle.

Unlike the previous weekend the traffic wasn’t as busy as the trip to Galle. From Colombo to Kandy, it was a continuous hill climb, the road spiraled upwards following the railway line. The snake back road meant a continuous surveillance in all directions of the frantic competing traffic. Similar sights and sounds like the road to Galle appeared in all directions. Elephants, cow herds, roadside snake charmers, all enriched the adventurous journey on the ever winding, ever ascending road to Kandy. Kandy had a famous temple named temple of the sacred tooth, which was part of the tour. The Buddhist shrine’s importance to the nation cannot be underestimated, as whoever holds the tooth relic, holds supreme power. The small town itself was provisional, and the scenery changed significantly. From Kandy to their final destination of the Knuckles nature reserve, the road deteriorated drastically, as the tarmac surface disappeared completely, and clouds of dust trailed high behind the car as they edged towards their destination high in the mountains. Again, the terrain changed dramatically, as did the weather, it became cloudy, windy and the temperatures cooled.

When they finally arrived. Joe reflected on the travel guide that Sid had sent him before the trip. It was headed “Out and About”, and then subtitled “Corbet’s View”, and the first paragraph read.

Getting to Corbet’s View, located at Kooonilla village is a motorist's ultimate dream. The hairpin bends on the Mahiyangana — Kandy Road is bound to give chills when getting to the small luxury lodge, which is 3800 feet above mean sea level. It is a two- hour drive on the fifty-kilometer stretch from Kandy to Kobonilta village, where the spectacular Corbet’s View lodge is located. Corbel's View is flanked by Dumbanagalo (Gunners Rock) and Kobonillagala and opens up to the eastern coastline.

All true. The challenging drive, the spectacular views. However, the vision in front of Joe was not in any stretch of the imagination - “small luxury lodge”. It would never have passed the lonely planet test in terms of that description.

Joe started to question Sid’s tours, both his eloquent oratory and the pledges made in the flowery descriptions of the advertisement. There was a huge discrepancy in terms of the accommodation description. There in front of them was a small brick building with a corrugated iron roof. Very basic. It was certainly situated right on top of the mountain that they had just climbed. It was as remote as remote could ever be, as they hadn’t seen any vehicles or dwellings in hours of driving on the final hill climb. The wind howled around the building making it shake and shiver continuously. The wind caused the metal roof to scream and howl, like an imprisoned banshee, as the wind changed speed from gale force to a stormy velocity. They went inside, and the interior was as bare as the room at the Buddhist temple he had slept in the previous weekend. The luxury shed came with two residents, Joe was not sure if they were a couple, but there was a woman, the cook, and elderly man in khaki shorts showing his bowed spindly legs. Sid started to bring inside the food provisions for our luxury cuisine during the stay, a sack full of rice, and dried curried fish.

Outside the wind did not abate, in fact it increased in its fury, as the final rays of light dropped under the crest of Corbet’s View to the west of the luxury shed. There was a small piece of leveled ground hacked out of the steep terrain, with some very sturdy chairs, and a table. They needed to be sturdy or clamped to the ground in those gale force winds. Joe turned to Sid looking up at the highest summit of the mountain range, bracing themselves against the continuous updrafts.

“I guess the barbeque is out this evening.” Joe said sarcastically.

That night the wind howled outside, and inside the luxury shed on top of the mountain. Joe prayed the roof had been nailed down to the rafters, as it creaked and groaned through his sleepless night. With the sun shining early from that eastern coastline, the wind did start to subside. The heat of the sun started to part the clouds, and they started to prepare for their trek on foot through the mountainous terrain. The elderly man was to be their guide. After breakfast of rice and dried fish, the three trekkers started on their journey, but not without a word of warning from Sid.

“Joe, we need to be careful of wild pigs, take a stick with you. We will visit the bat cave first, I think you will be OK, but the crawlspace isn’t that wide, not for your build – but we’ll see.” He warned.

All good advice, but Joe had not imagined what was in front of him that day. He then saw the elderly man arrive beside them, with a huge machete in his hand.

“What’s that for?” Joe pointed at the lookalike meat cleaver and asked Sid, as the man spoke no English.

“For wild angry pigs!” Sid replied as though it was normal that trekking in these places one was armed with the axe type blade.

The views were spectacular, it was a view from God’s window in heaven, looking down from 4000 feet, it reminded Joe of Switzerland, but without the manicured appearance. The bat cave entrance: no one would find, not even with professional equipment, it was hidden in the undergrowth against the granite rock face of the mountain. The entrance was tiny, and on close inspection Joe was reconsidering his options, but without a word Sid disappeared into the small entrance. Joe followed with more caution. If he had any fears of confined spaces, now was the time to test any claustrophobic tendencies. The older man, the look-alike Gurkha, with his huge machete looked on as both Joe and Sid disappeared inside the mountain. He remained on guard outside in the fresh air with a wry smile on his face.

The bat cave was the first stop on Sid’s tours that day. Now it was onwards to the English rose garden.

Apparently, in the height of its demand for delicious tea leaves, Camellia Sinensis, an evergreen shrub and native to Srilanka, and the Indian sub-continent, land became scarce. Dating back to the third century, the demand for tea leaves had been steady. Then the European invasion saw land being purchased as the worldwide demand for tea increased. Fertile land became scarce, and subsequently growers started to explore more inhospitable terrains. At the same time Srilanka growers were experimenting with different blends, such as the earl grey variety. Due to the elevation of the Knuckles region, and its infertile soil, the growers experimented, and introduced a hardier plant, the Elettaria and Amomum plants, to grow the pods we know as Cardamom. There was one problem: the newly introduced plants of the cardamom overran the estates; they eventually suffocated and smothered the fragile tea shrubs.

To the demise of Camellia Sinensis, and the higher elevated estates of the Central Highlands.

Joe can testify the truth in history that day, as they hacked, and climbed the mountainside, where years before a vibrant estate had once been established. The Elettaria and amomum plants had invaded the mountainside like weeds, it had completely smothered the previously cultivated and manicured land. They came upon a small derelict cottage, something you might find on the shores of Cornwall, a small fisherman’s house, tucked away from the blustery winds of the English Channel, or in this case from the windy blast from the Indian Ocean. There was a small English garden, where they found roses growing wild, certainly introduced by European tea growers from the past. Their presence like ghosts remained like whispers in the winds of the mountains, the skeleton of the small derelict cottage, a statue to their long-ago existence. Srilanka is a land of skeletons, from the ancient lowland tank excavations dated back 5000 years ago, to the canals built to evade the English naval blockade. All these remnants haunt the diverse lands, the lands of the pearl of the Indian Ocean.

Finally, the threesome reached the summit, the elderly machete armed man was fitter than both Joe and Sid, he strode forward continuously hacking down the undergrowth. They stopped at a delightful spring that gushed out sweet water from the mountainside and opened their small packs of sandwiches. Fortunately, the threesome didn’t encounter any wild pigs on the trek, and returned to the luxury shed, still being hammered by the easterly gusts from the Indian Ocean.

Joe thought once he returned to the safety of his hotel room. There was some sort of warped satisfaction after the weekend adventure of Knuckles, and Corbet’s View, some sense that he had survived to retell his adventures, in the comfort of the room, with a hot cup of Ceylon tea.