Monday 24th
We were up and out of the hotel by around 7.45am today due to being booked on to a tour of the nearby forest areas. One of many routes we could go on.
After heading out for breakfast we got back here in time to get the jeep with 3 other people from the same guest house as us. The traffic is bad here at the moment due to the Christmas period so it took longer than usual to get to our first stop which was a lot higher than our hotel, and our hotel is already quite high.
We stopped at a view point overlooking the tea plantations, it was so cold and misty. The plantation look great from above, kind of like rice paddies in a way, lots and lots of green all trimmed and grown in patterns on rolling hills. The plant is called a " camellia" something, and they make tea by picking the leaves, then they go in a big roller, given time to be aired or "oxidised" then hot air is blown on them before being stored for 6 months before being packaged to sell. All the different types of tea are made from the same leaves, the difference is how long the leaves are oxidised for. For example green tea isn't oxidised for very long at all where as black tea is left for longer for all of the flavours to infuse. He told us the history of the plantations here and how they were founded by a Scotsman in the 1930s who I think had an Indian father. Nobody in the area wanted to work for him though due to the temperatures being so cold and it being so wet so he ended up going to India and bringing back a bunch of South Indian men to work for him. A lot of people here are defendants from them I think, there are quite a lot of Indian restaurants here too. Apparantly they hated the work, it was very cold for them and it was mostly hand picked. They now have little hand held shears to make the job easier but we were told hand picked is still the better way if you want quality tea.
Since then more workers from other areas have been brought in and most live on the plantations.
We then went up to the "view point" which is a place to see for miles on a good day but we couldn't see 2 meters in front of us it was so cloudy and drizzly!
So we then went down a short way to the entrance of the mossy forest which we were in for around an hour and a half, it was so muddy. We got filthy and it's a miracle we didn't fall over. Even if we had all the ground was so bouncy and spongy it wouldn't have mattered.
The guide was very knowledgable and showed us all kinds of plants, all very odd and interesting. The surroundings were gorgeous, it's called the mossy forest so it kind of speaks for itself really!
After that we went up to the tea plantations and looked in the factory. They claim the taste of their tea is the best in the area as they still use the original roller from the 1930s and a lot of tea factories now crush the leaves which they say isn't as good as rolling. We went and enjoyed local teas, the choice of food was too much so I left it to Liam and went to sit down. He came back with an absolute feast of yummy stuff, best pastries we've had for a very long time and the tea was also lovely. To top it off he view over the plantations was stunning, and we got to know our group a bit better during that time as well.
We were supposed to go to the butterfly farm but I had heard bad things about it so said I didn't want to go, which was more or less followed by everybody else as they wernt bothered. So we went to the strawberry farm instead before being dropped off for us to walk back ( our request).
We chose to do one of the jungle walks which in part was more of a hike. It took us all an hour or so and we all got muddy again. The weather held up though and we all chatted some more, so by the time we were on the path back to the town we were all talking freely and having fun. Another half hour walk and we were back, after sitting down at a cafe for a drink and finding Santa hats we all split up to do our own things until a little bit later.
Liam and I had bought a bottle of wine so we drank some of that between us, and at about 8.30pm with another 2 additions we were on our way to find food. It was a lovely few hours where we all ordered something and had a big feast between us all. We tried deer and ostrich and jellyfish as well as the usual stuff, it was all very nice.
Afterwards we found icecream and sat in the communal area watching various tv shows eating icecream out of mugs. At 12am a load of fireworks were let off across the road too so all in all in all it was a good Christmas Eve. We didn't get to bed until nearly 3am!
Tuesday 25th
I awoke to Liam grinning at me this morning over his iPad, a "merry Christmas" and " what time do you think it is?". I thought perhaps 10am, turned out 12pm! Liam had been awake over an hour already, but had been happy to let me sleep and do his own thing for a while. We hadn't gone to sleep until going on 3am so I guess it wasn't a crazy amount of sleep but still, a lot of the day had gone by. We didn't mind though as we didn't have any plans other than to relax, eat and Skype the family which wouldn't be until much later anyway due to the time difference.
We lay in bed for a while before cracking out brunch ( some Cadbury chocolate) and then got ourselves up, into our Santa hats and out for lunch. Nowhere did a Christmas lunch but we found somewhere that did " chicken and lamb chops" which seemed pretty close. It was what we like to call "Asia good" which more or less means crap in England but we can happily eat it here. Then they even had trifle for dessert which of course we treated ourselves to, best desert we've had in asia so far in my opinion...perhaps joint with the scone yesterday.
After lunch and a beer we headed back to the hotel and just kind of sat around watching tv in the communal area, chatting to Maria and generally waiting around with cups of tea until it was an ok time to Skype people.
First on the list was my mum and co at my house, we spent almost 2 hours online with them. Then 5 mins to my nanna and grandad. Then we had a short while to chill together before skyping Shelley, jim and his family for 15 mins or so. Then a short while after that we spent an hour or so skyping Liam's family, with Internet playing up in between so it taking longer than that all together. Then we had some time again to chill together watching a couple of things before skyping at my nans house with everybody there doing secret Santa for 45 mins or so. All the while drinking lots of tea and snacking on our Christmas chocolate and cake.
It was really lovely seeing everybody today, it felt like we were really there talking to people and Liam loved seeing his family and the dogs which made me happier. However that said it was, in the end, a pretty tiring day considering we wernt active. It's hard work speaking to that many people, it took ages to do and we had to hold the iPads just right the whole time. By the time we were finished it was past 1am and we were both snoring when our heads hit the pillow.
