Monday 25th April 2022

It was time to say goodbye to Nuwara Eliya for a while today - maybe even for as long as 5 weeks - as I headed up to Maskeliya to focus particularly on the Rotary International Project, but with a lot of other Tea Leaf Vision work thrown in too! I said goodbye to Rajan, my lovely host in Nuwara Eliya, and thanked him for his consideration and kindness. I promised to visit him when I return to Nuwara Eliya.

Ramesh took me to Maskeliya, but we went via Kandapola (where Reggie took me by mistake yesterday!), so that I could have a meeting with Sutharshan and Jesmin. Their beautiful daughter Adhira can also be seen in the photos. It was an incredibly beautiful journey to Maskeliya, one I have grown to love, as you will see from the accompanying photos, but it was rather long and tiring travelling that far in a tuk-tuk!

I arrived at Ananda's, where I will be staying this week - and, possibly for the next 5 weeks! It is very basic accommodation, but I have a bed, a shower and a toilet, and internet access, so pretty much all I need! It is good for the soul when you are in places like this to realise that our basic needs are, in fact, very few, and we are incredibly spoilt in the west with far more than we actually need.

I unpacked during a thunderstorm, and in the dark (using my headlight torch), as I experienced my first power cut (they are much worse in rural areas!). The power was off for 2 hours, came back on for a couple of hours, during which I had a fabulous dinner, and then went off again for another couple of hours, which is why my blog didn't get written yesterday, as I could not get online to do publish it!













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