Our final day at Sri Lanka. According to our plan, we'll be going to souvenirs shop nearby for some souvenir hunt, and then dropped by at Noritake Factory Outlet at Matale and straight away to airport afterwards. We were supposed to go to Noritake FO in Kandy yesterday, but as soon as we reached Kandy, it's already too late. By the time we arrived at the FO, it might have been close.

Had a breakfast at the hotel restaurant and checkout.

:: Table-served breakfast. Basket of hot bread and blue berry croissant with butter ::

:: View from our table ::

:: Sri Lanka Next Top Model. Ko brani nak pose maut cenggini siang hari kat tetengah lobby ? Tyra Banks menangis kalau tengok pose Alis nih.... ::

:: Waving good bye to Serene Garden's reception staffs ::

We were the very first customer at the souvenir shop. In fact, they don't opened yet. We need to wait for the store manager that came running to open the shop for us because De Silva told him that we had a plane to catch. Such an honor.

:: Wooden stuff's section. We didn't get much stuff here since most of the souvenirs came in a shape of their god's sculpture, or animals figurine. As a muslim, we're advised not to decorate our home with any sort of decor that came in animal or people figurine except toys ::

:: Clothing section. This is traditional sri lankan's attire ::

:: Marble and embroidery section ::

:: Saree ::

:: Cotton, silk and many types of fabrics ::

:: Handmade bags of all types ::

While we're at this shop, Chaminder called my husband and told him that he was right outside the shop. Apparently he called De Silva and checked of our whereabouts. We were supposed to drop by at his shop on our way to Airport to pickup my husband's ring but out of courtesy, he sent it to where we are and mind you, it was like 8 am in the morning I bet his shop wasn't even open yet. Not only he had it possible to made my husband ring from scratch overnight without compromising on it's quality, he even sent it personally to our hand without any extra charge. Wait! He's kind heart doesn't stops there. He even gave us 2 boxes contained 6 types of precious gemstones as souvenir.

Now, that's what I called superb customer service. I guess all rumors about good hospitality in Sri Lanka turned out to be true. When we arrived Colombo, we bought some jewelries at Colombo gem stone shop and unfortunately they need to alter my husband ring and mine to fit our finger so they need 2 days. We made a deal that they'll send it to the airport on our departure day, or we'll drop by their shop on our way to airport. Either way that will be advised later. However, when we came back from Unawatuna Beach, my husband received a phone call from Rahman, the gemstones's shop manager and informed that he sent one of his man with our stuff to our hotel. It took 4 hours to Galle from Colombo mind you. Our stuffs reached our hands at 9pm and that man doesn't even want to take tips although he sent it all the way to hotel lobby. He said it was his honor to do that for customer. Plus, he had family living in Galle so he can just stay overnight and make his way to Colombo for work the next morning. He even invited us to his home for curry treat because we mentioned that we haven't really got to taste nice curry that could blow our mind since we arrived at Sri Lanka. Anyhow, it's already late, tak senonoh plak nak pergi rumah orang malam malam semata2 nak makan curry, plus it was on very short notice we afraid we might troubled the tuan rumah so we declined his offer politely.

I am definitely blown by all of this. They might not rich but they have the heart made of gold.

:: Souvenirs from Chaminder ::

We made a move from Kandy around 8.30 am. We're supposedly could make it to Noritake FO before airport but the traffic was pretty bad by the time we reached at the junction to Matale, it's already 1130 am. Our flight was at 1.20 pm so the latest we need to check in was around 12:oo pm. My husband asked me whether I want to miss my Noritake or I want to miss my flight. It's definitely the most difficult decision I ever made ( drama gilerrr ) when I told De Silva to choose the road to airport. You can't imagine how long my sulked was and I felt like crying because Noritake FO was practically among my biggest motivation coming to Sri Lanka. Ehhh awal awal aritu kata takmau shopping, nak rileks lah bagai... hahahhaha... Alah dah sejalan kannn ape salah nye sambil menyelam sambil beli Noritake... Sure enough my reaction made De Silva felt all guilty although my reaction was meant for my husband so he called his HQ on our way to airport and his assistant told him that there's Noritake outlet at airport duty free too.. I wasn't particularly excited cause I knew the price will be higher than the one at FO and the designs will be limited too, but hey... it's better than nothing right ??

Reaching airport at 1130 and we quickly proceed to check in. The ground crew gave us some weird+confuse look when we gave her our booking number. Wanna know why?

:: Our flight itinerary. See anything weird there ? ::

If you can't see than it's okay. I'll help you.. I did mentioned in my first post if I'm not mistaken that we'll be travelling to Sri Lanka from 24the Sept - 29th Sept. Okayyyyyyy, now check again the departure date....

Apparently, my brilliant husband mistakenly insert the month so it looks like we have to stay in Sri Lanka for 1 month. I just didn't know what to say when I realized the careless mistake. My husband face turned purplish when the news knocked him. Of course I didn't scolded him since it was un-intentional. I am just glad that it was him and wasn't me who made all the booking ha ha ha ha .... To loosen up the tense, I jokingly told him, this is what happened if you took your wife request for granted. Read : Noritake. Clearly he doesn't find my joke entertaining cause he wasn't laughing.

So we have 2 option. To wait for one hour under waiting list and check in at the very last minute should any passenger doesn't turn up OR to extend our ticket to 2nd October as that's the only day where flight was available. We don't have to worry about my husband's work since he already get someone to cover for him. Of course, I voted to stay for another two days so I can go to Noritake FO but sadly my husband decided to opted for waiting list instead. After one hour waiting, the crew called us and informed that there's seats available so we could check in. Frustrated and happy at the same time. Takper lah, considered it as takde rezeki lah eh... :)

After get ourselves checked in, we headed to their departure gate and stops by at duty free since we have few minutes to spare. This is where I was caught up at Noritake Outlet in duty free. I've only realized that we're about to miss our plane when one guy whose rode in the airport indoor vehicle stopped infront the shop and asked me whether we're going to Q8. When I told him yes, he said this..

geleng geleng geleng geleng geleng geleng kepala and basically dragged me out of the shop kah kah kah kah.... Well it's not like everyday you get dragged out from duty free shop..

We had to ride his vehicle because we definitely won't make it on foot. Anyway we survived the panic moments and soon be seated comfortably in our flight to Q8. Despite the drama, it's all end welll whatttt???

Finally we're waving goodbye to Sri Lanka soils. Thank you so much for all the great and memorable memories. We definitely had a heaps of fun and thank you for having us. We'll be returning soon...

As a closing...... below are my final catch... All the panicking and adrenaline rush moments were definitely worth it :)

:: My sweet parting gift with Sri Lanka heh heh heh *evil laugh while looking at hubby*

According to plan, we are supposed to have another early day today as we're going to leave dry zone Kataragama area and climb to a cooler climate uphill country called Nuwara Eliya or famously known as "Little England". I remember set my phone alarm around Fajr time for prayer but I was woken up, startled up to be precise, by something else. Instead of my usual alarm clock tone, I heard chicken crowing instead. Kok kok kok kok kokkkkkkkkkk... kok kok kok kok kokkkkkkkkkk. E V E R S O L O U D L Y with no signs of stopping until we peeked outside and rolled the blind up. The moment the rooster saw us waking up, he left and go bug another door ha ha ha such a dedicate fella this one...

:: Our unofficial alarm clock. Seeee.. He remained there and crow like there's no tomorrow until we woke up and greet him. ::

:: My husband just finished Subuh prayer and instead of getting ready for breakfast, we joined the girls on the bed again and watched sunrise. I'll gave up Hilton for things like this :) ::

We have another hour to breakfast time, thanks to our unpaid alarm clock, so we just lazying around while watching the chicken, ducks and goose outside started their morning. The day hasn't officially started for us but I felt great already.

After getting ready and packed all our stuffs, we headed to the cafe for breakfast and was served English style breakfast. They asked if we wanted some local breakfast like hopper with curry but we decided to stick to simple and light yet filling English style. We'll be on the road for at least 4 hours so having curry early in a morning is not really a wise decision.

:: Crepe ::

:: Freshly homemade jam, to be eaten with crepe and toast bread ::

:: A basket of toast bread ::

:: Papaya Juice and black sri lankan tea ::

:: English muffin. The staffs even pack some of this for the kids to be eaten during our journey. How thoughtful ! ::

We begin our journey sharp at 7.30 am and the trip was smooth with pretty greenery sight. We made a few stops for toilet, mosque and fuel filling purposes.

:: Marching out of old mosque on the hill ::

:: Everything about this place is so classic and old school ::

:: Waterfalls on our way. We didn't stop because the road was very narrow and curvy so it's quite dangerous to stop in between even to take pictures. Most of the pictures here taken from inside car ::

:: Halfway ::

:: As the climate changed, you can see the type of tree also changed. Alis called this pokok twilight heheh ::

:: Old and abandoned tea factory ::

:: Sri Lankan soldiers we met on the way. According to De Silva, many youngsters joined army as their career because it's secured since government will provide everything from meal, uniforms, lodging and wages. One more thing, schools here are fully sponsored by the government. Uniforms, text books, school fees, stationary, school bag, school shoes and everything related to schooling matters will be given free of charge to each students. For some remote and poor area, I saw a lot of students carrying school bag with Unicef's logo. De Silva told that those were poor children whose under UNICEF's education sponsorship ::

:: Curvy road ::

Initially while making plan to come to Sri Lanka, we were thinking of rent a car with GPS system or get ourselves a map and travel around the country by ourselves. Konon konon nak adventurous and attempt to be independant travelers lah. Lucky we didn't follow our plan because the road system in Sri Lanka doesn't have proper signage system either in the city nor the country side. Some area doesn't even have road signage at all so you might going the wrong directions and only realized it few hours later.

After seeing this curvy, multiple sharp turns with no warning signage whatsoever at uphill side, we just knew we've made a very wise decision by using tour guide.

Plus the drivers in Sri Lanka was like no other drivers I've ever met my whole life and I thought all this while middle eastern drivers are reckless ha ha ha. They overtake as they pleased, and I really meant as they pleased, not when there's no upcoming car or the road is clear and safe enough. Upcoming car, lorries or bus is never a problem. They overtook when there's no upcoming vehicles, when there are upcoming vehicles, on narrow road, on wide road, at junction, at double lined and at sharp corner. Simply put, they'll overtake everytime, everywhere and in any situation.

Another thing I realised, tuk tuk/three wheeler here was treated like motorcyclist. They got honked all the time and they'll always be the one who need to give way, all the time. At some point I think they were treated unfairly because instead of the size of almost similar to small car, they were denied the right to use the road equally as other. At some point, the tuk tuk driver rileks jek kena honked and gave way, I was in the car that honk at them in the first place pulak yang get offended huhuhuh...

Case in point, drivers here honked like a lottttttt. De Silva told us, Sri Lankan driver can drive without the break but never without a honk. That's how serious honk meant to them. I think they had develop a honk systems and only they ( local drivers) knew what it means of each honk. Based on my observation, there's short honk to let other vehicles know they passing or overtaking. There's another type of short honk specialized for three wheeler. There's long honk that could only means hi, show respect or show their anger. In short, there's so many type of honk tone they used and clearly honk was used as way of communication among drivers here.

To be fair, instead of the fact that their driving skills was among the most hazardous I've ever seen, I could say that Sri Lankan drivers are among the most polite I've ever met. They don't stare if they got honked or when and after they were treated rudely. Rude to my justification it is. To them it might be just a normal things. Try do that in Malaysia, you'll end up get a longggg mean stares or even worst, you'll get fingered. In Q8 is even worst. There's a lot of fights and road bully happened here, related to road manners.

They always gave way to others. For a car that registered for tour purposes, they'll have blue sticker on them so every time they met any car with blue stickers, they'll honked and wave to each other as if they knew one another. My husband did asked De Silva whether he's waving to his friend, but he said he didn't know the guy but he have blue sticker on his car so they're basically friends working under same industry. Just exactly how they treat their local countrymen, that's also how they treat us fellow foreigner, with smile, politeness and hospitality. One thing for sure, even their driver drives so reckless to the point of ignorant, I rarely see accident here. It's like, even though they might be the worst rules follower ever, they also have a silent understanding among each other and they sort of have the ability to read each other's mind, on the road.

By noon, we reached Nuwara Eliya. Ohhhh all I can say, the long winded, curly and curvy road was all worth it. I would say every vomit was worth it but none of us actually vomit so it's irrelevant hehehe...

:: Beautiful lake on top of the mountain. Ohhhh I don't mind retiring here, like seriously but since I don't have a job, I'll rephrase.. I wouldn't mind if my husband want to spend his retirement here :) ::

:: Very colonial looking post office ::

:: Very nice old mansion turned hotel. I'll make sure we stay here at least two nights on our next visit. They have a very nice garden with white antiques benches where guests can have breakfast, lunch and dinner outdoor. Super nice I tell you ::

:: There are many European and rich Sri Lankan bought land here and built a rest house for rental or for their own use whenever they feel like coming for a holiday ::

:: Pivate-own property. It's my dream to own some piece like this. It doesn't have to be big, or grand. I just yearn for a simple cozy cottage with a fire place and little vegetable garden at the back side and small flower garden upfront. Such a dreamer eh?? Brangannnn tinggi sangat minah ni tau, walhal, tanam pokok kaktus pun seminggu je ley hidop hahahah ::

It's about time for lunch so De Silva brought us to tea plantation side for sight seeing and lunch break.

:: There are many tea factory like this here you can choose. We just follow whatever De Silva picked for us for he knew better. I think he chose this place for us because it's tea lounge also have a halal restaurant so we can have our lunch at the same time ::

Before we have our tea testing session, we were brought to visit tea factory for a briefing on how tea was produced.

Basically, the process went like this.....

freshly pickup young tea leaves were leave to dry using industrial fan basically to dry out the moisture - dried tea leaves were sent to feeding point exactly into grinding machine - leaves will be grinned till fine - some raw part were sent to fermentation section, to produce white tea, famously known as green tea - the rest will be sent to grading section - tea was graded using grading meshes that comes in various sizes - graded raw tea was sent to Colombo for packaging, commercialize and mixture process ( oolong tea, apple tea, cinnamon tea, vanilla and such ).

:: Tour around the mill ::

:: Freshly pickup young tea leaves. It's so fresh it even have live worm as you can see in the bottom part of the picture ::

:: Dried leaves after 12 hours. By this time, the weight already reduce by 1/2 ::

:: Feeding point. The hole lead straight into grinding machine downstairs ::

:: The grinding machine. It's moving so fast it's difficult to get clearer picture ::

:: Fermentation area. Fermenting process will change the colour, taste so it will produce green tea or called white tea in the industry ::

:: Momentos with factory worker ::

:: Final raw product. It's been a while since the trip so I have forgotten some of them. Forgive me should any info below wasn't accurate . You're always welcomed to correct me :).

OP = Orange Pekoe or black tea or it's common name, Earl Grey. Nice to be taken with sugar and also milk because of it's bitter aftertaste. Pekoe = also another type of black tea nice taken with sugar and milk. BOP = Broken Orange Pekoe or it's commercial name, English Breakfast. My favourite type of tea of all time. Nice taken with both sugar or milk. BOPF = Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings, white tea or called green tea. Best taken with sugar or without sugar. Dust No 1 = highest grade of pekoe :

The briefing finished around 20 minutes where we were taken for tea tasting. I've always envied when reading about blogger that went visiting vineyard and have their wine tasting session. It's definitely impossible considering the fact that we're Muslim so given a chance on tea tasting like this is more than enough for me.

:: Outside Bluefield Tea Lounge ::

:: The Interior. On the left is their tea shops where you can but tea of all grades for your home, family and friends ::

:: Mine. Black Tea with a slice of chocolate cake. Tea is complementary from the lounge. You just need to pay for the cake if you take the cake. If you just feel like having tea then everything is on the house. I really love the concept as they didn't go for profit but more on hospitality. Boh Tea Plantation @ Cameron Highland should adopt this concept to attract more visitors ::

:: Very the English ! ::

:: Alis enjoying her cuppa tea. We are a bunch of tea lovers, always am, always will ::

After we finished our tea, we moved upstairs for lunch while De Silva also having his free lunch provided by the Tea Lounge at the drivers corner. It's a halal restaurant run by mostly muslim workers so we have no hesitation to eat meat. My husband even checked twice with the staffs and they confirmed that they provided only halal food due to a lot of Muslim and arabic's visitors that frequent their place.

:: Buffet style lunch. What I had was chicken in sweet and sour sauce ( soooooo freaking nice I had 3 servings to myself ), basmathi steamed rice, papadom, coconut sambal and onion salad ::

:: Kids have this but they ate my food more. Told ya the chicken is very nice ::

:: View from my seat ::

:: Buying some stuffs for friends and some for home ::

Moving forward, we started went down the hill headed to Kandy, a city by the hill side and will be spending a night there. As we were feasted our eyes on our way up, our way down was no less fascinating. It's equally beautiful with a lot of flower and vegetables farm on right and left of the road. I was tempted to buy all the fresh vege they sell there but realizing the fact it will get rotten before we made home kinda stopped me.

:: Fresh flower stall by the road side ::

:: Big bouquet of fresh flowers for only RM 14 ringgit. Such a steal ! I don't care if I have to leave it behind upon our departure, it's sooooooo effin cheap I got to buy this ::

We reached Kandy ( pronounced as Candy) few hours after that and we made our first stop at one GemStone shop. This shop was introduced to us by Chamila, the butler as he's from Kandy. He even gave us his best friend's contact number who's been working at the shop for almost 10 years or so. We were taken by Chaminder, Chamila's friend for a tour. Each gems sop in this area have gems stone museum it's pretty impressive.

:: I came to know about my birthstone that day. As a June baby, my birthstone are pearl. Okay laaa not so bad, I love pearl but I wish for diamond actually hahaha.. My husband's birthstone are aquamarine( March baby) ::

:: Chaminder showing us something at the jewellery worksyop where the jewelleries were custom made ::

:: Mock up of life size gem miners and gem mines ::

It's already dark after the dance show so we rushed to our hotel for freshen up and pray. De Silva will bring us sight seeing around Kandy city for a night view after dinner.

We stayed at Serene Garden B&B for that night. It was very clean with a very minimal decor. Our room costs around 65 USD I think.

:: Nice hanging plant pot area in the middle section of the hotel ::

:: I love their high uneven wooden ceiling ::

Ohhh by the way, dinner was on the house, complimentary from the hotel. Although it was basically free food, they didn't take for granted and prepared our dinner heartily with wide spread. They even have Meehun Singapore that tasted almost similar to my mom's version I had 2 plate to myself. I even asked the staff whether the chef was from Asian but they said he's local Sri Lankan. Something confusing yet funny happened. When we were seated for dinner, the waiter hands to us menu for beverages. So after we decided of what to drinks, we called him to order. He then told us that if we order our drinks before we eat, then we will be charge for that drinks but if we eat first and order our drinks while eating then it will free of charge. I foundthis very confusing so I asked him...

The waiter replied ...

Ha ha ha ha ha ha... The arrangement doesn't make sense at all but as long as I get free food, it doesn't matter :)...

We took a ride around Kandy city but since all the shops were practically closed we didn't stay out for long, plus everyone pretty much exhausted and needed rest. If only we could stay longer at Kandy, as there's so many things we haven't had a chance to explore in Kandy.

For info, Kandy was famous for it's Buddha temple but there's also another interesting besides temple that worth visiting.

We're going to have to leave tomorrow and we went into bed with mixture feeling.

Signing out.