Ruth R
Google
Several people ( including a travel agent) told us that a 5 day stay at Ceylon Tea Trails would be too long. In fact we stayed for 6 nights and could happily have stayed even longer. I do appreciate that many people stop here on a tour of Sri Lanka, but I can also highly recommend it as a destination in its own right. We have been to Sri Lanka several times before and booked the 6 night walking package at CTT before moving to the coast for 5 nights. I booked directly with the company, which was very easy: they arranged car transfers from the airport and onward to Tangalle. If you are pushed for time and/ or happy to spend the extra, I would recommend trying the float plane as it would have saved us a lot of time, especially on the journey to the coast, which took about 6 hours.|The walking package gives you 3 nights in one bungalow then 3 nights in another ( in our case Castlereagh and Norwood), but we visited all the properties. The bungalows are all lovely, and staff are delightful.|The thing that really made the holiday for us was Dhanushka, our walking guide. We had him with us for three out of the six days. The first walk he took us on was probably the easiest- we walked from Castlereagh to Norwood (had lunch there) and walked back a different route. He took us on a wonderful walk from Castlereagh to Somerville (4 hours - we had a picnic lunch en route) - the distance between these two bungalows is not far but we walked a long way round, avoiding the road completely other than crossing the dam, and walking up high on the ridge. Beautiful views and very quiet. The last of the three was from Norwood to Tientsin ( 4 hours) - we took a packed breakfast and had lunch at Tientsin. Dhanushka showed us routes that we would have struggled to find on our own and was great company- he was also good at spotting wildlife etc. The walks are fairly easy with some decent hills . Trainers or walking shoes are fine. We really loved the walking and saw few people other than tea pickers and the occasional group of children playing cricket. We also had a tea tour with Bernard (highly recommended) and a planters lunch, which was lovely. We also got a heavenly foot massage after each walk, which was wonderful.|The bungalows themselves are spacious and well appointed. Food varied from good to outstanding , though the packed breakfasts/ lunches could have been a bit more exciting.|Things to know|It’s useful to have a small day pack for walking (D carried water and food for me, but it’s handy to have somewhere for sunscreen, lip balm, camera etc) and I would recommend taking swim suits so you can have a dip when you arrive at your destination.|Take light weight clothing for walking which dries quickly- I wore t shirts with a long sleeved linen shirt which was fine, or sportswear. |If you can face carrying them, binoculars would be great to have too.|The bungalows tend to be very sociable with everyone gathering for drinks before dinner etc. we enjoyed meeting a lot of interesting people.|You can borrow leech socks, but unless it’s damp, they are not really necessary.|Service varied between the bungalows. It’s not always as polished as it could be. |If you want anything booking, it’s worth being very specific and what you want and when. The day we moved to Norwood, we had requested a foot massage on arrival, but it was never booked because they weren't sure what time we were arriving. It was sorted out in the end, but it did show a staggering lack of initiative given that we were with D all day and so easily contactable. That would really be my only gripe in an otherwise fabulous stay.
