Gregory lake, Seetha Eliya and much more....

Day 6: 4th Mar, 2015

The second day at Nuwara Eliya started on a cool note! The temperature was too low compared to the previous day. It was foggy and cold. The plan was to explore Nuwara Eliya. We had a breakfast of bread followed by some hot tea! The van and driver were ready to take us to all the places planned.

The first place we wanted to visit was Seetha Eliya which is supposed to be the place where Sita Mata was held captive as per Ramayana. It is a temple surrounded by trees and a small river flowing by its side, approximately 4-5kms from Nuwara Eliya market.

Temple at Seetha Eliya

We spent almost 2 hours at this beautiful place which provided peace and tranquillity. According to the Hindu mythology Ramayana, Sita Mata was held captive by King Ravan at a place called Ashoka Vatika and during her stay over there, Hanuman delivered her the ring which belonged to Lord Ram. The locals told us that it was supposedly at this place that all those events described took place. There are also some huge depressions on a giant rock which are believed to be the foot-prints of Hanuman. Also, since the soil color on the other side of the river is black, it is believed to be the part which Hanuman had set on fire.

Small river next to temple with the depressions

It was almost time for lunch by the time we were done admiring the place! We had lunch at Milano restaurant which is in the market area. Since there was not much option for vegetarians, we had Vegetable fried rice and Vegetable noodles. There is this sweet delicacy called Watalappan which is very famous in Sri Lanka and it was long pending in our must eat list! And I must admit it that a trip to Sri Lanka is incomplete without you tasting this dish!!

Done with our lunch, we were all charged to explore some more places. The next place on our list was Gregory lake. This lake is very well known among the tourists to Nuwara Eliya. There is a garden along the edges of the lake where you can take a stroll. I think the entrance fees for tourists is around 200 LKR.

Lake Gregory

The weather played a spoilsport here as it started to rain the minute we stepped out from our van. We got back in and were just waiting for the rain to subside as we were in no mood to skip a nice long walk along this beautiful lake. To our luck, half an hour later, the rains stopped. We took a walk around the lake, took some really beautiful pictures and had a lovely family time.

Fruit market

There is also a garden you can visit but we gave it a skip since it was a very rainy day. A hot tea was what was required in a place with dropping temperature! There is a fruit market near the main market where you get to see and taste different varieties of fruits. There are also many other attractions like Hakgala botanical gardens, Horton plains national park.Then we headed back to our hotel and were back to the town square for dinner. And it was the end of another day at Sri Lanka......