An evening at the Hill Club

We reluctantly said goodbye to Ella and the brilliantly run Zion View with their tasty curries and headed to the train station in a pimped up Tuk Tuk. We had a first class ticket to Nanu Oya and apparently the train ride was an experience by itself. 

The train stations in Sri Lanka are very cute and old fashioned, and the 10.57 to Colombo rolled in exactly on time - along with lots of smoke ( I mentioned old fashioned right?). We hauled ourselves and backpacks up into first class and found a rickety, shabby carriage with lots of charm. We each had a window, and I wasn't totally expecting to be travelling backwards, nor from the look of my fellow passengers was anyone else. I'd used all my travel sickness pills on the boat to see the whales so minor panic started to set in when 5 minutes in the tell tale saliva in mouth started to appear. As a result I spent the next 3 hours with legs in an awkward position and neck craned out of the window in an attempt to face forward. This gives me an excuse for another massage and I ended up enjoying the journey through what is some pretty spectacular scenery. Kids waved, tea pluckers picked and dogs barked. 

Our destination was the heart of the Ceylon tea plantations and a hotel out of town which had that trying to be a mock Tudor house thing going on. We decided to head into ' little England' otherwise known as Nuwara Eliya for dinner at a club called the Hill Club. A colleague had told me it was an essential place to visit. My guidebook suggested we didn't get too excited about the food. It was very, very wrong. The drive way up the club is suitably grand and we were warmly greeted by a butler at the entrance and taken through to the Mixed Bar ( as opposed to the Ladies bar, which would have got all of us in an instant sexist rant no doubt) for a pre dinner Hendricks. 

Our menu for the evening was:

Prawn Fettucine

Leek and Potato soup

Roast Pork and vegetables 

Strawberries and cream

Coffee or Tea

We were escorted into the very grand formal dining room by our butler and the feast began. And it was gorgeous; all of it. We had about four different young Sri Lankan waiters fawning over us. I started eyeing up which piece of crockery I could discreetly into my bag, but the hill club had an answer for that too.....I was escorted to the souvenir shop.

If you are in Sri Lanka I couldn't encourage you to visit the Hill Club any more, we absolutely loved it there - £20 very well spent - and when you come to mine for a cuppa you can be served from a Hill Club teapot.

Marvellous x