some of them have been brought from the jungle some of them have been born in kenya the sikh elephants are separated there have become because of accidents like train accidents and sometimes fights within the jungle so we keep them here treat them and give them a good life. we start ascending the plateau an ox cart takes twelve days for this laborious journey by train it's around nine hours. building the railway line took place under severe conditions many of the three thousand workers died of malaria and color and. man line go through very rough country might go through the remains and georges and cuts cutting cutting than a feeling them a man then. tunneling that are harder to go down on the from the number two by the

lower. end of the rear tedious work in the back with a mark on structure and the lever was not to cover it in and we had no mckenna station home or in iraq no i'm not an organ or modern i'm ordering the equipment for drilling. on me the tractor or by human labor. difficult. however the soil that proved so tiresome during the construction of the railway line harbors treasures to. there are lots of different gemstones in the ground. they adorn the crowns of monarchs and the jewelry of adored women as a result sri lanka has a long and lucrative tradition of goldsmith three these days it's mostly for tourists that brings him good money but goldsmith earns around two hundred euros

a month then skin into the limelight of human life because it changes every game carries. a power to heal certain disease this was in many cases many kids medication at the beginning even though now it does become a fashionable thing or in this day the. sapphires in many different colors the design is also made in sri lanka. we're about to reach candy we traveled a hundred and thirty kilometers in three and a half hours. the

climate is significantly more pleasant at five hundred meters. candy was once the capital of the single ladies kings and the epitome of single e.'s culture. the kings were able to defend their independence from the colonial powers for centuries here. the station was opened as far back as eight hundred sixty seven. the blue water lily sri lanka's national flower is sold here it's often used as a sacrificial gift that buddhist temples. one of the most significant in the whole of sri lanka is sri dollar dhamaal igawa the temple of the sacred tooth. the most important buddhist relic in sri

lanka is kept here the buddha's upper left coast bid a significant symbol of national pride. people come from all around the world to attend the daily services they donate and they pray. the ninety minute puja starts at half past nine the word means something like worship and is an important ritual in every day buddha's life. according to legend the sacred tooth is said to store the buddhist spiritual

strength this belief also turned this religious relic into a political instrument of power for the single use tools. by danny how that sri lanka was ruled by king. with me. in death there were seven royal ruling period was thing going to go and landed on your knees in the in eighteen fifteen the british conquered candy and with it the temple of the sacred tooth was he as an important symbol of power and straight lanka with on. budget you've been a city. patiently waiting outside the chamber where the relic is housed. visitors only get to see a container the tooth isn't on display it's said to be housed in an ivory capsule which is in turn encased in six further containers. it's thanks to the temple

that candy is on unesco's list of world heritage sites. a further spectacle worth watching right next to the temple in the late afternoon serato new batters bats otherwise known as flying foxes are getting comfortable. and. candy is also known for its dance performances these men and women are just getting ready for one the tradition dates back to the time of the last kings of candy. on the seventh. this dance troupe has performed since one thousand nine hundred eighty two in the past the dance was for the entertainment of the king. if the king was sick the dance was used to cure him we even had healing festivals.

today the dances a mostly for the tourists. why dio watty comes from a long line of dances the dancing tradition is passed on from generation to generation. but. the training is tough and starts every day of five in the morning performances take place all year round with very little time off. the performances consist of up to eleven different items. balancing these discs is called the rub on don it's.

the performance last spring about an hour. we've left candy behind. the mountain landscape has some visual treats in store for us other treats await us on the train. and. may sell small snacks in the carriages. and he's done this for many years it provides a living for his family and. he has three children. so that was good and i'd prepare the food at home and bring it to the training and i'll do something i let him in. going about often doing this for twenty years to get the knowledge that he got vod it is

a small snack among if you take two or three pieces why would i make a living doing this but i'm glad my regulars like my p.o. bought everything and that's why i always bring freshly baked goods you know i have a permit and i'm allowed to sell it on the train that's going to. the side of the house like. the passengers like it too we're gradually getting used to the gentle rocking of the train the women's colorful clothes strike us again and again. the main line snakes its way higher and higher up the plateau.

the working population up here mainly the women are employed in the many textile companies their goods sri lanka's most important industrial export. with wages at just fifty euros a month manual labor is no luxury and it's cheap compared to purchasing a loom the women get to pick the colors. so that's no one had anything any tend to use strong bright colors in a day you can relieve a serang that's around two metres long. the thread is spun on the spindle they've made themselves.

the thin yarn of the sarong is very water absorbent it's made of cotton and very pleasant on the skin silk is less practical in the mountains when it rains a lot a cotton sarong is better. we're apparently really lucky with the weather today we're told on the train that there hasn't been a single day without rain up here in two and a half years. the

british originally built the railway line to transport tea from the mountains to the port of colombo but first tea was merely a substitute. for coffee which had been affected by a fungus coffee rust. the british recruited highland tunnels from southern india as cheap labor. to this day tea is harvested on the unimaginably large area of two thousand two hundred and ten square kilometers a safe job for many. americans obviously work on the plantations picking tea leaves. we thank our president for that and it's good work. and. the income from the tea plantation made the fullness alone the favorite colony of the british in those

days the tea pickers only got rice as wages today they get a bit more than three euros a day working from sunrise to sunset but that's not something they like to talk about. this is where the famous comes from. we're in one of the countless tea factories and what proudly told what makes it special. young tender after leaving may be the better portion of the leaf and the coals it stalls and make you at least can be the substandard materials where you have this chemical compound bad the young ladies can say they had the better quality and the flavor by then the alchemic a couple of the caffeine any less in polythene or anti mathematics and this is

a lawyer a very rich when they leave the. one hundred people work in the helper t. factory which is around one hundred years old after the tea leaves a dried they're broken up by being rolled in shaken. after that they're from entered and dried. the next step is to sort the tea by size. sri lanka is one of the world's biggest exporters during the founding years the construction of the railway line how to keep up with the opening of new tea plantations in the highlands.

the railway has long since lost the significance it had in those days. the best bang for the mandalay morris. during the time of the british endeavor. transporting the produce and the teas being produced over there with a tin your gold crowns board not to follow no he had been transported by tram goody . these days only around one percent of goods are transported by rail. mr yarmulke has made sure for the past thirty three years that everything runs smoothly. i found out that i'm the senior conduct on the train during the whole trip. which makes me responsible for the lives of the passengers if you like

south and for the railway problem to be there with alex. for everything that happens on the way. i mean on the back like. a token is just being handed over it's in this brass ring covered in leather it ensure safety on the single track route and has done since nine hundred one. is making the law when i pass on the token the train driver has the permission to travel to the next station. i have to ring four times to get this token economy. and that's how they know when the next station that's a train is coming. that. they ring four times in response and that token. that unlocks my token. i can get it out and give it to the next train which can then travel safely to the next station.

yes. the token is unlocked and given to the train driver on the next train. unfortunately there are no longer any train tracks from the new or your station to the famous hill station of new water. the writer herman hesse of steppenwolf fame had an enjoyable stay here in one thousand nine hundred eleven it's pleasantly fresh at a height of one thousand eight hundred metres. the british called the small town little england and indeed we can picture miss marple posting a letter here time seems to have stood still since eight hundred seventy six in the

time on it till club in those days the plantation owners relaxed here over a game of billiards. the laundry might be drawing that today but in those days that's where the colonial rulers watched horse races everything was to be like a home away from home it's rare for horse races to take place here these days. things follow a slower pace on the race tracks these days. another relic from the british period treeline because most sophisticated golf club.

actually this was started by the british planters and now. and they kept on looking after it very well it was the it was not mainly for commercial activity that says i mean the leg a mere members club because the because it was maintained like a member of the club it was not so much in the oriented people said leaving this place so it's more than the tourists is actually the members who used to come to the baby and also to play golf and as i say the survey was i mean images and also the people around this place they start living this place. visitors need temporary club membership to play the eighteen hole course the club has shaped the life the sri lanka's highest town for the past one hundred and twenty five years entire families use.