DESTINATIONs

The spectacular Haputale resembles a small English village with soothing climate and beautiful flowers bloomed by road sides. The lives of the locals are centered around tea industry and where ever you may travel in Haputale, you will see endless fields of lush tea plantations and local women wearing colourful sarees plucking tea leaves is familiar site in mornings. The Lipton’s Seat is a famous visitor attraction with both historic and scenic values. This high view point captures panoramic views of Sri Lanka. On a clear day you can see Handapanagala lake, Chandrika lake, Udawalwe lake, Wedi hiti Kanda mountains, and even the Hambanthota harbour. This is from where Scottish tea baron Sir Thomas Lipton inspected his tea estates. Click here to see the location of Lipton’s Seat.

St. Benedict’s Monastery – famously known by the locals as Adisham Bungalow is a must visit location in Haputale. Built by the British governor Sir. Thomas Lister Villiers in 1931, the mansion is ideally located surrounded by alluring Tangamalai forest. Tangamalai in Tamil means the golden mountains. As the mansion is built on the summit of highland which stands 5000 feet above the valley, the panoramic view of the hills and Uva valley is priceless. The garden and the buildings spread across an area of 10 acres. The vast terraced lawns, beautiful flower beds and fruitful orchards bearing delicious strawberries, apples and Victoria plums are major attractions of this architectural wonder of Sri Lanka. Today the monks cultivate and maintain the orchards and the produce has been used to produce natural jams, cordials and jellies which are sold at onsite boutique shop. The money earned by selling them is used for the maintenance of the bungalow. Since the mansion is a monastery it is open for sightseers only on weekends, public holidays and school holidays. This amazing monastery is located 4 km from the city of Haputale. For directions click here.