Welcome to Sri Lanka!
Good morning everyone and welcome back to a new Travel Vlog from Team Marve!
My name is Ave.
And my name is Martin.
And in this video we will show you how beautiful Sri Lanka is.
We arrived from Colombo and drove all the way to Mahiyangana,
and now we are in Sorabora Wewa Reserve.
That s correct. This behind us here is a man-made reservoir.
It's something that the Sri Lankans do: they dam up rivers to distribute water
equally to do agriculture across the country.
In this video we are going to take you a little bit around.
Sri Lanka is very diverse not in nature but also in the different
experiences you can have as a tourist.
We are going to visit a Tea Plantation.
We are also going to show you some sustainable eco experiences. We are going to interact with the
locals, and also meet the local tribe of Vedda. We are very excited for this vlog guys. This is
our first vlog on this YouTube channel, and we are very excited to show you what we do when we
travel, come along for the video. Let s go!
Now we are cruising in Sorabora Wewa Reserve, and we have been served by Chatura, who is the local
guide here a special breakfast for us.
Which is a typical breakfast in this area, except for the bacon of course.
Okay guys, we are about to dock, and we are going to go through the jungle.
So, we are now visiting a local fish market, this is where our guide Chatura goes to buy
the fish that he bring back to the camp.
So, all of these different fishes are caught here in the lake?
Yeah.
Look at the size of this fish! Can we weight it? How much does it weigh?
10 kilos! Wow.
The whole fish we just saw there is worth 3,000 rupees, and Chatura told me that sometimes they
catch fish up to 60 kilos in this lake.
Okay guys, we have been invited to Chaturas
house to experience what their life in the local village looks like.
Yes, because you can be traveling around Sri Lanka in only luxury resorts,
or in any destination you go to, but you won't truly know what it's like in the country
unless you get close to the locals. – Exactly.
I see a treehouse there. Let s go check it out.
This reminds me of me and Ave's first date here in Sri Lanka.
It was kind of similar in a treehouse.
And guys the story behind these huts is actually embedded in the culture. It's to hide from the elephants.
So, when an elephant comes, you feel more safe up there than sleeping here on the ground.
Let me show you a local hut. The living room and the kitchen, so you guys get an idea of what most
Sri Lankans are living like. Let's go!
Guys, I came across this product which is grill briketter – that's Norwegian!
They also want to show you their hospitality
and they are going to show us a lobster. They re cooking us a lobster.
– Wow! – Look at that! It's so meaty!
– Like a jumbo shrimp. – Yes!
Allright? It's very milky, it's juicy, cooked perfectly. All I need is my rice.
And this is the view we currently have as are tasting this.
Hello everyone! We made it here to Dambana
which is home to the only existing indigenous people of Sri Lanka.
And now were going to go into the village. We're going to meet some locals and show you
how these people live. We are very excited to be here.
We have been to Sri Lanka three times but this our first time to go here.
Nice to meet you.
We've just met Wanya, he just showed me his local greetings.
He is going to take us into the village now.
Okay guys, we are now following him into the jungle from the forest that they live in.
He's carrying the axe on the shoulder all the time. This is a symbol in their
culture, and they are actually allowed to wear them on domestic flights as well.
Pretty interesting.
We just witnessed Wanya prepare his betel nut and betle leaf. This is their cultural habit
which is similar to us like drinking coffee or smoking cigarettes.
So, when you see a Vedda you can notice that his lips are red and this is the reason why
they have red lips and yellow teeth.
It's so interesting. We just watched them use only a stone and a metal thing here.
And they were able to make a fire out of nothing and I'm having such a hard time.
Oh actually! See that?
Okay, they use an outer skin of a berry,
a rock, and a metal. This helps to ignite the flame and I'll see if I can do it.
Haha he's laughing at me.
They're not impressed yet.
Guys now he's going to show us how to shoot a bow and arrow.
Wow! Nice! Nice one!
Wow! No Problem!
Hey guys, we are now getting a little show of things that they make from local artifacts or natural
trees around the area. This artifact is made from Ebony tree which
is a very expensive tree in Sri Lanka. And so is this ring
This necklace is from the horn of a deer that they've hunted.
So, the least thing that we can do is to support them a little bit.
I really love the look of this and so by supporting these guys we make
sure they can keep pursuing their culture. It is actually a little problem in Sri Lanka
right now is that you know the world is evolving and why should someone stay in this culture when
there are many other opportunities? So, by bringing tourism in, we're also
supporting them by keeping the culture alive. Which is really cool and important.
Okay guys now it's starting to rain but we have been invited to their house to
have some typical Vedda dinner.
Guys, we have now been invited into
a local home of a Vedda family. They are living in a self-built clay hut
It's a combination of clay in the walls, wood, and straw as a ceiling material.
It's pouring down outside but still somehow, it's still really warm and comfortable in here.
It's really nice how they prepared food for us.
I haven't had an experience anything like this before.
To be a guest here is very, very meaningful and I wish
a lot of people can experience this too. What I love about the dishes that they
prepared for us is not only it's healthy but it's also fulling.
Hello, you guys we are now in a jeep,
exploring the Dunkeld Estate. It's like everything is so picturesque.
We want to stop in a lot of places to take photos.
I'm just in awe! Breathing fresh air, we don't get to do that as often now.
Guys this place is just amazing!
I see a photo everywhere! I just want to jump out of the car and just shoot photos everywhere!
Okay guys, we have made it down to the Dunkeld tea plantation.
We're going to go in here now and get a tour of the plantation.
And how is everything processed before it goes to the grocery stores.
So, the first process once the tea leaves are plucked,
the women goes to the weighing scale and check how many kilos they've plucked for the day.
So, this process that they're doing right now is a quality check where
they need to find the bad leaves. They don't want leaves like these,
in this color. They want this one.
The women are done with the process. They've been plucking the leaf, weighing it.
Now the factory takes over, and we're going inside to experience the withering process.
Hello guys, welcome to the factory and let me introduce to you
Mr. Bernard. He is the tea expert here and Mr. Bernard, what is this process called?
Yeah, this is the first step in our process after harvesting leaves.
Now what happens here is, we call it withering.
Basically, it's a kind of wilting operation. Where we like to remove about
55 percent of the water from the leaves.
So that the leaves become flexible and subtle and flaccid so that we can twist the leaves,
bring out all the juices without it running down the drain like water.
Okay, now we are entering the rolling area. It smells
so good in here you guys. I wish you could smell it.
After withering the leaves, we need to twist the leaves and rupture all the cells, then we want to
bring out the juices and we want to break it up into smaller pieces that give us our grades.
This is the machine that does it. This machine is called a tea roller.
We have been using this machine for over 100 years to make our tea.
So, this machine has measures here. With preferences sizes we use to match
the demand of the market. Then when the leaves go over this,
the smaller pieces go through this mesh. Then the pieces that go through
will give us our grades. So, what happens here is we collect
the finer pieces of that machine, we spread it here in about 3 inches thick, for it to further
ferment and develop until it is ready to give the right tea that the market wants from us.
From rolling to fermentation in the other room we have lost about
85 percent of the moisture from the leaves. Now when the fermentation is ready to deliver
that right tea what we want to do here is we want to stop the fermentation.
Seal the goodness in the tea and reduce the moisture to about 2 percent or less.
So, all in all the total process will take about how many hours or days
to make a really good tea?
The good tea depends on the quality of the leaves you pick. Number 1, on the climate.
The climate has a big effect on what the final production is going to taste like.
And also, how well you conduct your processing operation.
You can spoil it there also. So, we got to monitor the whole operation.
That's how we taste teas! Like tasting wine.
Yeah, right? It's like wine tasting. Why do you do that kind of sound?
Good question. Our tongue has different zones.
Sweet at the tip, salt, sour and bitterness at the back.
When we take the liquid, we like to suck air through our teeth, atomize the liquid and spray it
all over our pallet at the inside of our mouth and identify the different character of the tea.
But why don't you swallow the tea? Why do you spit it out?
If you are a real tea taster like I was at Forbes I would taste 300 cups of tea a day.
Oh, okay, that makes sense.
And with that guys, we are going to end the travel vlog right here.
Really hope you enjoyed the vlog and that it gave you some inspiration into what
you can do in Sri Lanka. So, we are very happy and we
hope to be back on a future occasion, guys thank you so much for watching the
video. Don't forget to subscribe! And we will see you guys on the next trave vlog!
Bye!