Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka

One of the greatest British legacies in Sri Lanka is tea cultivation with Ceylon tea often cited as the best in the world, and today we are venturing 6,000 feet above sea level to stay in a restored English mansion on a remote tea plantation in Ambewela.

The reason Ceylon tea is so highly prized is that the women skilfully pluck two leaves and a bud together from the bush with their forefinger and thumb, every time. This method produces a more refined tasting tea as it only collects the very freshest shoots, rather than the more common cutting method we saw in India - and used in other tea-growing countries such as Kenya and parts of China - which is less discriminatory about the leaves picked.

The road from Kandy towards Nuwara Eliya, the heart of Sri Lankan tea country, climbs higher and higher with hairpin bends, spectacular views, cascading waterfalls, pine forests and almost Alpine landscapes that are amongst some of the most beautiful scenery we've ever seen. Tea factories are dotted throughout the landscape with women plucking the buds in the bright, bright sunshine.

Just as we reach the highest spot, 6180 feet above sea level, Kingsley's phone goes and it's his five year old grandson calling to say hello. Kingsley passes me the phone and asks me to say hello as it would be very exciting for his grandson to talk to a foreigner. A brief, rather startled exchange takes place between us before I return the phone to a very happy Kingsley.

We drive down into the valley in which sits the town of Nuwara Eliya, yawning continually as our ears try to equalise the pressure. Either side of the road are allotments where English vegetables are grown; carrots, beetroot, cabbage, leeks, potatoes and big fields of strawberries.

Nuwara Eliya means City of Light in Sinhalese but now bills itself as the green city of Sri Lanka due to all the agriculture. We stop first at the food market where Kingsley insists we take a wander to see all the fruit, veg, meat and fish stalls including some selling a local peculiarity, red bananas.

Coman however has spotted a Victorian building which promotes itself with old-style plaques as a gentleman's outfitter, purveyor of fancy goods, smoker's requisites, fishing tackle and more. A branch of Cargills, a chain of once-British emporiums in Sri Lanka, he figures it will have an interior of colonial splendour. Kingsley, with a confused shrug of the shoulders, leaves us to explore it while he wanders off to get a newspaper and catch up on the political changes underway.

We enter Cargills and it's basically Asda, without a hint of grandeur inside. No wonder Kingsley thought we were mad. It does however have an off-licence so we stock up on wine to avoid the hefty hotel mark ups, and a couple of small bottles of spirits so we can mix the odd cocktail for the beach later on.

Nuwara Eliya is also known as Little England and as we pull up at the Grand Hotel for lunch we can see why. Built in the British style with manicured gardens being prepared for the annual floral display, it has an 18-hole golf course attached and on the road beyond it sit a string of smaller hotels, guest houses and B&B's that wouldn't look out of place in the likes of Torbay. Boasting names such as Ashford, Stamford, Windsor and Somerset they face an overgrown race course and a man-made lake with pleasure boats and pedalloes.

Every April, for the Buddhist new year, Nuwara Eliya comes alive with Sri Lankans enjoying horse races, concerts, car rallies, motorcycle races, flower shows and more. It's a full-on carnival for a month, attracting up to 50,000 revellers and is the only time the raceground is used as, being a Buddhist country, Sri Lanka doesn't allow gambling.

After lunch at the Grand Hotel we continue higher into the mountains, having to stop at one point while a land slip is cleared from the road by a JCB. Within minutes the temperature outside starts dropping and misty clouds cover the landscape while we notice that the local people are now wearing jumpers and coats, and even the monkeys have thicker fur. The heat of the past two weeks has completely vanished.