Central Highlands of Sri Lanka, UNESCO World Heritage Site in Sri Lanka.
The Central Highlands of Sri Lanka is a mountain region in the heart of the island, covering three protected areas: Peak Wilderness, Horton Plains National Park, and Knuckles Conservation Forest, together listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The terrain is made up of steep, forested ridges and valleys covered in submontane and montane rain forest.
Before tea arrived in the mid-1800s, the hills were covered in coffee grown by British planters, but a fungal disease wiped out the crop and forced a shift to tea. That change brought Tamil workers from South India to the region, and their descendants still live and work on many plantations today.
Tea farming shapes the look of the hills, where workers move along rows of low bushes on terraced slopes that cover much of the land. Small processing factories sit near the fields, and visitors can often smell the drying leaves from a distance.
The months from December to February tend to offer the clearest conditions at higher elevations, making that period the most practical for walking and nature watching. For trails inside the protected forest areas, hiring a local guide is strongly recommended since paths can disappear quickly in mist or dense vegetation.
The forests here are considered botanical remnants of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, which is why some plant species growing in these mountains have close relatives in South America and Africa rather than in nearby Asian countries. This link becomes tangible when you walk through the dense forest and encounter plants that do not appear anywhere else on the island.
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