Bandarawela, Sri Lanka

Video with images of Bandarawella a town in the south of the central hill territory in Sri Lanka. The town is situated at a height of more than one thousand metres. In the first century BC king Valagambahu came to this area to regroup his army in the fight against Indian invaders. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century the area was under control of the last Sinhalese kingdom in Kandy. In the nineteenth century the area became a major economic centre under British control due to the construction of a railroad and the installation of tea plantations. Many British planters came to live in Bandarawella because of the generous climate. In the same period, the British planters imported many Tamil labourers from South India for the work at the tea plantations. The present population is a mixture of Sinhalese and Tamil people. In the area of Bandarawella are various tea plantations on the slopes of the surrounding hills. The plantations were set up in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Some plantations are administered by the local authorities. Other plantations are in private hands. They produce tea for the export to foreign countries. Each day more than one thousand Tamil women are working on the plantations in their colourful sarees. The women pick the tea leaves and put them in a large basket on their back and shoulders. When the basket is full they bring it to the tea factory along a small path. For a long time they worked under bad circumstances for small wages on the plantations. At the end of the previous century their situation became a little better after a general strike. They had civil rights and a small raise in salary. But most of them still live in slums without any medical assistance. About six kilometres to the east of Bandarawella is an old temple near a river hidden between the surrounding hills. This Dowa temple was built in the first century BC by king Valagambahu. On his order a large four metres high image of a standing Buddha was cut out in the rock. The statue was never completed. Presumably because the king had to escape from his enemies through a secret passage. Adjoining the statue is a giant sapu tree supported by a granite slab and fighting for its existence with the statue since the roots of the tree are weakening the structure of the granite statue base.