The next day was the day of our cooking class! Before we could start at 11 o’clock we had to change hotels. Unfortunately our lodge was already booked out so after a Sri Lankan breakfast (stringhoppers and dhal curry) we moved into our hosts brothers hotel 100 metres up the road.

When we arrived at Ella Spice Garden an old man was sitting outside cutting into some tree trunks. He was working very precisely with a very sharp knife. He explained that he took the first layer of the bark off and the second layer was being dried and used as cinnamon - it was a cinnamon tree. (I thought it was pretty cool - I had never realised that cinnamon was of a tree.)

The course itself lasted for three hours. It was very interesting. We made different kinds of curries (potato curry, dhal curry and garlic curry). Apparently Sri Lanka has more than 50 different kinds of curries.
Chris and I got a bit restless after 1,5 hours of standing in the warm kitchen but the end result was definitely worth it. Everyone was pretty sceptical about the garlic curry as for 8 people we used 160 cloves of garlic (and yes we had to peel and cut them all!)... but it was simply delicious!!
We already googled whether there is a Sri Lankan shop in Perth for us to buy the Sri Lankan curry powders (it varies to the Indian one). We would love to try and make it at home.
After the cooking class we all sat down and enjoyed the food together. It was a great lunch talking to other people and sharing stories.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking and driving around town, soaking up the nice atmosphere.
We even discovered another road that we hadn’t been up before and saw the local ladies bringing back their bags full with tea leaves. They were weighing them on the side of the road before handing them to a small truck.

Feeling like a refreshment we went to a local pub selling draught beer (the only one we have seen so far in Sri Lanka) and played a couple of rounds of UNO. (No need to ask who won... but definitely always good fun! )