Last visit to Bellwood Farm

Surfing the Net some years ago, I came across an advertisement for "Hillside Paradise", a 17-acre property in Galaha, at an elevation of 3,000+ feet. I liked the photos I saw, the price was low, but, when I paid a visit, the road turned out to be probably the worst I had seen in Sri Lanka. In any case, my hands were full with Sri Lankan properties and I told the owner, a Canadian, that I wasn't interested. But I kept the property at the back of my mind.

Hamlin, Fawzia's brother, had been working in the parched sands of the Middle East for nearly 30 years and was keen to return home and become a gentleman farmer. When he agreed to buy the property jointly with me, I made an offer and the owner eventually sold at a ridiculously low price. (He was "fed up" with Sri Lanka.)

The property was the last remnant of a vast tea plantation named Bellwood Estate, which had been parcelled out to landless peasants. Fawzia liked Bellwood. Ever the potential entrepreneur, she wanted to bottle the water from the stream that ran thru the property and market it as "Bellwood Spring Water". (Most bottled water in Sri Lanka come from dug wells.) Bellwood had two houses, and she wanted to renovate the stone house, where an English owner had once resided, and make it her fifth or sixth home (I am losing count here).

She had promised Hamlin to visit Bellwood and spend a night there with Chandra, Hamlin's wife. So, on Thursday January 19th, she met Chandra in Kandy town and traveled to Bellwood by bus. She returned to Hantana the next day, taking a three-wheeler (a"tuk-tuk") along the pot holed, bone jarring short-cut of about 15 kilometers.

These photos were taken by Fawzia.

This is the stone house which Fawzia hoped to renovate and convert into another home.

Her last view of Bellwood Farm. Photo taken from the three-wheeler.

These photos of Hantana Estate were taken on the journey back to Hantana in the three-wheeler. That evening, she couldn't stop talking about Bellwood and Chandra's hospitality.