Ceylon, or Sri Lanka as it is now known, has been regarded as a top tea producer ever since the plant was introduced by the British in colonial days past. Kieran Nash booked a third-class train ticket and ventured from the coast to the hill country of central Sri Lanka, sampling the finest leaves the country had to offer.

This journey starts on the east coast, in a small beachside town called Arugam Bay. As always, I’m accompanied by my girlfriend Jacqui, and from the roadside, we hail a black-and-green tuk-tuk which putters its way from the coast to the main bus depot in Monaragala, about an a hour and a half away. The slow journey flies past, as the driver recounts his stories of the brutal civil war which ripped Sri Lanka apart for almost three decades. Ending in just 2009, it killed thousands and closed the east coast to all but the most intrepid travellers. Our driver had family and friends who died in the fighting, which was between the Sri Lankan military and the separatist Tamil Tigers. Today, the shadows of the war remain – machine-gun toting soldiers are everywhere.

We roll up to the hot, dusty bus depot and, after much confusion, manage to board the correct bus. The crusty old Leyland is loaded, and as we thread higher and higher into the hills, the road narrows to a treacherous black ribbon. It then starts to drizzle, the slippery road driving my heart into my mouth at every tight turn. A few hours of this white-knuckle ride and the bus spews us onto the roadside at Ella – not much more than a few shops, a narrow road, and some of the most breathtaking views in central Sri Lanka.

It’s raining lightly, more of a heavy fog than anything, and the verdant slopes that surround us disappear into the mist. Taking shelter in a roadside cafe, a madman approaches. He could be anything from 40 to 90 years old, and he staggers toward us, leaning heavily on his cane, a tangled white shock of hair draping his lined face. Through a smashed-up mouth of blackened teeth, he offers to show us a nice place to stay. He seems trustworthy enough, and we turn off the road and up a slippery clay track into the bush to Ravina’s place – a small, hand-built homestay perched on the side of the hill. It’s amazingly tranquil and we spend a leisurely afternoon amid the mountains and monkeys drinking tea that would put the finest hotels to shame.

That evening, Ravina cooks us a gigantic curry dinner and tries to marry Jacqui off to her eldest son. The next morning, we’re up at sunrise walk to the summit of Little Adam’s Peak, the most accessible of Ella’s many walking tracks. Among them are Adam’s Peak (2243m) and Ella Rock (1350m). It’s an easy climb through verdant tea plantations as the breathtaking scale of the mountainous wilderness unfurls below. We reach the summit and are blown around by the hearty winds, then make the descent for breakfast.

On the way back down, we pass tea ladies on their way to work, who were more than happy to pose for a picture for a fee, which supplements their meagre incomes.

After a sambal breakfast, we bid farewell to Ravina and arrived at the 1950s-era train station for the next leg of the trip. They were fresh out of first-class tickets, so we do the sensible thing and travel in third. Clambering into the rust-coloured machine, we squeeze into the only available spot, which of course is next to the toilet. It’s also next to the doorway and so while the lav provides an olfactory assault, the open doorway is a visual feast.

Over the next three hours, the hills roll on forever: vivid green tea bushes punctuated by the pinks and reds of the tea pickers. Inside the cabin, we’re ogled by slack-jawed children as cheery men sell piping-hot roasted peanuts in squares of old graph paper. The blue ink of math homework shows through from the other side. Standing up for three hours gets tiresome, and when the train trundles to a halt at Nuwara Eliya I’m pleased.

Cruising through the city, past clipped hedges and cricket matches, it’s apparent that the city’s heritage is unmistakably British. This place screams colonialism. And nothing says colonial like the Grand Hotel, a mock Tudor mansion plonked in the middle of grounds of manicured lawns, fountains and rose gardens. As we arrive, bar staff on the front lawn mix drinks in time to the Macarena pulling us back to, if not the present, then the very recent past. But we’re not here to sip cocktails, we’re here to drink some of the finest tea in the world. So, we summon a tuk-tuk driver, who promptly drives us up the nearest hill he can find and looks on as we wander aimlessly through the shrubs.

After clearing up some confusion, he eventually takes us to Pedro Estate, a plantation established in 1885 which produces what it calls the “Champagne of Sri Lanka tea”. Guests are welcome to wind their way through the steep, slopes of the plantation, the vivid green tea bushes offset with larger, silver-trunked rubber trees. Then we make our way past a motley crew of solid women with large cane baskets filled with the deep green tips, and into the old mustard-coloured factory, led by guide Sangitha.

Struggling to both understand Sangitha and make our way through the factory at the same time, we do our best to understand how tea is made. The old building is filled with long drying racks, where the leaves are dried and withered to create a more complex mix of chemicals in the tea. It then opens to a large hangar-like room, which smells of freshly cut grass. It’s here the leaves are rolled, fermented and cut. A conveyor belt takes the tea up to the grading room, where it is sorted into big, medium, fine or super fine. The size of the tea leaf contributes toward the taste and colour – the larger the bits of leaf, the lighter the tea. Large-leaf tea is called Pekoe, medium-sized is called Broken Orange Pekoe, fine leaves are BOPF (Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings) and are dark, and used for English breakfast tea. The really fine tea dust goes into teabags.

I was told long ago that teabag tea is made from the sweepings from the floor? “No, no, that’s not teabag tea!” cries Sangitha. There are no different varieties of tea plant, she says. “The tea plant is the same all over the world. The elevation is different otherwise it’s the same tea.” After sipping on more tea, it’s time to head back to the Grand for a absolutely massive buffet dinner in a huge dining room bereft of any patrons, save for some Saudi tourists in full burkas.

The next morning, we bid farewell to the quaint colonial town, and opt to take a taxi to Colombo. The six-hour drive costs $160. The driver, Raja, complains the whole way about the corruption in government. He’s not happy that he can be pulled over and threatened that he will lose his license – and his livelihood – by a corrupt cop that he has to bribe.

After a six-hour lecture in government malpractice, we depart the cab and Galle Face Hotel, another colonial throwback perched right on the beach. Hundreds of multi-coloured kites wait for the sky to turn black with rain, and as the rain pours, we relax over a drink. I’ll have mine with a dash of milk, please.

This article was originally published in May 2013.

HOW TO GET THERE

It’s a four-hour flight from Singapore to Colombo. From there, it’s a six-hour cab drive to Nuwara Eliya. Ella is a three-hour train ride from Nuwara Eliya.

WHERE TO STAY

In Ella, Ravina’s is the place to go – she may even marry you off. Ask locals around town where it is. In Nuwara Eliya, live it up at the Grand Hotel. www.tangerinehotels.com/thegrandhotel

Some Japanese ski towns are so overrun they’re called ‘Kuta Beach on Ice’. Kieran Nash steers clear, and heads to unspoilt Myoko Kogen for some uninterrupted runs.

It’s below freezing outside, but I’m sweating.

Rushing past well-dressed Tokyo commuters, I run to the platform of the Aoyama-Itchome subway station. On cue, trains going in opposite directions screech to a halt, and streams of suit-clad salary men burst from the doors.

Which way to go? I haven’t had enough time to get acquainted with Tokyo’s tangled subway network. I pick a train and stumble into the carriage just as the doors whoosh to a close. I look at the map. It’s the wrong train and it’s carrying me further from my destination. I now have 20 minutes to catch the Nagano bullet train, which will carry me from the mad metropolis of Tokyo to the isolated, snowy meadows of Myoko Kogen, a ski field about 220km northwest.

30 minutes later, I’m running through the gate to where the bullet trains depart. My increasingly angry girlfriend Jacqui follows closely. The 20kg packs we’re both carrying aren’t helping the mood, or the mobility. The train’s long gone, so that’s a 7500 yen (S$100) ticket down the drain. Or so we think – the next train arrives and we can use our old tickets.

Urban jungle gives way to rural residential in a 260km/h blur, and two hours later we’re in Nagano, home of the 1998 Winter Olympics. There’s no time to waste, and five minutes later we’re on another train, which winds its way north at an easier pace, threading upwards through the snow-draped mountains which look as they’ve been blasted with freshly-mixed meringue.

The small town of Myoko is a ten-minute drive from the resort of Akakura Kanko, which is our final destination. The van stops at a gathering of small, four-storey hotels opposite a gondola, and we haul our packs to the reception area of Hotel MOC.

We’re greeted by Sachiko Mochizuki, the lady of the house, and her small dog Tokyo. Her English is impeccable, and we’re handed the keys to our room, a hybrid Japanese/Western creation, which is about four times larger than our not tiny Tokyo hotel room, with heater blasting and four cushions placed on a rattan-clothed floor, on which stands a low table in traditional Japanese style.

The bathroom houses a magic toilet, which greets me with a cheerful, expectant beep each time I duck inside, raising the lid in an inviting gesture. But there’s no time to admire the strange Japanese technology. The sun is out and there’s snow on the mountain. It’s time to sample some powder.

Jacqui and I cross the road, scale a small hill, and we’re at the gondola. But first, we have to hire some gear. It’s a five-minute traipse to Myoko Snowsports, where we rent our gear. Melbourne photographer Matt Hull, who is here in Myoko Kogen for his fourth season, fills us in. The 31-year-old says Myoko Kogen is far removed from the “Kuta Beach on Ice” which Niseko – the famous ski town on the northern island of Hokkaido is rumoured to be. “Myoko is still somewhat of a hidden gem in Japan, although we are seeing more and more western guests coming through our doors we seems to be attracting the right type of people, guests who are here for a cultural experience as well as a ski holiday. Myoko is not known for its nightlife and has limited establishments to cater for the party-going traveller.” It’s all well and good that it offers a more authentic experience than the resorts further north, but people who come here care about one thing only – deep powder. Just how much is there? “During the peak season (from the end of December through to late February) we get a lot of storm cycles, with a typical cycle dumping down a lot of snow in one night, anywhere from 40 cm up to 120cm and then the storm breaking for a sunny day afterwards.

“Powder-wise, during peak times it’s as light as they come. It’s not unusual to have a bow wave of snow around your waist when riding down one of the designated ungroomed runs, so face masks are a must!”

We’ll see that for ourselves soon enough.

Shelling out 2000 yen (S$25) for an afternoon’s riding, we board the gondola and smoothly careen up the mountain. This side is split between two sides – Akakura Kanko and Akakura Onsen.

The sun is in its final death throes of the day by the time we reach the top, and the view from the top is gasp-inducingly beautiful. A peach hue coats the meringue snow, and the usually monochrome treeline of the opposite mountain is cast in a golden glow. And the snow? It’s deep, and there’s plenty of it. The runs are wide, fast, and even though it’s the afternoon, there are still pockets of untouched powder to smash into dust. There’s not a rock or a patch of ice to be seen. Crowds are non-existent. Even though it’s peak season, it’s not uncommon to look about and not see  a soul.

As the sun sets, we weave our way through the wide meadows and easy tree runs, and we eventually arrive back at the hotel.

Those accustomed to winter sports will understand the need for a shower after a few hours on the slopes, and we are no different. There’s only one problem – our room doesn’t have a shower. That leaves only the onsen, which presents a few cultural difficulties of its own.

An onsen is a Japanese hot spring, and Myoko Kogen has an abundance. These springs are piped directly to most the inns in the town, and Hotel MOC is no exception.

Unfortunately (depending on your modesty levels), Japanese custom dictates that anyone who enters an onsen must do so without a scrap of clothing. People with tattoos aren’t allowed, because traditionally the only Japanese with tattoos were members of the Yakuza organised crime gangs. Times are very slowly changing, and some onsens will let in foreigners who have ink. I don my yukata bathrobe, and descend to the basement. Opening the door to the men’s onsen, I step inside a small changing room and get in the nude. A sliding door opens to the room which houses the bath. Here’s a disclaimer: I’m not a big team sports guy, so getting butt naked with a bunch of strangers isn’t the most natural thing in the world for me. Added to the apprehension are a couple of tattoos on my person. I don’t know whether I’ll be run out of the place if I try my luck, but what choice do I have?

The door opens in a billow of steam. A couple of Japanese guys and some Swiss tourists are drinking warm Asahis and chatting away. Conversation stops as I sit down at the small shower and scrub the sweat off. Are they offended by my tattoos? I have no idea. They don’t tell me to leave, however, and I ease myself into the scorching bathwater. I feel like a lobster, but try to mask it with my best impression of serene relaxation.

I stay in there as long as I can physically handle – about 15 minutes – and when I get out for a cold shower, the room starts to fade to black.

Luckily I pull myself together enough to rinse off and get back into my yukata before floating back up to the room on a hazy cloud of pure tranquility. It’s as if I have been flattened by a giant rolling pin.

Over the next five days, Jacqui and I settle into something of a routine. Wake early for breakfast. Up the gondola and chairlifts, down to the foot of the mountain. Repeat. Lunch. More snow. Hotel. Onsen. Dinner (usually consisting of giant bowls of udon noodles). Bed.

The day before we’re due to leave, Jacqui and I arrive at the gondola half an hour early and there’s already a line. It’s been snowing hard all night, the bloated flakes coating everything in sight in a layer about two feet deep.

We’re in the third gondola up, behind a group of middle-aged Japanese skiers who have time-travelled straight from the 80’s. Their excitement is infectious. Going as high as we can, we emerge. I have been eyeing up a certain black run all week – a steep, wide run flanked by trees but carved into large moguls, which are hell on any snowboarder. Today, though, the moguls are buried deep, and I’m the first on this particular run. Floating both on and through the incredibly light powder, at each turn a wave of snow explodes into smoke, turning my black jacket white. The famed Japanese powder surely lives up to the cliché of “it has to be seen to be believed.”

By the time the trail has run its course, I’m sweating. It’s freezing outside, but I’m no longer in any rush at all.

This article was originally published in May 2013.

HOW TO GET THERE

Fly to Tokyo, and catch the Nagano Shinkansen (bullet train) to Nagano. From there, it’s a 40 minute train to Myoko Kogen. Once in Myoko Kogen, get a taxi or hotel transfer to the resort.

WHERE TO STAY

Hotel MOC is a great, family-run hotel about one minute’s walk from the gondola. The $75 per person fee is quite reasonable for Japan, and it includes breakfast. www.hotelmoc.com

Myanmar: the name generates a flood of emotions. After spending just six days there, I hardly know where to begin. Culturally, as ancient as many European countries, Myanmar was a failed British colony, which achieved brief democracy before darkness descended in 1962. It became an international pariah for 40 years and perhaps the living embodiment of Orwell’s 1984, and finally it has become a modern Lazarus as its government turns 180 degrees and marches out of its self-imposed isolation. Myanmar definitely perches on the precipice of a new future.

Change now occurs almost daily. Two years ago Ang San Suu Ki was in jail. This year she’s a member of parliament and leader of the opposition. Last year, Yahoo! and many other internet sites were blocked, and you couldn’t get a visa at the airport. This week they’re not and you can. At the moment you can only change pristine US dollars for Kyat (pronounced “chat”) – in maybe a few months you’ll be able to change anything anywhere, or use a credit card. Trade sanctions are all but gone, and journalists are tolerated. And next year – who knows?

But there is one thing I hope will never change, and will draw you back again – the warmth and openness of its extraordinary people.

Visiting Myanmar is a little more of a challenge than some other Southeast Asian countries. It’s best to engage a Myanmar tourist agent directly, if only to get the internal flights arranged. But once you get used to the delays in emails, the organization is flawless. And on the ground, everything happened for us like clockwork.

We probably spent too long in the capital Yangon and too little up-country. Yangon, or Rangoon as the British re-named it, is fascinating but is not a relaxing place in the heat of the day, even though motorcycles are banned and the traffic is relatively moderate. Ancient Victorian buildings, resplendent with washing hung from windows, trees growing from the plasterwork and satellite dishes sprouting from roofs, slowly crumble into the decrepit city streets. Almost every downtown footpath turns into a market, full of fruit and vegetables and street food, stalls where you can buy a phone call on a land-line, or purchase clothes, flowers, jade or plastic toys. There are even street lawyers with ancient pre-war typewriters, who for a few thousand Kyat will advise you on a legal problem and then type a petition while you wait.

The major hotels are more than comfortable. The Savoy is an old-world bastion of colonial charm, but we chose to stay in the Traders – a monolith of dim lounges and comfortable rooms where most of the business travelers stay. Here the buzz of new opportunities was palpable – the lounge was full of multicultural meetings between Burmese dressed in the traditional longyi (a kind of traditional sarong) and Europeans in ties, smiling and gesticulating over the inevitable cups of tea.

Two attractions stand out in Yangon: the Shwedagon Pagoda and the Bogyoke Aun Sang markets. In a country of pagodas and temples, Shwedagon is the Uluru of Myanmar. Tourists here are outnumbered by the Myanmar, who visit as a matter of course to marvel, meditate and pray amongst its 70 pagodas. We were approached many times by locals, tourist guides and monks wanting to engage us in conversation and proudly show off the country’s crown jewel. Almost no-one is reticent about being photographed.

Bogyoke markets are only a few blocks from the Traders, and are stuffed full of the best Myanmar crafts, clothes, food, gems and jewelry. It’s hot, but I have never experienced such polite haggling.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want any fake glass gems or deep fried crickets or tours around Yangon.

“Oh, okay, thank you sir. Please tell me where are you from, and I must apologise for my poor English”.

When it comes to “up-country”, there are two essential visits – the ancient plains of Bagan, and extraordinary Lake Inle. Starting around 400AD, the Pagan civilization began building temples and stupas on the plains at Bagan next to the Irrawaddy river. Construction reached a peak in 1100-1300 AD, and there are now some 2200 stupas there, about 50 times more than at Angkor in Cambodia. Our guide was a veritable scholar of all things Buddhist, and we came to understand that in Myanmar, life and Buddhism are one. We saw the plains at sunset from the top of the Minyeingon temple, walked through quiet farming villages and fields of peanuts and sesame plants, visited lacquer workshops, and enjoyed Myanmar curries from the decking at the Thiripyitsaya Sanctuary Resort, overlooking the placid Irrawaddy. Bagan embodies the calm and beauty of Burma, but I have no idea how this area will cope with the vastly expanded tourist numbers that are sure to come.

At Lake Inle, one day and night was definitely not enough. We flew into Heho early in the morning, and were greeted by our wonderful guide, Daw May Lai. She ushered us into a minivan and we drove to the lake (about an hour from the airport), with appropriate stops at a village market and Buddhist monastery. The three of us then transferred to a traditional long boat and motored across the lake’s mirrored surface for 20 minutes to the Myanmar Treasure Resort. This beautiful accommodation steps out over the lake in a series of bungalows. There is no air conditioning, but at an elevation of 3000 feet, Inle is much cooler than the plains.

Our remarkable day began with a boat trip past the famous Lake Inle fishermen rowing canoes in the traditional way – with one oar attached to one leg. We glided between the floating gardens – long rows of tomatoes and other vegetables floating in soil supported by woven water hyacinth, and tended by gardeners in canoes. We visited villages built over the lake on stilts, and toured up and down the “streets” as though we were in some ancient version of Venice.

The highlight was the invitation to visit a local family living in a simple, three-room thatched hut, built on stilts above the water in the fisherman’s village. Here we met the family and many of their relatives, ranging from a 19-day-old baby to a 78-year-old aunt, all gathered for a pre-festival feast that night and to pay respect to the family matriarch, their 84-year-old grandmother. We gave and received gifts, talked about life, ate fermented tea-leaf salad (lahpet) and other delicacies, thereby ruining our hitherto safe food regime.

We will carry a piece of Myanmar with us forever. And as a photographer, I hope I’ll return to more carefully capture the essence of these wonderful people. But for now we’ll follow Myanmar’s fortunes as she bravely moves into the 21st century, and trust that during the changes that must now inevitably occur, the Golden Land will retain the beauty of its people and strength of its culture that we experienced in our brief visit.

A brief (and incomplete) history of Burma

Modern humans have lived in Burma since 1100BC. Buddhism arrived from India in the 2nd century and became a central tenet of Burmese culture to this day. In the 9th century, the Myamah (Burma) peoples from the Kingdom of Nanzhao in China settled and eventually established the Pagan Empire, which crumbled and reinvented itself over the next 10 centuries. Burma suffered and survived British colonisation in 1886 and Japanese invasion in 1942, before becoming a sovereign democratic nation in 1948. In 1962, democracy died when General Ne Win took control in a coup de etat, and led Burma into an impoverished military-controlled communist state. Hope briefly flared after free elections in 1990, won by the party headed by Suu Ki, the daughter of Aung San, the original father of the nation, assassinated by his bodyguard in 1948. However she was arrested and endured almost 20 years under house detention. Then, with little warning, a miracle occurred in 2010. The government released Aung Sang Suu Ki and other political prisoners, rewrote the constitution, held free elections (albeit for a limited number of seats) and embarked on a series of reforms that continue today.

This article was originally published in March 2013.