Itinérances...: SRI LANKA

Kandy, le temple de la Dent du Bouddha.

Kandy

Appelée localement Udarata, elle fut la capitale de l'île de 1592 jusqu'au début du XIX e siècle. La ville de 160.000 habitants est arrosée par la rivière Mahawelî.

Prise par les Portugais au XVIe siècle puis par les Hollandais au XVIIe, elle fut soumise par les Britanniques en 1815. Elle a conservé sa fonction de capitale religieuse du Sri Lanka et reste une ville de pèlerinage pour les adeptes du bouddhisme theravada.

SRI LANKA

Capitale : Colombo

Population : 20 millions d'habitants
Superficie : 65 600 km carrés
Situé dans l'océan Indien et séparé de l'Inde par le détroit de Palk, large de 30 km.
Deux langues officielles, le cingalais et le tamoul
Culmine à 2524m au mont Pidurutalagala .
Acquiert son indépendance du Royaume-Uni le 4 février 1948

Ceylon under foreign rulers, 1505-1947

The Portuguese in Ceylon (1505-1658)

By 1500, the Portuguese had begun their penetration of the Indian Ocean. In 1505 a Portuguese fleet commanded by Lourenço de Almeida was blown into Colombo by adverse winds. Almeida received a friendly audience from the king of Kotte, Vira Parakrama Bahu, and was favourably impressed with the commercial and strategic value of the island. The Portuguese soon returned and established a regular and formal contact with Kotte. In 1518, they were permitted to build a fort at Colombo and were given trading concessions.

Dutch Rule in Ceylon (1658-1796)

Though the Dutch East India Company first controlled only the coastal lands, the Dutch gradually pushed inland, occupying considerable territory in southern, southwestern, and western Ceylon. In 1665, they expanded to the east coast, and thus controlled most of the cinnamon growing- lands and the points of exit and entry in the island.

Cinnamon, the most lucrative product derived by the Dutch from Ceylon, was collected at little or no cost and fetched high prices in European and Asian markets. The peeling of cinnamon was the obligatory duty of the chalia caste, which was sent into the woods by Dutch and native officials to obtain the required quantity of the spice. Similarly, another caste was used to supply elephants, also a valuable commodity of trade.

The British in Ceylon (1796-1900)

The British East India Company's conquest of Ceylon occurred during the wars of the French Revolution. When the Netherlands came under French control, the British began to move into Ceylon from their base in India. The Dutch, after a half-hearted resistance, surrendered the island in 1796. The British had thought the conquest temporary and they administered the island from Madras, but the war with France revealed Ceylon's strategic value and persuaded the British to make their hold on the island permanent. In 1802 Ceylon was made a Crown Colony and, by the Treaty of Amiens with France, British possession of maritime Ceylon was confirmed.

The growth of the tea industry

In the seventeenth century, tea gained a direct route to England through the East India Company, when tea drinking became a way of life in England and its colonies, which included parts of the USA. In the 1890's, Sir Thomas Lipton, a scottish businessman and millionaire came to Sri Lanka and made business deals with James Taylor. Lipton's company purchased tea from Sri Lanka and distributed it through Europe and the USA. Tea became Sri Lanka's main commercial export crop in 1870 and the entire local economy shifted to tea.

The British constructed a significant road and railway system in the country to facilitate the plantations and in 1971, eighty per cent of tea estates in Sri Lanka were owned and managed by the British. In 1971, the Sri Lanka government introduced a land reform act giving the state majority control of plantations and leaving 1/3 in private hands. Since 1990, a restructuring program is in progress to involve private sector companies, both Sri Lankan and foreign as managing agents of state-owned plantations. The long term aim is for private managing companies to take on most if not all of the financial responsibility and control of plantations while the government retains ownership.

Bord de mer à Dodandua,

En route pour l'école

Bord de mer, Dodandua, sur la côte sud-ouest

early evening on the beach in Dodandua

                                                                a street in Galle


                         Musée National de la Marine à Galle

Maquette de l'Avondster

L'Avondster était un bateau d'origine anglaise d'environ 250 à 260 tonnes et de 30 à 40m de long. Il fut capturé par les hollandais en 1653 pendant la première guerre anglo-hollandaise.

Le 2 juillet 1659, il s'échouait dans le port de Galle (côte sud-ouest) et faisait naufrage. Le bateau était chargé de noix d'arec à destination de l'Inde.

La fouille de l'épave de l'Avondster débuta en 2001

Poteries Chinoises de la dynastie des Qing (1644-1911) extraites d'épaves.

L'amiral Zheng He (1371-1434 environ)

Il était entré comme eunuque au gynécée du prince de Yan, le futur empereur Yongle, à Pékin. Nommé à des postes militaires importants, il est placé à la tête des sept expéditions maritimes ayant pour but de faire reconnaître la puissance et le prestige de l'empire des Ming en Asie du Sud-Est et dans l'océan Indien et qui auront lieu entre 1405 et 1433, sous les règnes de Yongle (1403-1424) et de Xuande (1425-1435). C'est en vue de ces lointaines expéditions maritimes et de la construction d'une flotte de haute mer que sont plantés en 1391 plus de 50 millions d'arbres dans la région de Nankin. Grâce à ces expéditions qui comprenaient plusieurs dizaines de très grandes jonques transportant plus de 20 000 hommes à chaque voyage, la Chine acquit un très grand prestige dans toutes les mers de l'Asie orientale, dans les îles et les péninsules du Sud-Est et dans l'océan Indien.

Au cours de son deuxième voyage entre 1407 et 1409, sa flotte fera escale à Calicut et Cochin ( côtes occidentales de l'Inde du Sud)) et Ceylan. Dans ces trois lieux, Zheng He qui mourut au cours de son septième voyage fait dresser des stèles qui proclament la reconnaissance par les royaumes de Calicut, Cochin et Ceylan de liens diplomatiques avec l'empire des Ming. Il remonta la mer Rouge jusqu'en Égypte et descendit les côtes africaines jusqu'au Mozambique. À la différence des Portugais, les voyage d'exploration entrepris par les Chinois ne débouchèrent pas sur une entreprise d'expansion outre-mer. L'autre expédition chinoise lointaine a été Le Voyage en Occident du moine Xuanzang pour rapporter d'Inde les textes bouddhiques

Stèle du XV e siècle découverte à Galle en 1911. Dédiée à un dieu Tamoul, au Bouddha et à Allah, elle est gravée d'un texte en cingalais, en Tamoul et en chinois. (Musée National de la Marine à Galle)

Most renowned of Yongle emperor's many ocean admirals was the Muslim eunuch Zheng He who led grand armadas on seven great voyages between 1405 and 1433.

He was born into a prominent Mongol family during the last years in which the Mongols ruled China.When Yunnan, the last Mongol hold in China, was overthrown, Zheng was captured, castrated , and sent into the army of the newly established Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Rising rapidly through the army ranks, he soon became an influential court eunuch. In 1405, the emperor commissioned Zheng head of a fleet of 62 giant ships to extend Chinese influence throughout the Indian Ocean. Returning in 1407, Zheng made six more voyages in the ensuing 24 years, visiting no fewer than 37 countries, some as far away as the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea , and the east coast of Africa almost as far south as Zanzibar.


*cannelle, clou de girofle, muscade, cardamome, poivre ...*

Bateaux de pêche à Dodandua

la criée à Dodandua

pêcheur

épave laissée par le tsunami à 300m du rivage

Nimanthika et Aloka

dîner au Nimal's guesthouse à Dodandua

Cueilleuses de thé Tamoules, région de Kandy

The origins of tea

The origins of tea is shrouded in folklore and is as fascinating as the beverage itself. Tea was first discovered in China during the reign of the Chinese emperor Shen Nong. According to legend, this emperor always insisted on boiling water for drinking purposes and one day a few leaves from a nearby camellia bush blew into the pot of water he was boiling, giving it an unusual color and a delicious taste. The emperor was delighted with this new brew which he also found to be rejuvenating, and so, tea was born. The exact date when this was discovered is not known but it is said to have been between 2737 and 2690 BC.

In the eighth century, LuYu published "Ch'a Ching", which was a sort of tea production manual. By then, tea was a popular beverage and Yu's work brought uniformity to how tea should be cultivated, manufactured and brewed. The botanical name for tea is"Camellia Sinensis"

From China, tea growing spread to Japan, India and Sri Lanka, then known as "Ceylon". The tea first planted in this country originated from Assam (India). Today, tea is grown in other parts of the world including Africa. Ceylon tea, as the tea from Sri Lanka is called is renowned the world over and greatly sought for its rich aroma and flavour.

bus pour Uduwela

sur la route Uduwela / Kandy

environs de Haputale

dans le train Haputale / Ella

plantations de thé, région de Ella

betel chewing lady in Ella

Jour de marché à Ella

Environs de Ella

pont ferroviaire à neuf arches entre Ella et Badulla


The rise of Ceylon's tea plantations over the grave of the coffee industry in 1869, followed years of experimental planting. The first tea seeds and young tea plants were brought to the island from the Botanical Gardens in Calcutta en 1839. James Taylor of Loolecondera, considered as the father of the tea industry in Ceylon, first planted tea commercially in 1867, two years before the coffee blight. It was fortunate that the tea grew well, for many coffee pioneers were able to turn the death of the coffee plantations into the birth of an even greater and enduring industry, "Tea". The first shipment of tea in 1872, five years later, was only two small packs containing twenty three pounds valued at 58 Rupees, a drop in the ocean, compared to the 324 million kilograms, which the country exported last year. Today, Sri Lanka has the distinction of conducting the largest tea auction in the world which has been in operation since 1883.