My legs are throbbing. You know that aching, throbbing feeling you get after a long exhausting run, or when you’ve clocked about 6 hours straight on the dance-floor at the bar – that’s the feeling I’ve currently got. But it’s not from drunken dancing or enthusiastic ‘yogging’, it’s from about 4 days of walking through the hill-stations of Sri Lanka.
Although we were sad to see India go, we couldn’t help but notice how easy life was in Sri Lanka in comparison. Everything was as it should be, everyone was helpful and happy, and we could see the sky – it was BLUE! We had arrived on Poya, a monthly religious-based full-moon holiday which was particularly special this month, and subsequently meant that you couldn’t buy alcohol for 24 hours. While this was almost enough for us to book a direct flight out of Sri Lanka, it was made up for by the fact that we got a free icy-pole on the train from Colombo to Kandy.
HOW GOOD IS SRI LANKA!? FREE ICY POLE!!!
Some friends we knew through our old work were based in Kandy, so they offered to take us out for dinner. Now despite our request for somewhere cheap and local, they picked us up in their leather-lined SUV and drove us to an incredible 4.5 star hotel for virgin pina coladas and a buffet dinner. It was honestly like we’d never seen food before in our lives. Salads, cheese, roasts, pasta, seafood, curries, casseroles, desserts, chocolates… you name it, they had it, and we ate it. And they so generously offered to cover the bill for us, something we will forever be grateful for. Just as we thought we couldn’t love them any more, they also offered for us to use their room at the Nuwara Eliya Golf Club for free accommodation and food when we headed to that part of Sri Lanka in a few days time.
All of our Christmases had come at once.
So our first PROPER day of sight-seeing in Sri Lanka was at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage. I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but it was definitely worth a visit… such fascinating animals to just sit and observe.
The following day we made our way towards Adam’s Peak in a little town called Delhousie. We were like tourist magnets and by the time we arrived we had a young American lad, two smiley German guys and a friendly British woman in tow. Knowing full well that we had a 2am start, 7kms and 6,500 stairs to look forward to the next day, we headed to bed at an appallingly unsociable time of 7:00pm.
Bleary-eyed and feeling highly unmotivated, we staggered out of bed at 1:45am. We grabbed our head-torches, backpacks, and stepped out into the dark. As we trampled along the flat dirt road, we decided that Adam’s Peak wasn’t too bad. We were excited for the sunrise, and spirits were high.
Then the stairs started.
And they didn’t stop.
Not for over an hour and a half of gruelling up. Everything hurt. I was cursing every step with every curse word I could think of. Then I ran out of curse words, so I switched to curse words in other languages. I hated Adam. And I hated his stupid Peak. The only solace was the tiny little dog that followed us the entire way up. But eventually the steps started to plateau, and we’d made it. The light was started to break into the sky, with colours changing every second. We were miles above the clouds with pink, orange and blue hues painting the dawn sky. And every bit of pain was worth it.
We reached the bottom at about 9am, had breakfast and a kip, jumped on the train to Nuwara Eliya and bid farewell to our new friends. Donning dirty clothes, giant backpacks and weary legs, we arrived at the Private Members Only Nuwara Eliya Golf Club. Due to the stock-standard afternoon mountain rain, we watched Mean Girls in our hotel room and ate pasta for the remainder of the day.
Breakfast overlooking the pristine golf course was a wonderful way to kick-start the day. The sun was shining, at least until the afternoon rains rolled in, and it was time to throw on our dirty exercise clothes and trek to “Lovers Leap” waterfall. The waterfall was nothing spectacular, but it did provide us with an adventure trekking through trodden tea-plantations with impressive views of the town. The stormy clouds eventually arrived, so we hot-footed back to the Golf Club to enjoy a bottle of Australian Cabernet Sauvignon and a steak while we played backgammon.
These were our Saturday night’s now. No nightclubs. No bars. It was sitting in a deserted dining room at a prestige Golf Club drinking expensive wine and playing backgammon…
Sadly, it was time to leave the comforts of non-backpacker-life, and we jumped on the train to Ella. The train journey itself weaved through some picturesque valleys and forests, so I secured myself an open doorway position and let my legs dangle freely as we snaked our way through the Sri Lankan mountains.
Our alarm rang at a friendly 4:30am this morning. This would provide us with enough time to trek the short distance from Ella to Little Adam’s Peak in time for the sunrise. “Just follow the signs” the hotel-staff had told us. We walked out of our hotel onto the empty dark streets of Ella to be greeted by a pack of dogs barking and running towards us. Terrified, to say the least, we tried our best to shoo them away. Unsuccessfully, the dogs continued to run around us, barking and growling… We were about to turn around and head back to the hotel. “Hell no!” we thought. “We’re not dealing with an hour of rabid dogs attacking us the whole way!”. But after a few minutes we realised that if they were going to attack us, they would’ve done so by now. So instead we embraced the dogs, walking in a pack together to the top of Little Adam’s Peak.
Now these “signs” that they refer to… they don’t really exist. There’s one tiny sign that says “Mini Adam’s Peak”, and another further along that says “Small Adam’s Peak”. We decided that the safer option was to just follow our pack of dogs, we were sure they knew the way. And they did! Sunrise was stunning. We had the entire place to ourselves… just us and the four dogs. We sat and watched as the light began to shine on the stunning panoramic that surrounded us.
Upon our return to town at 7am, we decided that for the reminder of the morning we should try to conquer Ella Rock – one of the most difficult treks in that particular town. This trek at least didn’t pretend to have signs. The “signs” were the local farmers we’d ask for directions along the way. “Yes, just walk for a few kilometres on the railway tracks and turn left after the bridge” said one farmer. “Just weave your way through the tea plantations to the top of the hill” said another. Then it was just a matter of up. Up and up. Through tall eucalyptus forests, to the sheer edge that is Ella’s Rock.
Sri Lanka has exceeded all expectations. The people have been friendlier than I could ever have hoped (with special shout-out to Lasanda and Ikram). The transport and logistics have been easy and cheap. The scenery has been mindblowing. And we still have over a week left…
To the beach, we go.
allama withabackpack 