Indian Adventures: Sri Lanka, 1st stop

So, having packed my parents off safely on the Monday morning, I then had a fun filled week of washing, ironing and cleaning before our next guests arrived on Saturday morning. Again, on the direct flight that gets in at 5am. It actually works quite well as you can head to bed for a few hours then get up and do something and go to bed at a normal time that night.

That afternoon we popped down to the local shops for some provisions so we could have lunch and then headed across the road to Bangalore palace. The following day we had a trip to the botanical gardens followed by a bit of shopping and a late lunch after which we had time for a cup of tea and then Rosamund, Caitlin and I headed to the airport. It took us some time to actually get out of the country (a plane full of Indian women who had clearly never been on a plane before really didn't help), but we eventually arrived in Colombo. We got to our hotel at about 11:30 and then caught the 7am train from Colombo to Kandy, so it's fair to say we didn't see a lot of Colombo!

On reaching Kandy we checked in to our hotel and managed to draw breath over breakfast. Kandy is a city in central Sri Lanka in a valley set around an artificial lake. It is a world heritage site as is was the last capital of the Sinhala Kings and is where the Temple of the Tooth Relic is.

So, we set out for a wander around the town (which is not very big) and a tour of the Temple of the Tooth Relic. The temple/palace complex is pretty extensive and impressive. We didn't go to the palace bit, but they are in the same complex. The temple is said to house the tooth of Buddha, not that you can actually see the tooth as it is housed in seven gold caskets inside one another.

From the temple of the tooth we had a well earned milkshake (possibly the cause of our later ills). Rosamund then headed back to the hotel for a snooze, and Caitlin and I went to investigate the Monkey Forest (or Udawatta Kele Sanctuary). We had a lovely walk for a couple of hours and did indeed see some monkeys, and some huge leaves that looked like crinkle cut crisps, which were quite fun! We then met up again for a traditional Kandyan dance show in the early evening, it even included people walking on hot coals at the end!

Given our late night and early morning we had an early dinner and night back at our hotel. The food was really good, it's a shame that was the only thing going for our hotel really. The room, particularly the bathroom, was pretty dirty and not great. Not much fun when half the party spent a lot of the night using it! I was the only one not to succumb, but I guess my digestive system is a bit more used to things.

A huge lizard just chillin' out at the lake (right next to the main road!)

The temple of the tooth relic

Kandyan dance show

After a morning of recovery time, we headed back to the station and continued on the same line to Nanu Oya, which is the station for Nuwara Eliya, about 20 minutes drive into the hills. Nuwara Eliya is known as Little England and was settled by tea planters. The weather was certainly pretty English when we arrived (WET)! Having spent 6 hours on the train, the ill ones, although now in recovery, were pretty tired. So we had a relaxed evening and an early night. After we had booked up our activities for the next few days that is.

The following day we headed up Single Tree Hill which wasn't far from the hotel and overlooks the town. After a lovely walk we thought we'd just about have time to have a little wander around town and grab some lunch before heading back to the hotel where we had arranged to be picked up for a tour of a tea museum. That didn't go quite to plan as the heavens opened en route, so we stopped in a fancy colonial style hotel for lunch instead. It was very nice, but did mean we never made it into town.

As tea museums go, it was quite a good one. It had a very nice cafe and shop where we were amused by the 10 or so Chinese tourists who were buying up all the tea in the shop - literally, they were packing 2'x3' boxes for them!

Picking tea - or pretending to at any rate!

Lake Gregory and Nuwara Eliya from Single Tree Hill

On the way up Single Tree Hill

The following morning we headed off on our day trip to Horton Plains National Park, one of the reasons to come to Nuwara Eliya. Unfortunately you need to leave at about 5.45am to get the best weather. Still, I'm glad we did, the sunrise on the way up to the park was really stunning. Unfortunately my pictures don't really do it justice. You wind your way up a mountain to get to the park and then, after the entrance gate where there is a little pause to buy tickets, the land opens out to a sort of a grassy plain, which you drive across to get to the car park.

Along with pretty much all other visitors to the park, we set out on the walk to World's End. It is about a 9.5km round trip to the cliff edge and you can loop back via a waterfall at the end rather than heading back the way you came. The walk takes you through a forested area, along a path that looks like it used to be a river bed, which is quite fun and before you get to World's End you first meet Mini World's end, a slightly smaller drop! The path back then opens out a bit into a valley and then through more trees. We even saw some monkeys, they were a bit far away, but we think they were purple faced langurs. The early morning was certainly necessary, the cloud was just starting to roll in when we got to World's End, if we had been half an hour later we wouldn't have seen nearly as much and by the time we finished our walk it was just starting to rain.

Sunrise on the way up to Horton Plains

Mist across the plains

The view from World's End (or maybe the mini one, I can't remember!)

Baker's falls on the return from World's end and a cheeky visitor to the cafe hoping for a snack!

From Horton plains we headed to the closest railway station to pick up our train. We were exceptionally early (about 3 hours) but there wasn't really anything else to do since by then the rain had set in for the day. Everyone thought we were very strange for not getting on the next train and wanting to sit around on the station, but we didn't really have a lot of choice since that's the one our tickets were for and the one that Ben was on. He had arrived on the same time flight as we caught the night before and caught the train from Colombo in the morning. He was certainly quite relived when we joined him and confirmed he had the right train (particularly as he claimed not to know where he was getting off!).

At least we had a bit of entertainment while we waited; the train going the other way spent a long time faffing about picking up some carriages from our station. Since most of the route only has a single track, only splitting into 2 at stations and a few passing places it took a huge amount of to-ing and fro-ing to put the carriages on the train. All in the pouring rain and with a lot of people trying to direct all watched over by the station master, all dressed in his white uniform and nice hat under an umbrella. It was great fun to watch!

Next stop, Ella, which was a lovely little touristy town. Quite different to Nuwara Eliya which had a bit more of a colonial feel to it, Ella has a slightly hippy touristy feel. We spent 3 nights in Ella, 2 full days. The time keeping of Sri Lankan trains is quite similar to Indian trains, so they were all about an hour late, which mean we didn't have time to do that much the evening we arrived.

The first full day we headed up Little Adam's peak. Which is the peak to one side of Ella gap. Ella is positioned at the end of a valley, and from certain places you get a lovely view down the valley. The walk goes through some tea plantations and then up about 100 steps to the peak, if you are feeling fit you can the go along a bit further and down to the next peak along. Quite a lot further and steeper down and then up than it looks!

The train

From Little Adam's peak toward the sea (Ella gap on the right)

On way way back we stopped at a very fancy resort at the top of a ridge, fairly close to the peak, for a well earned beer that turned into lunch to wait out the rain storm that start while we were enjoying our drinks. We finally left thinking the rain had passed. Caitlin, Ben and I headed off to finished the 10km loop which came back along the railway, over 9 arch bridge and through a tunnel back to the station. Rosamund headed straight back to the guest house as the thought of the bridge put her firmly off the idea of joining us. Needless to say, there was only a short pause in the rain and it then tipped it down for the next hour or so and we all got soaked!

No train coming - go go go!

We then spent a happy afternoon pottering about reading, doing a bit of shopping etc. before heading out for dinner.

The following day we had a fairly early start, trying to get another good walk in before the rain started. This time on the other side of the valley we went up Ella Rock, which was really nice. A pretty varied walk involving ~2km along the railway track, the top of a waterfall and then a very steep couple of km to finish with. That day had somewhat better whether and the rain held off, so after a quick pit-stop for lunch we caught the bus down the valley to visit Ravana falls. It was quite an exciting bus journey, but we arrived in one piece, and even managed to get off at the right place! The picture below doesn't really do the falls justice (but I like the monkey); they were huge! If you look really carefully their are people sitting on the rock on the right hand side of the photo.