From Ella we hired a car to take us back to the Colombo Airport. Along the way we passed through Haputale which is on a mountain and has a great view of some tea plantations and the surrounding area. Unfortunately it was a bit too hazy to get the full effect.
Traffic was fairly light because it was a Buddhist holiday. We asked several people about it and they each seemed to have a different name for it. I asked our driver if there were any celebrations or parades and he said no. Unfortunately I found out later that was false and there was something fancy in Colombo with elephants and everything, so we could have gone to that on our last night in Sri Lanka, but we missed it.
Here is the approximate map of our travels. It’s not totally accurate because it is road routes and we took trains twice, but it shows the main points.
One last point about Sri Lanka, the Colombo Airport is located on Canada Friendship Road, so that is a nice mark in favor of the country from my point of view.
We flew from Colombo to New Delhi in about a 3.5 hour flight. India continues our streak of only visiting countries where they drive on the left on this trip.
After going up Little Adam’s Peak the previous Daly we decided to try Ella Rock next. This one is quite a bit further away and more difficult. The weather was similar overcast morning with heavy rain forecast. I found a blog post with instructions on how to do it. First you hike 40 minutes from Ella Railway station to the next station, then walk a bit to before turning onto the path up the mountain. The trail was confusing with lots of branches, not at all like the previous days trail. Luckily the instructions were really good with landmarks and everything and they also warned that some locals will give you false directions to make you lost so you will pay money for a guide.
We decided to take a tuk tuk to the next station instead to get started earlier and hopefully beat the rain. We started walking along the tracks and sure enough a woman told us it was the other way. We ignored her and pressed on. I found the correct side path, although the sign mentioned in the blog had been covered up.
The sign written under the bridge says turn right, but actually you want to turn left.
Nice walk through a tea plantation followed by some long grass, then we found a hut selling refreshments, so this must be the right path.
Then it started to get steeper.
We made it to the first observation point, but there was quite a bit left to climb as you can see behind me.
Finally we made it!
The above picture is of Little Adam’s Peak, where we were yesterday. Then we had to head back down, which wasn’t very easy either, since it was slippery from the rain the previous day.
Termite mound in the tea plantation.
Wo got to the train tracks and decided to walk all the way home. It was pretty fun.
Yanmei met an unfriendly cow.
As we were walking along we came to a restaurant that was only accessible by walking along the tracks, as far as we could see.
We decided to eat there because we were starving from the hike, and it was good timing because it poured rain while we were there, but cleared up fairly quickly.
A little shrine along the tracks. It is very nice walking along the tracks no tuk tuks or honking buses spewing black smoke.
Finally we got back to Ella Rail station.
We climbed up onto the platform and saw this.
Haha.
Very enjoyable day. I’m glad we were able to come here while we are still young enough to do stuff like this. Most people at the top looked like 20s or early 30s.
The afternoon we arrived in Ella I checked the forecast in my weather app. It literally said “torrential rain”. I’ve never seen that before, I’ve seen “heavy rain” or “thunderstorms”, but never “torrential rain”, that’s not good. Also major rain was forecast for the entire time we planned to be here. Oops, we should’ve checked the weather earlier.
The next morning at 8am it was overcast but not raining, with even a bit of blue sky peeking out here and there. We decided to hike up Little Adam’s Peak right after breakfast while the weather held. The trail started quite close to our hotel. There is an Adam’s Peak in another area of Sri Lanka, so this must be named after that one. Anyway it promised to give a nice scenic overview of the city and a good view of Ella Rock, which is the largest mountain here. Supposedly sunrises and sunsets are beautiful from the top. I had considered trying for sunrise, but when I woke up at 5am I could hear it raining, so I figured then sunrise wouldn’t be visible.
The trail is well established and paved for most of the way, and it was full of tourists. Part of it passes through a tea plantation where we could see workers having a break. Yanmei took a picture with some of them.
Ella rock.
Time lapse video of the climb. These don’t seem to turn out well because they are too shaky. At one point there was a guy launching a drone.
Finally we made it to the top.
By the time we came back down it was lunch time and we stopped at the same restaurant where we’d had dinner the previous night. It wasn’t as good, but the previous night we’d been starving from a 6.5 hour train trip with no lunch. While we were having lunch it started raining, although I’d call it moderate rain, not torrential rain. We got back to the hotel and had another surprise, no power. Apparently they have scheduled power outages periodically, and there was no power from 9:30am to 6pm. No power means no WiFi, so that sucked. That is one reason for two wordy blog posts yesterday, we had nothing to do but write since it was raining and there was no Internet.
