Tag: Travel

Posted on

Ella Rock, Sri Lanka

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.

David

Posted on

Ella, Sri Lanka

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.

David

Posted on

The most beautiful train ride in the world?

Feb 27, 2018, Ella, Sri Lanka, Rain on and off, Tuesday

Yesterday, we took 6.5 hour train to Ella from Kandy because it is considered the most beautiful train ride in the world. David preferred to take a taxi but I insisted. However, I realized I made a wrong decision when I saw so many travelers waiting on the platform. Luckily David survived, but was not squeezed to a piece of paper. We were separated by crowd of people to different cars for whole trip. I was worried a lot about him as he never experienced this in his life and he was taking a giant luggage and 2 big bottles of water, the worst thing is he does not know how to be aggressive to survive in this situation. However, just after 1.5 hours, he sent me a text message and told me being looked at as a senior people has some benefit: a local young guy gave his seat to him, later I knew this guy stood for more than one hour before getting off. This is not the first time I feel how nice the local people are.

Before finding a seat, I talked with a couple of young Chinese travelers. It was very nice to know how younger Chinese think about the world and their life. I added them as friends on my WeChat later. One girl who is from Shanghai and thinking about studying overseas for her Masters degree is traveling with her boyfriend. She has to take 3 hours to arrive her office and another 3 hours back to home, which surprised me. But I can tell she is an independent, open minded girl. Another girl is from Yiwu, where there is the world famous small goods wholesale market in the South of China. She is doing some kind of export business. She told me many Chinese wholesalers got deceived by foreign buyers, that shocked me too. I asked why, she told me they are desperate to get the business as there is too much competition.

To be honest, 6.5 hours train is very very long. Since so many people squeezed into the car, white, Asian, local, old young, baby…we are physically very close and mentally bored. What we could do? At that moment, I suddenly thought of a reality show called Big Brother. People are put into a big house and see what will happen.

I not only interacted with Chinese people, I talked a little bit with a senior guy from Holland. He has done business internationally and he still got some cultural shocks in Asian countries in his trip. I asked what they are and he only told me people are so poor in Vietnam…apparently he has some concern to talk about Sri Lanka. Finally I got a seat after 12 o’clock. After sitting down, a local woman sat face to face to me and she smiled at me a lot. I saw her beautiful dress and a gold decoration between her two eyebrows. I smiled at her back and told her it is very beautiful and she seemed understand and bobbled her head. I asked her if the gold decoration made her hurt. I do not know if she understood me. She just made a friendly smile and bobbled her head again. Another woman smiled at me too and she told me her family is in Ella and later when I went to restroom, she agreed to take care of my seat without hesitation. Later, a baby girl who looks like only a few months, was passed to the beautiful dress lady who was sitting face to face to me. The girl has a pair of big eyes, so bright, as big as her nose, full of curiosity. She looked at me and another white guy standing near us. She is so cute and the white guy started to smile and blinking his eyes to her and she seemed very excited and burst into laughter and jumps. She was so cute. I thought about taking a picture of her but I did not feel right. It seemed the white guy and the young girl understand each other so well just with facial expression. They made us happy too. The guy suddenly took his cellphone out and showed that to the girl, it was the selfie mode, the girl reached to see the cellphone and she saw herself, her eyes became super big with surprise…that made people around her burst into laughter.

At times, I felt not only in our car, at another side of the car, some local girls are singing with somebody playing drums. Whenever our train passed a tunnel, people, I think mostly local, cheered and made echos, then some foreign travelers follow as well. It was so fun, of course we have seen the beautiful water fall and tea gardens too. However, the international interaction is the best part for me, at moments, I felt we are the same, even thought our skin colors are different, the squeezed train brought us together and made us closer. I would call it happy international train ride, but not the most beautiful train ride in the world, but it is a kind of beauty when you see the smiles, laughs, and interaction in this train. At times, I felt it is not worthwhile to stand 6.5 hours for this train ride and the view was not that beautiful at all, but at the end, in the sense of human interaction, I believe this is one of the most beautiful train rides in this world.

Yanmei