Sri Lanka Part 2: Train Rides and Tea

Since the start of my trip planning, I had read a huge number of accounts of the train ride between Kandy and Ella, a small town in the south. The train was supposedly beautiful, cheap, and fun - through mountains and tea hills and small towns. It was one of the things I was most looking forward to about the trip, and we had planned it for Christmas Day. The night before, Megan and I went to the train station in Kandy to see about tickets. The man at the ticket booth told us that all the reservable seats were filled, but we could come at 8 am the next morning to buy a regular ticket for the 8:47 train. As instructed, we dragged ourselves out of bed and down the mountain (through the rain) early the next day, arriving exactly at 8:00 (according to the railway clock). We hopped in line, and when it was our turn, cheerfully asked for two tickets to Ella. The man - the same one we'd spoken to just twelve hours before - looked shocked and shook his head. "No, no trains to Ella today." We reminded him that the night before he'd told us to come in the morning, but he just repeated, "no, no trains." In the end, he suggested we take the train to Nuwara Eliya, then a bus to Bandarawela, and another bus to Ella. While this seemed like an awful lot of transfers, I was determined to get to Ella, and at least ride the train for part of the way down. We waited on the platform amongst a rather lot of other annoyed-looking foreign travelers.

At least it was a pretty place to wait!

 When the train arrived, we were able to get on, but all the seats were already filled - I don't think anyone who boarded in Kandy was able to find a seat. We were all standing in the aisles, as close together as possible, and it was looking like it would be a very uncomfortable four hours on Christmas morning. Fortunately, it seemed a Sri Lankan custom to trade seats on and off, so after only about 30 minutes, a man who was sitting next to us offered us his seat, and most people on the train were happy just to rotate seats - a half hour, and then it's your turn to sit down. The views out the window were worth standing up for too, and even when I did have a seat I spent most of my time at the window.

So much of the trip was through tea plantation!

The best seat in the train was in the door - every doorway was filled with two or three people hanging out of it, where we could admire the scenery, get a little fresh air, and let our feet dangle out - sometimes smacking into bushes and trees.

When Amtrak lets you ride like this (and tickets cost $1), I'll come home.

At one point, almost everyone on the train got out, so we figured it was time for us to get out too. On the platform, though, we realized we were not at the station we intended to be at, so we asked around for Nuwara Eliya, only to be told the train wouldn't go there. We were given different advice by several different people, and finally opted to just get back on the train and see what would happen. Fortunately, a man we were sitting next to could tell we were lost and helped us out. He confirmed that the train wouldn't go to Nuwara Eliya - due to broken train tracks, apparently - but that we could go to a station called Haptuale, and from there take a bus to Bandarawela. We got off in the pouring rain and terrible wind, and made our way to a little tea shop where we warmed up with a few cups of tea, and had a a small, delicious lunch of rotti and curries. Then we made our way to the bus station, to Bandarawela, and finally to Ella, without any further mishaps.

Arriving in the main street of Ella, I thought it was not at all what I'd expected. Wikitravel promised it to be a "beautiful small sleepy town" but actually the street was bustling with tourist bars and restaurants, blinking Christmas lights, and loud music. In my opinion, the busiest town of the trip so far! It was still raining, and had become quite cold as we moved into the hills, so we hopped in a tuk tuk and headed to the guesthouse. We drove away from the main drag, further up into the hills along a winding road, finally spotting the house. It was perched up on the mountainside, rather precariously, and the owners were standing on the porch as though waiting for us. As we got out of the tuk tuk, we noticed a small problem - a large tree had fallen across the path leading up to the house. We waited there while it was cleared, and then made our way up to the house. Unfortunately, we were told that there was no electricity. Actually shivering, we felt in desperate need of a hot shower, so the owners graciously offered to call around and find another place for us to stay. We ended up at a guesthouse much closer to the main road, which was nice but required the climbing of several flights of stone steps - very slippery and muddy in the storm. We checked in, had our hot showers, and promptly lost power there too. Eventually, we decided to head out to the restaurants, where we had a delicious Christmas dinner, and a couple of drinks. We met someone who managed one of the tea plantations, who offered to show us around the plantation and factory the next day, so we arranged to meet him and went home.

The following day, the three of us - Megan, the tea plantation manager, and I - headed up into the hills of tea. There was the most beautiful view from where we were - out over the tea bushes and the town. The rain even stopped for the day, and even though the sun never came out, it still felt like beautiful weather after the days and days of rain!

 We went into the tea factory - most people weren't working because of the rain (the manager told us that most of their houses had been severely damaged, or they couldn't get up the mountain in the bad weather) so it was pretty empty, except a handful of people bustling around.

Piles of tea... just sitting on the floor. Sanitary? Maybe.

Megan was feeling tired, so she decided to head back to the hotel for a nap. I decided to take advantage of the lack of rain and follow one of the many hiking trails from Ella. I settled on climbing Mini Adam's Peak, a relatively easy and short climb, but one that promised more beautiful views of tea fields. There were a handful of other hikers, but not too many, so that it turned out to be a pretty peaceful walk up.

The trail led through forests of pine and palm trees

 It took about 45 minutes to reach the top, moving at a slowish pace to take in all the scenery. The last stretch was up a set of stairs, which were pretty steep and definitely left me out of breath. The view from the top was worth it though:

On a clear day, I think you could see forever, but I love the blueish mountains in the background here

King of the hill

 I returned to town in the afternoon, and Megan and I had scheduled a cooking class with the owner of the guesthouse. It turned out to be less of a class and more of him cooking while we watched, but he did let me cut up the eggplants! The food was delicious - lots of different kinds of curry, spicy potatoes  rice with coconut milk, and poppadoms, fried with curry leaves. Not to mention a salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, and the sweetest pineapples I'd ever tasted!

I had enjoyed Ella, and could have spent a few more sunny days there, but the gloomy weather had both of us feeling ready for our last stop - the beach in the south!