Ella - Kandy - Anuradhapura

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Ella

The trip to Ella is slow, vehicles do not travel fast, tooting and overtaking constantly, but really only travelling at 60km at best. Oh, except the buses of course, they blast past everything at high speed rattling along the road. We left the coast line and wound up around the ridge of the green hills into Ella hillside town, with steep inclines and no road side barriers. We saw them pulling up the hill a mangled truck cab where the driver had gone off the road the day before. Apparently he lived, but his truck did not.

We hit the accommodation jackpot with Misty Hills View Hotel, we found a brand new guest house, open a month, that was scoring top reviews and we found a really cheap deal. We stayed 4 nights and only on one other night was there another room booked. It will take them a while to get known by all the drivers; the most common method of transport for tourists in Sri Lanka, and the drivers take their tourists to the hotels that give them the best bed and food for free. They were so obliging with dinner to our room first night, cooked what we wanted or breakfast, took us to the doctors twice, to the waterfalls, to Little Adams Peak walk, and when we left the manager took us to the station. As you are not allowed on the platform without a ticket, he brought a ticket so he could come in and make sure we got on the train ok.

We had stunning views of Ella Rock and Adams Peak from our deck and you could see the homes and terraced vegetable plots on the side of the hills. The bed was so comfortable and had gel pillows. Never heard of them myself, but getting me some when I get back home.

The little village is 10 minute walk uphill and has shops, roti shops, local vegetable market and some restaurants. In Ella you visit waterfalls, walk up the Ella Rock and Adams Peak, attend cooking lessons and visit tea plantations and factory. They grow vegetables in Ella on the hills which get exported to Middle East, so many trucks coming and going loaded with vegetables.

So we spend the days walking, or should I say puffing, up the 300 steps to Adams rock for aview of tea plantations, and explore the small village, passing the tea pickers carrying their sacks filled with leaves and visit the water fall. Ella Rock is much bigger than Little Adams Peak and we read in blogs, 4 hour walk up and some have seen leaches and snakes, so we pack our water and head off. Yeah right!

We take a tour of a tea factory and learn how they make tea leaves, the tea pickers get a couple of dollars per day only for picking the leaves by hand. The factory needs very few staff and the process is very quick to turn leaves into the dried tea leaves that we recognise. The tour guide takes 4 of us around the factory and machinery barefoot.

The next day we attend a cooking lesson to learn how to cook dahl and vegetable curries, we cook 25 servings of 9 curries with another couple, pretty tasteless curries, but Carl got the basics that’s the main thing. My favourite was cucumber curry.

We take the train from Ella to Kandy, it’s one of the top train rides in the world as it goes around the top of the hills rather than through the valley. It took 6 hours to travel 160 kms and we loved every minute of it. The views were amazing passing views of tea plantations and pickers, vegetable crops, towns; there was always something to look at. I made a quick video of the ride to give people an idea of the views if they are thinking of taking then ride. The train was an old red rattler, we had the VIP observation carriage and it was fantastic, I hung out the open window nearly the whole ride, locals sat on the door step and one boy was swinging from the door. At one stage we were riding through the clouds!

Kandy

We arrived in Kandy, walked around the lake which is in town, visited Helga’s Folly, walked round the town, had a look at the tooth temple. Kandy has lots of fresh bakeries.

We were told that on Monday it was a public holiday for Sri Lanka’s Poson Full Moon annual Buddhist Festival, celebrating the date that Buddhism was brought to Sri Lanka from India over 2000 years ago. So as we walked around the temple we watched bus loads of people dressed in white arrive in preparation of the festival. So we decide to leave on Monday and hired a driver to take us to the Ancient City in Anuradhapura. As we are driving we pass a school parade, and outside school children are waving down cars with flags and giving out free herbal drinks. The roads are so busy with tuks tuks piled with families, canopy trucks with people packed in the back, some sitting on armchairs, and the road was packed with buses and vans. Where are they all going we asked? “To the Ancient City”. Oh, apparently the festival, was not today but tomorrow and 1/2 million people all go the Anuradhapura for a week of celebration visiting the temples in the Ancient City – exactly where we were planning to do!



Anuradhapura

Well it was great fun, we hired a tuk tuk to take us around the Ancient City for 4 hours and visited the temples and sites with the ½ a million Sri Lankans. The roads were grid locked as we went from site to site, but this tuk tuk driver was so cheeky he just went on the inside of every one, up the side of banks, rode on the footpath tooting for people to get out of the way. Anything to get past. The people were all camped out in the open spaces (the Ancient City is a few kilometres in size and is a mix of ruins and restored temples). The businesses provide free food on the streets, so there were queues and queues of people everywhere waiting for free food, like ice cream, drink, fried rice, rice and curry, etc. I have never seen so many people packed into vehicles, like some tuk tuks had 8 people in them. Trucks had people lying and sitting on each other and vans and buses were just packed full – no such thing as a seat to yourself. Stalls were setup selling children blow up toys which they would hang from the inside of the truck canopy roofs. The Ancient City ruins and temples were fine, but the highlight was being able to experience the mass of people coming together and the tuk tuk ride was awesome.

Before we left for the day of site seeing Carl as nagging me about what I was wearing, women had to dress modestly in the temples, past the knees and elbows. Ok ok, I will take a sarong and wrap it around my arms if Ihave to. So when we get to a temple, the driver asks me if I have a sarong. Oh, I think, the Sri Lankan ladies have short sleeves? But anyway I get it out and he takes it from me and wraps it around Carls waist!! Ha ha so funny! His shorts were not past the knees.



Willpattu National Park

We arrive at Big Camp Safari outside the National Park Willpattu in a big jeep with picture theatre type seats and get taken through the trees to our canvas tent (with ensuite of course) where we will spend the night. Now, I was not really looking forward to this to be honest, I love camping but in New Zealand the only scary thing is - is there enough time in the middle of the night to get to the toilet block before you pee your pants. We had read reviews that say it’s not for you if you don’t like creepy crawlies. Well I don’t. “Is there poisonous snakes”, “yes just make sure you shake your clothes out before you put them on”, “Oh, and a couple of elephants came out of the park two weeks ago and crushed tent 9”. He showed us the hoof marks, still there!

Our jeep took us on a Safari into the park for 4 hours, there was not much around, but we were very lucky we got to see mongoose, monitor lizards, elephant, bear, deer, water buffalo. You are lucky if you get to see bear or elephant. On the way out of the park, an elephant was walking down the path in front of us. You have to be very careful as they can stampede, so we had to follow for 30 minutes way behind, about 6 jeeps ended up backed up, until it walked off the path, that was cool, but like it was only 300 meters from the entrance. Could it walk out and crush my tent?

What amazed me the most were the terminate houses, termites are like the size of large ants but they build these big mud homes like in a month. The big holes are where the bears and monitor lizards go in and eat them.

We drive back in the dark, ping ping ping, gulp, whoops, better shut that mouth! Insects fly into our faces at 60km. We arrive to amazing setting in a grass clearing at the camp where they had setup two chairs and coffee table and a dinner table with all the trimmings, e.g. table cloth and candles, looked very elegant, the area was lit by fire torches, there was a BBQ and a Chef in his white attire and hat cooking us dinner. There was an open fire in the middle and we sat around drinking our chilled beer and were then served a three course meal – it was awesome.

That night we got to listen to rain on the canvas roof and the loudest thunder claps above that I have ever heard and watch the tent light up from the lightning strikes. We have been lucky it is not the mosquito season so we did not have that issue at the camp and the only annoying creepy-crawlies were big ants. We got to shower with the frogs, but they are ok. It was a great experience, but I was pleased to leave the tent and ants behind.

We hired a driver and head to Trincomalee. We have booked a room right on Trincomalee beach with a deck and view of the beach. Yippee a beach.

Info for travellers below

Accommodation

Ella – Misty Hills View Hotel – Booking.com - $NZ65.00

http://mistyhillsella.com/

Agoda had this advertised as $85 but we got this deal on booking.com. It was an amazing room and worth much more than what we paid. It was only one month old, and had very few people staying, so reason for low price. The bed was so comfortable, had a kitchen with microwave, great deck and stunning views. Bathroom was ginormous as was the room, plenty of dressers and room for bags etc. It’s an uphill walk or 10 minutes but we enjoyed the exercise. We really loved Ella, its green, hilly, lovely people, and the Chill Bar was great place to relax, the staff were so friendly. Its nice place to walk around.

Kandy – Café Aroma Inn – Agoda - NZ$65.00

http://cafearomainn.com/

Nice knew modern place in Kandy, room had very thing you needed and was clean. Cafe downstairs, great breakfast included, and really good latte. Right in middle of town, like 3 minutes to lake and tooth temple. Only issue was I stupidly ordered steak and could not physically chew it. There excuse was its local beef! There is a bar across the road but bad reviews. Behind tooth temple is a good roof top bar slightly chilled its good place and food was fine.

Anuradhapura – Montana Guest House – Agoda - NZ$45.00

http://www.montanarest.com/montana.php

This was ok, clean, small rooms, sheets did not fit, nothing around, so ate there every night. Rice and curry yummy but western food not so good. To be fair it is our cheapest room we have had in Sri Lanka so don’t have anything to compare it with, we have been paying 6500 and this was 4500.

Willpattu National Park - Big Camp Safari – Agoda – NZ$220

https://biggamecampswilpattu.bookings.lk/

Very professional, food was fantastic, we got breakfast and dinner included. Tent was fine, had flushing toilet, shower, but did not like the big ants so pleased to spend very little time in the tent that was not under a mosquito net.

We apparently were lucky with the animals we saw, but there were very few, like we saw 2 elephants and 1 bear, not like a herd. They say to do the entire national park where you also get to see a leopard, is 2 days Safari. Also no birds, they had migrated. BUT on the plus NO mosquito at this time of year.



Transport

Mirissa to Ella driver, AC, NZ$100 – 4 hours

Train trip in Observation carriage was NZ$10 from Ella to Kandy, 6 hours, about 130 kms. Then NZ$7 or 700r to get tuk tuk into Kandy.

Kandy to Anuradhapura driver was NZ$85, small car and no AC. Hotel quote was 95 so we got our room cleaner to ring place on net quoting 65 but then it went up to 95. Hotel found out we did not want AC and happy for very small car so there price reduced to 80.

Anuradhapura to Trincomalee driver was NZ$100, 2 hours’ drive although same distance and Ella to Kandy. Montana Guest House referred us to a driver, he took us around Ancient City in tuk tuk, for 6000 NZ$60.00 for 4 hours.

Our original plan was to take the train back into Colombo and then back out to each place, its cheap but it takes all day, so we decided to hire drivers when we need them.

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