Day 16: 'Ello Ella

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After a breakfast and a second farewell to our Kandy host, we set off on the long long drive to Ella. The car meandered along steep inclines to the mountains in the centre of the island, where we stopped at Ramboda falls, which involved sneaking into the elevator of a hotel built on the cliffside (should have bought a ticket. For a lift. Don’t think so) and walking down to the view point about 10 metres above the bottom of the falls. On we continued before stopping for lunch in Nuwara Eliya, which is coincidentally where our train journey from Ella will end. The town itself is bigger than Ella and will show up first when you start zooming in on google maps. It was a lot cooler and intermittent light showers added a refreshing twist to our walk around. We stopped at a pastry shop and bought a spot of lunch before returning to the car and continuing on.



We arrived at our hotel, “Country House”, on the side of a steep road on the cliff face just outside of Ella. It looked innocuous enough until you step through the door and see the balcony view. We can see the Jurassic Park style jungle scenery across all the monstrous hills around us. After putting our stuff away and marvelling at a shower room that is only slightly smaller than our living room at home, we set off to find Little Adam’s Peak.



The main thing to do in Ella, as you will read more about in tomorrows blog, is hiking. Today we aimed to get to Little Adam’s Peak by sunset, which involved walking into and immediately out of Ella and then off the beaten track getting progressively more challenging, passing a large tea plantation on the way. The end of the trek can either be a windy road or bouldering (obviously bouldering) to the top, where a buddha shrine met us. As it was nearly sunset, there were a lot of travellers (the biggest gathering of white people we had seen to date.) sitting and having photos. One girl in particular decided that this was the perfect time to do her whole portfolio on the rocks below us, which was particularly amusing. The sunset itself is impressive, and we left almost immediately afterwards, to not risk the long walk down in the dark.



We reached the town at dusk and walked up the strip (yeah it’s a strip, restaurants and flashing lights on either side of the road all the way up) until we arrived at Matey’s hut, which trip advisor says has the best food in the town. People seem to agree as there were 3 couples waiting outside before us. So we set off back down to find something more immediate. We ate at “Different Corner” which was about half way down opposite a supermarket. Meg had a vegetable five curry, which was 5 mini portions of vegetable curry with a lump of rice in the centre. I had Chicken Lump rice, which was a lump of rice (…) with a chicken thigh topped, surrounded by small portions of curried vegetables and some pickled beetroot, which I don’t normally like but it worked very well with the piece itself. It was gorgeous but couldn’t quite dislodge our first night meal at the top of the food chart. Full up and very content, we set sights for home, as we had a big big day ahead of us tomorrow.



Steps: 17,500

Bites: 28

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