It’s an Ella-va place!
Captains log: these place name puns are growing tedious and difficult to achieve. Upcoming Udawalawe and Tissamaharama will be the hardest yet. Please God, give me strength.
Day 7 continued: Ella
I ended the last blog whilst travelling from Nuwara Eliya to Ella, and said that the next post would start with us arriving at our homestay. How naive I was to think that nothing would happen in between…
We drew into Ella at 6.45, the sun had set and all was dark. We (Billie) decided we should walk the ten minute walk to our homestay, which is quite a reasonable thing to decide, really. We let Google maps do the directions and set off. Ella is the most tourist heavy place we’ve been to yet. We walked down the high-street past ‘Chill bar’ and ‘Ella 360’ with music blaring out and party-goers going. It was atmospheric and exciting! We walked for about 15 minutes before Google told us to turn up a very steep and narrow hill. We looked at each other, braced ourselves, and agreed to forge forward, with Google suggesting it was only a bit further. We hauled our suitcases up and kept going up and up without sign of the homestay. We reached the apex, sweating profusely in the cool dark, and the homestay was nowhere to be seen. A kind elderly man told us the homestay was down the other side of the hill, across a railway track and then 200 meters to the left. We continued down the hill, Billie not quite ready to call the host, until we eventually reached the railway track. At this point the paths were dirt tracks, not paved, and there wasn’t a lot about. The railway was hard to make out and felt too dangerous to just leap across gaily even though we’d seen the locals do it constantly while we trained along. We gave in and called the host (Ruwan!!) who sent a man for us. 10 minutes later he appeared and led us 30 seconds along the railway and up and even thinner dirt track which eventually led to a paved road. We never would have found it. He popped our suitcases on his moped and led us, expertly (our suitcases are not that small) uphill, the last 5/10 minutes to the homestay. 50 minutes after leaving Ella Station we arrived, finally, at our accommodation. We were offered tea and coffee but we just wanted to shower and grab a beer then dinner in town. So we did! It turns out the walk was only 10 minutes to town, Google Maps just betrayed us horribly. Never again shall we trust it.
Day 8: Mini Adam’s Peak, Ravana Falls & Nine Arch Bridge
We woke up to the sound of an incredibly loud horn and what I thought was a helicopter landing on the roof. It was actually the train signalling to Ella Station, and all the locals walking the tracks, its arrival to town. Billie rushed out to the balcony to be waved at by passengers and wave back while I mumbled incoherently from bed: It was shortly after 5am. The next one came at about 8 for which we both got up. The view was incredible to see by daylight, and the train passing below set the scene beautifully.
We sat on our balcony loungers and chatted and read till our breakfast arrived. We spoke with Ruwan about what we wanted to do and he helped us to organise our two full days in Ella in a way that made sense, which was good. Today we would do ‘Mini Adam’s Peak’ (a shortish hike to amazing views), Ravana Falls (big, ‘swimmable’ waterfall) and Nine Arch Bridge (big old train bridge, Harry Potter style).
Mini Adam’s Peak is only ‘Mini’ because there’s a non-mini Adam’s Peak nearer to Nuwara Eliya which is a very popular hike but you have to start it at 2am and its a 7 hour round trip hike. We’d read about lots of disappointed peak goers so we had avoided it earlier in the trip. Mini Adam’s Peak was high up enough for us with plenty of views. It took about 45 mins to get up, mostly stairs. About an hour of looking around and traversing (fairly hard work) to different peaks/viewpoints while up there and then another 45 mins back down. The views were the best we’d seen yet. Absolutely fantastic and really clear. We could see mountain ranges in the distance that the camera couldn’t pick up.
We then got a Tuk Tuk to Ravana Falls (big Ravana Falls, not Mini Ravana Falls which we could see from our balcony… Why they don’t just give things their own names I don’t know) and found it to be quite crowded! We had brought our swimsuit but saw nobody swimming. There was a line of local men in speedos waiting for what seemed to be a natural shower, but there was a lot of banter and slapping of each other and we thought “screw that”. There was a sign saying 34 people had died trying to climb the Waterfall, slipping and falling. That wasn’t really on the cards anyway, but worked to instil a fear in us. We got to the pool area to find nobody swimming in it but lots of people taking pictures of it and dipping toes in it. We thought that to mean it was too fast moving to bathe in. Anyway, we didn’t want our pale only minutely tanned bodies to be the focus of 25 Chinese tourist cameras. We dipped our feet and returned to town in our Tuk Tuk.
Last on the list was Nine Arch Bridge. We dumped bags, donned flip flops and walked for an hour down the railway track. It’s rather lovely to walk down a railway track… just look down and take it one beam at a time and then whenever you look up, there’s a new view to admire. Some spectacular scenes! There was a little tunnel near the bridge, which was a bit spooky and a touch freaky as there didn’t appear to be room to let the train past. That being said, the tunnel was only 150m long and the train honks with plenty of warning and goes slowly through the tunnel so I think we were safe.
Nine Arch Bridge is beautiful and impressive. There were more tourists than expected, lining a lot of the bridge, some stupidly sitting with their legs dangling over the long death fall, some even stupider standing on the ledge. I cannot abide by this and it makes me feel sick. I have an empathetic phobia of heights as well as my own phobia. I did my best to ignore these reckless people and we found a good spot to enjoy the view. Billie bought and munched down on a corn on the cob from a local while I set up my camera shot for when a train would arrive. We stayed for about 45 minutes, waiting, till about 5.30.
The sun goes down at 6 so we decided, somewhat doleful having not seen a train cross, to head back to avoid a dark railway walk, so we could enjoy the views again.We’d walked back for 5 minutes when we heard the blaring horn of a train announcing itself. The sheer cheek of it! We jumped on a few pallets of wood to the side of the track and got a few snaps anyway.
The walk back was beautiful but otherwise uneventful. We showered and changed before another delicious dinner in town.
Day 9: Ella Rock & cookery class
03.45… My alarm rang and I turned it off immediately. Billie and I both rose bleary eyed and began to pack, in the twilight of the poorly lit room, the few things we’d need for our expedition. Billie donned a raincoat and leggings, and I opted for a jumper and shorts. We had bought pringles, nuts and chocco biccies as snacks. At 04:00 there was a knock on our door and our guide was waiting outside, the same man who had collected us from the railway when we had got lost 2 nights previously. He grunted (kindly) for us to follow, as his English was minimal, and off we set: for the peak of Ella Rock, to arrive at sunrise.
We immediately took to the rail tracks, walking the opposite direction from Nine Arch Bridge. It was well and truly dark and all three of us had our phone torches for light. You might assume a guide would bring a real torch, but he had not. It was like walking through a slightly unwelcome dream. The beam of light showed only the next plank of railway to step on and the planks were not evenly spaced. We walked for about 30 mins before plank world progressed to Level 2, where every other plank was now coloured black, just to screw with our brains a bit more. This abated and after a further 30 minutes we were winding between houses where dogs would bark at us, across bridges over waterfalls we could only hear and through tea plantations starting to graduate uphill. We met three dogs who chose to join our expedition, and so our fellowship grew from 3 to 6. Mount Doom was still but invisible, but in reality loomed over us forebodingly. We began to climb in earnest and I was the weak link. We were pretty high up in the mountains, tired from the early start and I was already fairly sore from previous hiking. My companions were generous in my pleas for breaks, and two of the dogs saw an opportunity to have a quick hump right in front of us while I caught my breath, and so the dream grew stranger.
It wasn’t actually that long before we reached the top, about an hour and 45 mins. By then mist had set in quite firmly, and we were concerned a sunrise would not be visible. We were the second group to arrive, quite a long time before sunrise; we had a wait on our hands. We bundled ourselves into balls against the chill wind and light but consistently wet rain. The mist broke and beautiful stars showed themselves above. A light blue light started to grow above the mountains in the dark sky and a wonderful gradient of colour appeared, with stars crowning it. A few more groups arrived, and then so, heartbreakingly did a cloud. It completely covered Ella Rock and we could hardly see the trees in front of us. It began raining harder and the now 16 or so of us at the peak (19 if we’re counting the pups, maybe more if their previous intimate actions were successful) took cover under a nearby roof. Sunrise came and went and then it was just daytime, really, but even then we couldn’t really see the sky. We took some pics for the sake of it, and down we went.
Typically, as we reached the bottom to begin our railway walk back, there was a torrential downpour and we got soaked to our bones.
We arrived back at the homestay at 08:00. Had a shower and got 30 mins of shut-eye before breakfast arrived. We ate breakfast and then Billie slept a few hours while I failed to. We had booked a cookery class the day before; the best in Ella according to all the raving reviews. We had lunch in town, did a bit of shopping (some exotic short sleeved shirts for me, for safari and the beach) and then it was my turn to nap before the class.
The cookery class was brilliant. The chef fellow was hilarious, he’d been doing it twice a day for 7 years and had the jokes down to a tee. He marked us all individually on our garlic cutting and peeling skills and other tasks. We made garlic curry (using garlic as a veg, a serving for 8 people contains 160 cloves), dhal, potato curry, coconut sambal, rice and papadoms. We had a good bunch of other couples to do it with and all sat down to eat the food after, which was such a good meal. I hope you all like garlic, readers, cos that’s what you’ll be getting in a couple of weeks.
And so came to an end our stay in Ella. It was hike heavy (in a good way) and we had some great food here. We could have easily stayed longer. However, the itinerary is strict and holds no prisoners. Tomorrow we would depart for Udawalawe, a one night flying visit to go on safari, the first for both of us. The next post will be a picture post, with just a couple of short paragraphs of text. It’s all about the animals.