India
Sri Lanka
England Sri LankaAdukkupar8°40’10” N 81°12’35” E 29. januar 2020, Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C
It was about 1am when today started. I was up with my torch on in bed trying to kill mosquitos that had managed to sneak through the holes in our net - much to the displeasure of Tom who I’d woken up with the ruckus. Feeling like he’d had a full night sleep, Tom asked what time it was. “It’s only bloody 1am” he cried back in disbelief. He now had the task of getting back to sleep whilst my Mosquito swatting operation was in fill swing. However, surprisingly we both fell back to sleep pretty quickly and slept through till 745, woke up and had our free breakfast which was the same as yesterday, with the addition of a cup of tea. Great way to start another day in paradise!
You can probably guess what we did first thing...read our books on the sun loungers and then went for a nice dip in the sea. We repeated this for a few hours and it was bliss. The weather was perfect and again we had the beach to ourselves. A few blissful hours had passed and we decided to go for a walk up the beach, Tom made a slight detour to get some baked food whilst I sat and looked out over the sea and went for a swim. He very kindly picked up some baked goods for me after I missed out on the bakery man last night...a nice little surprise when Tom returned to the beach. We ate our food and then continued to walk further along the beach, dodging the thousands of crabs on the sand beneath us. After walking to the end of the beach we walked all the way back to our hotel, getting quite hot by the time we got back so we jumped in the sea to cool down. A bit more chill time followed and then we went to get showered, ready and made our way to get dinner.
Tonight we thought we would drive a bit further north the a town with a bridge we’d been to the previous to get food at a local place, already having done a price check the previous night. It wasn’t a glamorous place, next to a pretty station and with cows seemingly guarding our Tuktuk, but the guy running it was really friendly. We both had fried rice with “gravy” and oh my god it was so good! The gravy was essentially curry sauce and it was amazing, we even asked for seconds of the sauce as we got through it so quickly! After food we made our way to the bridge and sat and watched the sunset over the river, it was a great sunset again tonight! After the sun had set we went back and had another chilled evening at the beach and in our cabana reading our book and watching some documentaries - super chilled day!Les mer
Sri LankaAdukkupar8°40’9” N 81°12’35” E 28. januar 2020, Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C
We had decided last night that we were going to get up for sunrise, and that we’d enjoy a lie in within the walls of our beach cabana. I had an amazing night sleep with only the sound of crashing waves to put me to sleep. Breakfast was included at this place and started from 7:30. I went out a bit earlier and left Tom asleep to go watch the ocean on the daybed...what a way to wake yourself up. At 8am we both went for breakfast, and as it was only £5 a night each, we weren’t expecting much. It turned out to be a right spread with Jam, bread, eggs, banana pancake and a roti, all topped off with freshly squeezed papaya juice all of which was delicious!!
We came up with a plan for the day over breakfast. We would head to Nilaveli village and try and get on a boat to Pigeon Island - a national park 1 kilometre off the coast which had some decent snorkelling. We had read that it shouldn’t really cost too much - £8 per boat regardless of numbers of passengers and an undisclosed entrance fee. We turned up at the beach and were heading for the government office when we were descended on by about 10 men offering boat trips etc and throwing prices at us. There was no way we were going to take the first offer and certainly not going to the national park without an official ticket from the office. However, when we got there the office was shut and various locals were trying their best at impersonating official park staff - no Oscars were going to be won today. We were told that the office would open soon, but it was after 9am so we smelt a rat, as this office should be open early morning. One of the boat men had offered us a ‘deal’ of 11,000 rupees (£45) which we just thought was ridiculous. We waited around for a bit with Tom going for a swim until we decided that we’d call it a day. On our way off the beach, the same boat man approached us and we started to barter the price down and managed to get it down to 7,000...still too much for us for a snorkelling trip, so we headed off back to our place to chill out on the beach.
We got back to our resort, that we practically had all to ourselves including the beach loungers and hammocks and we knew that wherever we went next, the chances of it being this peaceful and relaxing we’re slim...so we decided to just enjoy the tranquility whilst we had it and just chill out after what had been a hectic few weeks on the road. We set up camp on the beach, each taking a sun lounger directly in the sun and a daybed in the shade and would switch around depending on how hot we were, both getting into our books and the frequent dip in the sea. It was paradise, thank god we didn’t listen to people recommending for us to skip this place as it was “out of season”.
A few hours had passed and Tom started to feel a little hungry, so he decided to venture away from the beach to get himself a Kottu. I didn’t want any food so this would be the first time for Tom driving the TukTuk alone! He found a Kottu for take away for 200 rupees, brought it back and ate it on the beach...which made me have immediate food envy. After Tom finished his food we chilled out some more, read our books and (you guessed it) played more silly games in the sea. After a little while we both decided to go and get showered and ready to go and get some food, upon going back to the room. Whilst I was showering, Tom found the two 5litre bottles of water unopened in the hut...he was confused by this as I had refilled our bottles this morning. We both looked at each other and the look of regret on my face meant it could have only one explanation...I had filled our bottles of water up with the other 5 litre bottle of shower water we were using to wash our feet before entering the hut... what a silly move! As we had been drinking it all day and were both fine, we saw the funny side of it...but we still awaited the dodgy stomachs!
After getting our outdoor showers we got ready and walked along the beach to find somewhere for me to get Kottu. Along the way we were stopped by a few groups of cheeky kids, one of them even asking if they could have Toms’ ‘slippers’, his bracelet and then some rupees...piss off kid! We got to the local place and I ordered my veggie Kottu, and before it arrived I heard the music from the bread man getting closer and closer...Tom jumped out of his seat and ran outside to coincide with him as we had missed him the previous night. On his way outside Tom asked me if I wanted anything, I said yes with a nod looking forward to whatever came back. Unfortunately it seemed Tom didn’t hear or see me say yes or nod. So he came back with just baked stuff for him! I even sent him a load of messages to ensure I got something, but Tom was obviously not looking at his phone. We agreed that from now on we would just assume that the other person wanted something so they didn’t miss out on the best baked food ever!
However, it wasn’t all bad news for me, as on the walk back to our place we stopped at various little shops (more like front rooms) for snacks and ended up having a feast back at the place all for around 120 rupees. Bargain! We saved some of the snacks to watch another film in bed and listen to the sound of the ocean as we fell to sleep.Les mer
Sri LankaAdukkupar8°40’8” N 81°12’36” E 27. januar 2020, Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
I woke up at 5:45 and it was beginning to get light outside. We had heard that at sunrise you can go and watch the local fishermen bring in their catch. They are obviously up much earlier than us. I rose Tom and we headed to Kalkudah beach where the sun was beginning to rise. We stood on the old Kalkudah Jetty, built by the British in 1901, and watched as a fisherman came to shore. We didn’t think he’d been successful as his pile of netting looked empty, but as he and all his mates on the beach began to unravel the net there were loads of fish in there! It was pretty cool to see all the locals pitch in and it seemed that they all took a share of the catch. We headed back to our ‘Inn on the Bay’ to pack up our stuff as we thought it best to get going as the drive north to Nilaveli was about 120km.
We hit the road via the petrol station for some fuel and oil for Greta and some veggie roti, other baked goods and 5 bananas for the price of 4 for us. The weather was perfect, wall to wall sunshine which made for easy motoring. After nearly three hours of driving we got to Marble beach, still 30km from Nilaveli, as we had been recommended this beach by the guy who ran the hostel in Sigiriya. It was 30 rupees each to get in and it was a nice beach...small low breakers and you could walk out miles. We chilled here for a bit and enjoyed the waves, messing around as usual trying to kick and punch holes in the breakers...such kids. On the way back to the Tuktuk, I noticed a big monkey running around. We immediately realised that we hadn’t put the sides down on the Tuktuk again! Then I realised that I still had a banana left which I put on the back shelf...safe to say that was long gone - the cheeky monkeys!!
Anyway, we hopped back in for the last bit of the journey and we eventually got to Nilaveli. The maps.me app took us a weird route so it seemed our accommodation was miles from the road, but it actually wasn’t. When we got to the aptly named ‘Nilaveli Sand Life’, it was like paradise. Sand roads, palm trees, little beach huts and a place where it felt there was a no shoe policy. We were shown to our beach cabana, right on the beach front and we could hear the waves crashing. It had an outside shower, a small wooden table and chairs and best of all, a hammock for the full beach vibe. We both immediately relaxed and I went to set myself up on the beach with my book. Tom did the same in the hammock and we spent a couple of hours just taking a break from the dirty smelly part of travelling.
After a few hours we both got ready and headed out for some food. On the way for food, we got stopped by the police. I was driving, so got my licence ready. They looked impressed that we had the right documents and asked us where we were from etc and asked if we liked Sri Lanka - of course we said yes...they were armed. They gave my licence back and we parted with a handshake - another nice encounter with police who seemed happy that western people haven’t been put off coming to Sri Lanka after the trouble last year.
We were a few kilometres from Nilaveli town so we hopped in the Tuktuk and set off in search of food. Not too far in we found this little place, N.K. Family Restaurant. It was a tiny little place, but the prices were good and we were hungry, obviously we ordered veggie rice and curry. It came and I can honestly say it was the best tasting food I’d had since my send off dinner by the Beck Bottom Gang. Everything was so tasty!!! We finished up and the lady took our plates away and then immediately said the cost to us...she wasn’t being rude though as there is quite a big language barrier here in the north and the people are very different to other parts of Sri Lanka. We paid and went on the hunt for a little bakery to satisfy our sweet tooth. Whilst we were having dinner we saw the bakery man go last playing his tune, so we started investigating with locals which way he had gone. We ended up not finding him but instead finding a brilliant sunset on a bridge...the randomness of travelling never gets old. We ended up getting some stuff from the local shop instead and then came back to our beach for a long walk and a chill on the daybeds. What a long day it had seemed, but we were now set for 4 nights at Nilaveli Sand Life to have a recharge.Les mer
Sri LankaPassikudah7°55’20” N 81°34’7” E
26. januar 2020, Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
We woke up for an 8 o’clock breakfast, an assortment of baked goods, a simple breakfast but a free one! We were getting our things together and suddenly we were joined by five cats! Two adults, two young cats and a tiny kitten. I enticed them further into the room, but the little posse didn’t come much closer. We paid up for the night (after awkwardly disputing the cost) and made our way to Kalkudah in the TukTuk.
We had decided to not take the B502 road (which was famous for elephants) to Kalkudah as it was massively out of our way and we had seen an elephant on the road yesterday anyway. Tom drove today and we got there in good time, arriving at our place ‘Inn on the Bay’ just before midday. Naturally, we dumped our bags and made our way straight to the sea! We were a 5 minute walk either side from two different beaches, either Kalkudah beach or Pasikuda beach. We decided to check out Pasikuda beach for a few hours first. It was a beautiful, a long stretch of beach full of local people and a few fishing boats scattered along the shore. We found a spot and chilled out for little while before heading over to Kalkudah beach. There was no litter on this beach and the water was gorgeous here, plus we had the beach all to ourselves. We did our usual by playing around in the waves for a little while as a few locals looked on in amusement (or so we hoped).
We made our way back to the hotel made use of the outdoor shower and then went in hunt of food. We had been warned that the east coast was pretty dead as it was out of season, so a lot of restaurants would be closed...we found this out first hand after we drove around the local area and couldn’t find anything open or at least any local food place that were charging reasonable prices. We decided to drive into the bigger towns nearby in hunt of the local places because whether it is in season or not for tourists, the local have to eat! We drove to a small town and our logic paid off, we pulled into a very local looking place, and when I say local I mean plastic table and chairs, no menu and lots of local people sat around enjoying their food. Tom got out the TukTuk and asked the guy how much for Kottu, he said 250...I assumed that this was a western price he was charging but as it was much better than the other places near our hotel we accepted and sat down at the plastic tables as they cooked our Kottus fresh (with the loudest Kottu making yet)! The food came and it was delicious and the spice was killing me today, I think I went a bit overboard with the chilli! When it came to paying the man actually only charged us 125 each, so half the price he quoted! I presume he had reduced the price from the western price and actually accepted local price from us... finally an honest man in the north!
Before heading back to our hotel we went on the hunt for something sweet and it wasn’t long before we rocked up to a place that was pinned on maps.me as “the Muslim Place”, that had a jam packed bakery section that had Tom and I drooling! We ordered a bag full of sweet baked goods and were happy now to head back! We thought we would enjoy our sweet food outside as we could hear the ocean but there were lots of bugs so we settled for under the mosquito net in bed with a film on!
Midway through the film (Bridesmaids of course) we heard a scratching noise on the roof, coming from what we thought was a bird or a monkey. To our surprise we then saw four little footprints on the canopy that was draped just beneath the ceiling held up at each end by some string... what the hell was this about to join us in the room!? It slowly walked closer and closer to the wall until we could see, it was a rat! It then went from the canopy, tightrope walked across the string that was holding it up to the other side of the wall and back out... relieved that it didn’t join us in the room but hey it was still a god damn rat, albeit quite a clean looking one. We thought we had seen the last of it so got back into our film but then another scratching noise about 20 minutes later was followed by the rat running across the top of the wall much quicker than last time - Tom and I were in stitches at the acrobatic/tight roping rat and finally got to sleep, it was like some sort of guessing game whether we would wake up with company in the bed!!Les mer
Sri LankaMinneriya8°2’26” N 80°54’26” E
25. januar 2020, Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C
I slept amazingly with the air con set at a perfect 23°C. Tom on the other hand didn’t, he said that he woke up in the middle of the night freezing cold, as his bed was situated directly underneath the air conditioning that was blasting away....he even had to switch it off for a little while to allow himself to warm up. I woke him up by tickling his feet as it was getting warm due to the air con being off because of the now familiar power cuts. We got up brushed our teeth, ended up brushing for about 15 minutes as there was only one bathroom and it was in use. We checked out said goodbyes to people in the hostel and hit the road, stopping the Tuktuk “bread man” (who was playing a different tune this morning) for a sweet pastry filled with jam for 30rupee to eat on our way to Polonnaruwa. On the drive we saw our first wild elephant on the road that we stopped for a minute for as we weren’t sure how to handle the situation and then slowly drove past him with no problems. We got to our guesthouse in Polonnaruwa at around 10:45 but we’re allowed to check into our room straight away. We ended up having a “deluxe villa” that had 3 double beds in it...not sure how but it was for the same price as a double room so we weren’t complaining. We chilled for a while and tried to get a plan of action for the day as we didn’t really want to pay the £20 to enter the ancient sites and we had heard that there was a large section of the area that we could enter for free.
We got in our TukTuk and headed to the archeological centre where there were some ruins just behind for free. They were quite cool and were from nearly 1000 years ago, as was the reservoir next to the town. We walked around this part for a bit and some local lads wanted a selfie with us, so we obliged. We heard of a back entrance where you could gain access to the park, so we headed a few kilometres north and wiggled round before finding the secret entrance. It wasn’t really for vehicles, but we went down anyway trying our luck. Eventually we got to a massive puddle, and turned the Tuktuk into a temporary boat and we were in!!! Immediately we were on edge...we had no idea if there would be ticket checks or not. We headed to a couple of the big monuments, the second of which a monkey was banging on the roof scaring eveyone inside the ruin, and then we came back out to the Tuktuk to find we had been mugged by the monkeys again!!! After this we called it quits. It was far too much to handle, especially knowing how dodgy Asian police could be. We were on our way out (the same way we came in - through the bog) when we got a bit stuck and then low and behold a bloody police car drives behind us. We must have looked ridiculous, two white guys stuck in a bog in a Tuktuk. The police didn’t stop though and we eventually got free and raced back down this path to freedom and a proper road. We saw a big monkey, one we hadn’t seen before, sat on a post. We tried to get it’s attention by clicking at it...aggressively it turned to us and showed it’s enormous fangs followed by a hissing noise, we thought it was another dog episode like at Sigiriya, so I gunned the throttle and got us out of there. After all this we had seen enough ruins and monkeys so headed back to the guesthouse to chill out and look at some things for our upcoming trip to India.
We went out for some dinner and along the river there were steps where all the locals we either having a swim, having a shower or doing their laundry. For dinner there wasn’t much around, so we walked until we found the cheapest place, Kottu again but it was amazing as usual. We headed up to the reservoir for the sunset, which actually turned out to be amazing. We were both scared that the rocks we sat on had snakes and other creatures living under them, so we couldn’t fully relax during the sunset. After what seemed like a long day, we headed back and as we were going to the coast tomorrow we had decided to get good nights sleep before the long drive.Les mer
Sri LankaSigiri Rock7°57’24” N 80°45’35” E
24. januar 2020, Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C
After having an awful night sleep in our room that stank of bus emission, was hotter than the sun and about as clean as an Eastern European brothel, we were up and out pretty early. The Dambulla Cave Temple is 160m above the surrounding plains so we had to walk up to it and we got in by 7:15, paid our 1,500 (£6) each, and stuck our shoes in the paid shoe hold area with no intention of paying for them and then head into the temple. It was a cool temple that had been built into the cave and preserved very well, apparently the best preserved cave temple in the whole of Sri Lanka. As we had got there early we were the first in (apart from a few locals) so it was nice and peaceful. We admired some of the sculptures of Buddha and the murals before relaxing in the courtyard until a herd of Chinese and Russian tourists arrived - our worse nightmare! Shortly after they arrived we left, retrieved our shoes (without paying of course) and made our way back to the TukTuk to find that monkeys had ransacked it. They had stolen our after sun, Vaseline and hand sanitiser- strange! We got it back though after a temple guide come running over to return them. We previously ignored him as we thought he was trying to charge us for parking...oops. We then briefly checked out the Golden temple that was just behind the cave temple and was a little underwhelmed by this so didn’t stay long before heading to pay up and checking out.
After moaning about the place, it was only £2 each per night...so decent value to be fair. We got in Greta and made our way to Sigiriya, of course stopping along the way at a bakery for a veggie roll and sweet bun and then drove 5 minutes down the road to stop and eat it out of the busy town centre. In the time we had stopped we had decided to change our travel plans slightly (again) and added another night onto the east coast after removing one previously as people were saying it wasn’t the season up there, however the weather looked fantastic! We got to Sigiriya and found the hostel, aptly named ‘One More Night hostel’ and were welcomed with a British girl shouting from the balcony of the hostel/restaurant in amazement of our a TukTuk and how we had rented it. We were bombarded with questions before we could even get our stuff out! We did manage to get checked in and actually spoke to the loud British girl for about an hour, she turned out to be really nice and from Coventry! After dumping our bags in our room we drove to find a viewpoint of both Sigiriya and Pidurangala rocks from a lake that the British girl had just told us about, we manage to find a different lake with views of both lakes which was down a dirt track, the view was awesome but we continued to the next one which was equally as amazing, a little further away from the rocks so could see them both which seemed closer together. We chilled at the second viewpoint, we even saw a water snake and about 2 minutes later asked by a local guy why we weren’t swimming... after enjoying the view of both rocks for a while we decided that we should get back to the hostel and get ready to climb Pidurangala rock for sunset this evening. On the drive back I must have looked at a dog in the wrong way, as the dog jumped up howling at the TukTuk and started sprinting towards it with a gang of his friends joining him! I twisted the throttle as far as it would go, catapulting us down this dirt track until we were clear of the dogs...thank God the road didn’t have any potholes in like the previous road otherwise the dogs would’ve definitely caught up with us. Nevertheless, Tom was ready with a bottle waiting to smack any dog in the nose if it came close to the TukTuk! Rabies jabs narrowly avoided for another
We had been to’ing and fro’ing whether or not to climb Lion Rock and we finally decided against it. We would save ourselves a decent amount of money and also from Pidurangala we could enjoy a view of Lions rock and the sunset, or so we’d heard. We got there and parked up, getting stuck in a huge pothole in the process, a bit of pushing from me and some revving got Greta free. We paid our 500 rupees entrance to the temple where you could gain access tk the top of the rock. The climb up was pretty easy over big boulders, and we finally made it to the top. The view was really something and got even better as the sun began to set. We both gave home a quick FaceTime for the first time in a few days and then we sat in prime position and enjoyed the sun dipping below the horizon. Safe to say this was one of the most scenic/iconic sunsets we’d get in Sri Lanka. We headed down the rock (now in pitch black) guided by Tom’s torch.
We got back to the town and stopped at a local place and ordered Veggie Kottu, the place we went to was nice and definitely had a local feel about it. You could see into the kitchen where it appeared the entire family were preparing the food and customer reviews were handwritten on the walls in marker pen. With our meal we got a free Coca Cola which went down a treat for both of us, however we wanted to save some of the drink for the food...which was difficult as the food took forever to arrive! However; when it did arrive it was a bloody good Kottu, so we let him off and accepted that it was just “Sri Lankan time”. We made our way back to the hostel and chatted to a German girl, Indian guy, Dutch girl and 2 Swiss guys who had been waiting for their taxi to arrive for the last hour and a half... we chatted about various different topics mainly relating to systems in each other’s countries. After a while we went to bed and enjoyed the air conditioned room, our first taste of AC since Colombo!Les mer
Sri LankaDambulla Rock7°51’24” N 80°38’55” E
23. januar 2020, Sri Lanka ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C
I got up, or rather got woken up, early by the other two guys in our room. Yet again we had managed to be put in rooms with some snorers, why does this keep happening?!?!? As we’d decided the night before to abandon Kandy as neither of us liked it, we packed up our stuff. Seeing as we weren’t allowed to have a refund on the second night, we assumed that we could just come back, after exploring what we wanted of Kandy in the morning, and grab showers etc. However, the European girl running the hostel had other ideas. Even though we’d technically paid for the beds for tonight, she said we weren’t allowed to keep our bags in the room as they needed the room free for cleaning...slightly confusing and we’ve never come across such logic at any other hostel. We just said that we’re leaving our bags in the room and went out for the morning. We walked from the hostel, which is at the top of an enormous hill...made harder by our legs still aching from Adams Peak the other morning. First stop was Arthur’s Seat (not Edinburgh) which is a viewpoint which looks over all of Kandy. It was a good view, but a bit of a tourist trap, so we promptly left, still being harassed by every single Tuktuk driver asking for us to get in, all such requests being met with a “no thank you” which was getting shorter and sharper as we lost our patience.
We made it to the city centre, and then went up the hill at the other side to the big white Buddha (Bahirawakanda Temple). The closer we got, the less amazing it looked to be honest. It was big, but when we got there it was 200 rupees to just store your shoes rather than an entrance fee. We kept walking round the road and saw a side entrance to the big Buddha. We quickly whipped our shoes and socks off and stuffed them in the bag and casually walked in...confidence is key. When we were in, we were so happy we hadn’t paid for this as we’d both seen much more impressive temples/buddhas elsewhere. We snuck out and went back to Kandy centre where, after the disappointment of last nights food, we went to Balaji Dosai for brunch. We both had Kara podi dosa which was incredible and we managed to pay on MasterCard, so it was basically free. After our food this local bloke sat down next to us and for whatever reason, he kept staring at me...looking right through my soul. As we were up in good time it was only 10am when we left the restaurant. We made our way back to the hotel, which unfortunately meant back up the worlds steepest hill. At the hostel we both used the toilet in the fancy double room that had not been locked and hit the road.
The traffic getting out of Kandy was awful and the pollution was probably the worst yet. We eventually got out of the city and before long, at the side of the road we saw a woman selling corn on the cob! Of course we turned around to go back to her and buy one each - it was massive and delicious, however we were both paranoid as she dunked them in cold water which we only assumed was tap water....would we get ill? Possibly, but it would have been worth it. For the next mile or two, men were shouting at us to pull over and go to their spice gardens...we were not interested. We eventually got to our place in Dambulla, and without being too harsh let’s just say it wasn’t our best accommodate yet...but hey it was cheap and had pretty good WiFi! The bedding smelt like the fumes from the awful buses and the bed itself smelt as if a million people had slept on it...we decided to leave the room pretty much as soon as we arrived so we dumped our bags to go for a walk and check out the Dambulla cave temple and make sure we were at the right place and weren’t going to get ripped off...we were now very wary of everyone.
We walked around for a bit, but then decided to go grab an early dinner from this local bakery place. We got two massive portions of rice and sauce and noodles and sauce....all for 80p each. We headed back to our ‘lovely’ room, shoved a film on the iPad and we both passed out.Les mer
Sri LankaTennekumbura7°16’53” N 80°38’59” E 22. januar 2020, Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C
I woke up early as usual and went into the bathroom and saw that there was a light on on the electric shower system, tested it for hot water and absolute result - there was hot water! I capitalised on this and after I shouted to Tom to get up to make the most of it too, I’ve never seen him get up so quickly...we both badly needed a hot shower after he climb the previous morning. We were showered and in the lounge area of the guesthouse by half 8, the agreed time we would have breakfast, and we waited ages for breakfast however they kept a constant supply of toast to the dining table behind us for a group of Sri Lankan “laaads”. We eventually got our mountain of toast, an omelette and jam, and it was pretty good actually. When we finished breakfast we played our equivalent of rock, paper, scissors, “squirtle, charmander, bulbasaur” to see who was going to drive today, Tom won for once so that meant that I would be doing the driving!
We set off for Kandy via Ambuluwawa temple which we had wanted to visit for a while now! On the way to the temple Tom found a viewpoint for us to checkout, 2km out of our way we found Ulupane bridge, or as the locals call it “Fools Bridge”. It was built in the British colony era, and gets its nickname due to its upside down look...we thought we would be able to drive over it but it turned out to only be a footbridge, so we drove over the adjacent bridge and got a cool view of it. Cool detour, but now back on the road to Ambuluwaawa temple, after almost getting our heads taken off by a guy chopping grass with a blade at the side of the road...if we were on a scooter we’d have lost our heads as this guy was swinging this machete blade thing all over the place!!
The famous spire at the top of Ambuluwaawa became visible from the road and I began to feel a little nervous about climbing it. It is essentially a temple, with a huge spire on top that you can climb up using sketchy spiral staircases. We drove up the steep hill to the entrance, paid 300rupees each and 100 for Greta (the woman at the till was eyeing up the change in Tom’s wallet that he avoided paying with) and before we knew it we were at the bottom of the temple parked up. It was a crazy experience climbing up this tower, the hand rails were low, the steps uneven and there were gaps in between each step allowing you to see the drop beneath, the occasional brass hand grip gave you a false sense of security and on top of all that each time somebody was coming the opposite way you had to manoeuvre round each other, hopefully you would go wall side but on the occasion where you had to go on the outside you were practically hanging off this tower! If you were lucky one of the ‘resting stops’ would be nearby so one of you could just slip inside and let the other pass, bad thing is these rooms stunk of rotten piss and we could’ve swore there were poo marks on the walls...*hand sanitiser*. Luckily there weren’t too many people climbing so we didn’t have to do this too often. Nevertheless, we made it to the top, enjoyed the view and started to climb back down before we realised we didn’t get any GoPro videos, so back up we went for that, and then went down passing an annoying American vlogger who practically interviewed us at the top and at the bottom of the tower (I’m hoping that footage never hits the internet).
On the drive to Kandy we stopped at a mechanics who TukTuk rental had recommended and got Greta greased. This was something you had to do each 1,000km and although we hadn’t hit 1,000 just yet, we didn’t know when the next good place to do it would be, so we got it done. We rocked up to a recommended garage where they pumped Greta up on some massive jacks. It took about 5 minutes and she was all greased up again. Whilst waiting to pay we met a man who said (or so we thought he said) was a doctor. After a bit more awkward conversation it turned out he was a dog trainer...or we think he was, he then asked for our emails...an oddball. We got through the crazy Kandy traffic and made it to our hostel at the top of an enormous hill through monsoon rain!! It was quite a cool hostel, and at just £2 a night great value. We stood around at check in for about 10 minutes, obviously wondering how we actually check in as two people were sat around very close. Turned out to be that one of them worked at the hostel...good start. We dumped our stuff in the room and headed our to explore Kandy. We walked down to the lake and were almost immediately confronted by an elderly man pointing out a water snake in the lake. He started on and on and on about how he was a teacher in a school and showed us his ID card which clearly stated he was born in 1959 but he somehow said he was 59...interesting. He then went on about The candy dancing started reading of millions of types of dancing including Peacock dancing, water dancing, Buffalo dancing, the list went on and on. He then tried to make us come and look at the brochure for the Kandy dance, at this point we realised this was an absolute scam and tried to get rid of him but, it was harder than it seemed. We had to walk fast and as he had an umbrella we were now wary of anyone with an umbrella trying to scam us, and there were lots of people now trying to drag us into this Kandy dance show...which just sounded awful. We walked round the lake and both of us got a pretty bad vibe from Kandy and weren’t sold at all...but we had already seen that food near our hostel was cheap so that’s a silver lining. We went to an old British cemetery of people who had died during the colonised years (usually died of tropical diseases) and we both decided that we’d go back to the restaurant we’d seen earlier for dinner. We got there and wanted simple rice and curry. They said that it wasn’t possible, but there were curries on the menu that we could have, and they were cheap. So I asked him how much rice was to which he said 150 rupees...somehow the same as rice and curry. I said that wasn’t possible for rice to cost as much as both rice and curry, but this guy was persistent. Nothing about the place made sense, so we got up and walked out to go next door. Even though this guy was more of a local place he still ripped us off as we got a minuscule piece of potato and a bit of dhal and rice. After this episode we were both done with Kandy...such a shame as it was quite a cool city. We walked back up to hill to he hostel and came up with a plan to leave Kandy the following morning and sacrifice a night here as it was only £2 lost.Les mer
Sri LankaHatton6°53’47” N 80°35’56” E
21. januar 2020, Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C
Our 2am alarms woke us both us but Tom had not had a great sleep at all...maybe 2 hours so he felt shattered. Today was the day we were going to climb Adams peak, a mountain that’s summit was 2,243 metres above sea leave as is well known for having the Sri Pada, or the sacred footprint of Buddha at the top that Buddhists come from all over the world to worship. Tom has been periodically checking the weather outside throughout the night to see if we could see Adams peak from our hotel room window or if it had been covered by clouds as it was when we arrived to Nallathanniya. The weather looked great, clear skies and dry and you could see the temple on Adams peak lit by hundreds of painfully bright white lights. We got our clothes on, long trousers and a thermal for Tom as it was quite chilly out, but I braved it wearing shorts the whole way, even with the threat of leeches.
We made our way through the streets of Nallathanniya with the Buddhist prayer music blasting out (despite it not even being 2:30 yet) and the blinding white lights guiding us to the start of the Adams peak track. We arrived at the entrance and were welcomed by 2 monks asking for donations by asking us to sign our names in along with a donation amount and you would then put you money into a perspex box so they could see exactly how much you had donated. George and I filled the book and wrote we would be donating 100 rupee each but when it come to it I couldn’t find my wallet and Tom hadn’t bought his with him...so we said we would come back later to pay (like that was ever going to happen). We started the walk along the track and as the lights become less insulting we could properly see the night sky, and as it was such a clear night we could see thousands of stars in the night sky and could even see the dark part of the moon. The walk up Adams peak was challenging, but not at all as hard as we thought it would be after all we had heard about it, maybe we weren’t as unfit as we thought we were. It was mostly Buddhist people climbing to worship the Sri Pada with a small percentage of tourists mainly there for the awesome sunrise. A lot of the locals were actually elderly people in their 80s or even in their 90s! We got up in pretty good time so we thought we would check out the Buddhas footprint, which was officially at the summit of the mountain on top of a huge boulder. It was pretty cool, but for some reason was covered in giant moths! We both then rang the bell to symbolise this was the one and only time we had reached the summit and then went to find a spot to sit for the next 2 hours waiting for the sunrise. We seemed to be some of the first people up so had a choice of where we wanted to go, we decided to sit at the top step infront of the office building as it had a really cool view over the lake to the right and the mountains the the left. We waited there for an hour and a half as it got busier and busier but no where near as busy as we had heard it could get, and to our disgust some guy sat around us kept letting out deadly and toxic farts!
All of a sudden at around 5:30 the sun started to let some light through and changed the colour of the sky, and gradually the sun rose over the horizon. It was an incredible sunrise. When the sun had risen some Buddhist procession begun which we watch for a while before making the descent. The way down seemed much busier than the ascent due to the bottleneck of the older people taking their time to go down the steps. We both kept hopping over the barriers to get down quickly as the sun was blazing in the sky now it was actually getting quite warm. We were both talking about the amazing sunrise we had just seen and then all of a sudden Tom felt the sudden desire to go to the toilet, and not for a wee...this lead to us practically sprinting down the mountain and as we didn’t have a wallet with us, Tom couldn’t go to any of the toilets on the trail so would have to make it to the room...still 3 kilometres away. Near he bottom Tom had to throw in the towel and ran to a toilet near a large white pagoda as I scrambled around for 30 rupees...I magically found my wallet in the depths of my bag so saved Tom from the stress. The toilet was being manned by an old guy who seemed to live in the outhouse next to the toilet as he demanded the 30 rupees. Tom paid up and did his business in the squat toilet, to his horror...again, no bloody toilet paper!!! Safe to say the rest of the walk was much more enjoyable! We got back to our room just before 8 and Tom went back to sleep for just over an hour whilst I watched the film that I fell asleep to last night.
When Tom woke up we packed our stuff up and check out and drove to Laxapana falls, a waterfall we saw en route to Hatton, the town we would be sleeping in tonight. We drove a few kilometres out of our way to get there, parked up at the start of a sketchy walkway and tried to follow the sound of water...problem was we couldn’t hear any? We were both thinking that we had wasted our time getting here, but we might as well go and check it out as we hade come this way. We reached the end of the trail and saw a huge expanse of flat rock with various streams of water leading what we assumed was the waterfall...this was looking up! We walked in direction of the waterfall, I gave Tom a geography lesson from what I could remember from A-Levels, showing Tom the eddies that had formed in the rock, we ventured closer to the edge and were absolutely blown away by the waterfall that these various streams lead to. It was enormous, with absolutely incredible views. Of course the drop was sheer, 126 metres down and it gave us both jelly legs, but the adrenaline kicked in and we wanted to get as close to the edge as possible to see the full extent of the falls. Tom stood in one of the eddies that allowed him to look down the entire falls and I just lay on the floor with his head over the edge and we were both completely in awe of this place, better still, we had the whole place to ourselves. This was possibly one of the most amazing waterfalls we’d ever seen and definitely a travelling highlight.
On the way back to the TukTuk, I almost kicked a viper - one of the most venomous snakes in Sri Lanka...Tom saw it slither away as I passed, inches away from the snake! Tom took over the driving and got us to our guesthouse in Hatton a working town with very friendly people and cheap food! Our room had a balcony that looked out onto tea plantations which was nice, but funny as we were joking on the way here that we would be happy to never see tea plantations again! We met the German girls staying next door and had a quick chat with them before heading out into Hatton, it appeared that we were the only white people walking around and we got a complete mix of reactions; some people happy to see us, some confused and others perhaps not best pleased to see white people walking around. We got a 5L from Cargills and got a Kottu from a place called ‘Kevin’s food corner’ for 150 rupee. When we got back we sorted out some accommodation for the next few days before going to sleep super early because of the early start this morning. Tomorrow we would head to KandyLes mer
Sri LankaAdam’s Peak6°48’33” N 80°29’57” E
20. januar 2020, Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C
I struggled to get any sleep last night as there was a symphony of snoring being played to the left of the room...the Aussie guy and the Chinese person that had weirdly taken pictures of us yesterday were snoring away like two pigs having a conversation ensuring there wasn’t a silent second... I did however manage to get some sleep and woke up at 8 for the free breakfast which was very good actually, eggs, toast and woodapple jam. We met Jasmine at breakfast as we invited her to come for an outing in the TukTuk before we needed to check out.
We headed off in the Tuktuk looking for a tree...sounds weird but this was a single tree on top of a round hill in the middle of a tea plantation. Intrigued, we had look on Google maps to find this place and took a hunch from the satellite view. We drove for a few kilometres before turning off the main road and heading up into the middle of nowhere. We winded up and up before spotting this tree! We pretty much abandoned the Tuktuk and set off on foot. It was a cloudy morning in Nuwara Eliya, but as we had climbed we had broken through the cloud and were now totally inappropriately dressed in jeans and jumpers as the sun blazed down upon us. Stripping off as much as we could, we made our way up the tracks until we were just below the tree. We had to then walk though the plantation getting covered in spiders and other creatures. We made it!! It was a full 360° view of the surrounding area which was incredible, and we were the only ones there. We chilled out for a bit until I felt the terrifying urge to go to the toilet! Not a good place for it...must have been Sri Ambaals from the previous day announcing itself. We headed down - a little slow for my liking - and we went straight back to the guesthouse. I took care of my business then we checked out as we were heading to Nallathanniya, the town at the base of Adams Peak.
We grabbed some fuel on the way out of Nuwara Eliya, but we pulled up and the pump guy immediately started putting in the expensive fuel! Livid we paid him and said that in the future he should ask - in all honesty the difference was only about £0.30 so we got over this pretty quick. Tom was driving the first stint on the very windy roads out of town. After a couple of hours I took over after we stopped at this Spanish looking church. When we pulled over we saw the train we had been on a few days earlier pass by beneath us. We continued onwards with me now driving round the lake and up towards Adams peak. The town where you stay to climb the peak is at the end of the line, in all senses of the phrase.
When we got there it was pretty much deserted and we needed somewhere to park. The guy running the guesthouse was pretty much the most unhelpful guy we’d met so far, so we just left the tuktuk behind the police post and okayed it with the police...official enough for us. We checked in, and grabbed some Kottu from the place next door. This was the cheapest we’d found it at just 150 rupees (£0.60) and it was massive. The whole town had a power cut whilst we were out, again confirming this was the end of the line. We scouted out the start of the trail to Adams peak and Tom was stunned when it was signposted as the trail for the “Holy Buddha Footprint” and exclaimed some level of shock not believing that people make the pilgrimage from all over the world to the top of his mountain for a footprint. We both laughed about how ridiculous that actually sounds then checked out a sweet shop for some snacks for the climb. Eventually the power came back on and we headed to bed super early with a film as it was a 2am alarm to get ready to start the climb.Les mer
Reisende
We need to be there! That will doo nicely!