Knuckles Range

Today's world heritage site is the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka. This site has three separate components to it, covering three separate national park areas in central Sri Lanka. It mostly covers mountainous terrain and tea plantations, and had proved to be quite difficult to organise a tour there. The few companies we could find just wanted to sell us 2-3 day treks through jungles, which we obviously weren't interested in! So in the end we just organised it ourselves.

First up was a bus about 2 hours to the east of Kandy, following the main road. We got off at a small bump in the highway town, and hired a tuk tuk up into the hills where the main conservation centre was. Here we purchased our reasonably priced permits and set off on a two kilometre hike to a pair of cliff lookouts known as Mini World's End 1 and 2. The original, non-mini versions are located in one of the other areas of the World Heritage site.

The hike itself was pretty straight forward, not too much climbing or bush-bashing. We'd heard bad things about leeches, but the ground was fairly dry and we covered ourselves in DEET so had no issues.

Nice views from the lookouts, though one was rather obscured by mists and a few trees as well. Aside from a couple of guys working on the path, there was absolutely nobody around, and we even managed to spot a small deer!

All up the hike took us about 90 minutes including a few breaks, before we got our tuktuk back down the mountain. Just enough time to grab some snacks for a late lunch before a bus arrived and we jumped on.

No space at all on this bus either, so lots more bouncing around and accidental elbowing as I stood the two hours back into Kandy. Also had my first encounter with the unspoken caste system - as the bus slightly emptied out I got offered a spare seat instead of older folks and women which I found surprising.

Got off the bus slightly early and went for a drink at a rooftop backpacker bar, only to discover alcohol isn't served between 2pm and 5pm! So we ordered juices and the waiter came back saying we could have beer, just to make sure his boss didn't see! Thinking about it, it doesn't seem like a big drinking culture as alcohol is quite expensive and there just aren't that many bars around. Hardly anyone smoking either, though apparently it's banned in public.

We stayed here for a couple of hours before wandering back through town and then home via another tuktuk. Had a small dinner at a restaurant just nearby which was about to close - nothing too fancy.Read more