Heeloya

Our driver met us at the train station. We drove through Ella township, man it was stunning! Looking forward to exploring that tomorrow but for now we just want to get to our Hotel and find somewhere to eat. Thinking that would be a relatively straightforward thing how wrong we were! The driver drove up the hill in increasingly tight bendy corners and narrowing road until we got to a very narrow and steep side street. We got less that a ¼ the way up it when the driver aborted saying we couldn’t make it! He phoned the Hotel to come rescue us, only a tuktuk could make the rest of the journey! 10 minutes later the tuktuk man came and after one attempt he said someone had to get out and walk up the hill and round the corner as it was too steep with us all on board! Mum took the fall and after another 7 or 8 minutes of ever diminishing roads we eventually arrived at our Hotel. If I had known it was I wouldn’t have picked it!

The Hotel staff were lovely and made us cinnamon tea while the man went back to meet our driver to collect the bags. 30 minutes later we were taken to our rooms. Stanley and Lara were very close to reception, twin double beds – perfect! Mum and Dad had to climb about 40 slippery stone stairs with not a lot of light to get to their room. We are sure the view will be amazing tomorrow when there is daylight!

We needed dinner so we asked the man where we should go. He walked us down a small road and pointed to some stairs and said down there, 1 minute, restaurant 10m to the left. A bit like Fiji really, it was more like 5 minutes and we turned left and knocked on some poor unsuspecting families door who informed us their home was not a restaurant! They helped us find the way down more steps to the main road and sure enough there was a restaurant.

The place was quite busy so the owner showed us to the spare tables downstairs, apologising as it was busy. We initially thought this isn’t so nice but then Mum noticed a leech on her ankle! Blood was poring out of her toes and leg and after a frantic search about 7 or 8 more scraped off her skin. Dad then discovered one on his ankle and after another frantic search another 5 or 6 blood suckers were pulled off. After chasing them around the room with our shoes stamping them to death and the waiter helping to kill them where he could we were very happy that this little show was held away from the main dining area!

Lara and Stanley luckily did not get bitten but Dad had to pull one out of Lara’s shoe as it was trying to burrow in! We all felt very icky and decided there and then we weren’t walking back up those stairs! Our dinner conversation involved much Google searching about Sri Lankan leeches, we need long pants and leech proof socks for the rest of our Ella trip! Fortunately the food was amazing, chicken burgers for the kids, pumpkin soup for Mum and Dad took the chicken curry (someone had to eat something local!).

We took a tuktuk home and did another frantic search for leeches when we got there. Just one on Dad so we all took showers and double checked there were none that got in. Pretty grossed out but we have a big day of fun tomorrow so we just have to harden up! Didn’t expect to be collecting that anecdote this evening!! Hopefully a better day in store tomorrow!Read more