Chasing Ella - The End

Nine Arches Bridge

We climbed down from Little Adam's Peak pretty quickly, but we were still well past lunch time when we finally emerged onto the main road. We walked into the Flower Garden Cafe planning on lunching there - and were horrified at the prices. Ella is famous for having tons of pricey places with bad food, inadequate portions or cheap places with equally bad food. This place was no different. We were running out of time though, so we decided on lunching there.

After that, we started walking towards Nine Arches bridge. There are several ways to get to it, and we continued along the Passara road before turning off into a small by lane that led through tiny houses directly onto a hill side overlooking Nine Arches. It was quite a walk, and some of the adults in our party felt it hard.

Ella to Nine Arches Bridge via Google Maps

Then started the slip 'n slide. There was no proper path to the bride, just a teeny tiny gap in between plants and roots that people had carved for themselves as they came and went from this famous site. My mother and I wore out the seat of our trousers slipping on our asses down that slope. My phone was constantly in and out of my pocket as I either stopped to take pictures or slide down a bit more.

 And finally, we were there. So were a 100 other tourists, some of whom had obviously been there for a while. They were lying on picnic blankets and even playing cards. It soon dawned on me that everyone was waiting for a train to come because, well, it's the rules; if you come to Nine Arches, you gotta get a pic of a train.

We were lucky. A train came by pretty soon. Afterwards, we went to the little tea shop and did what Sri Lankans do best - have plain tea and හකුරු. Once we were relaxed, we started walking back towards Ella station on the railway tracks. We went through the famous Ella tunnel, and took the mandatory pics:

The walk back was so nice but we were glad to see the station. We had dinner that day at Burger Brew, another pretentious establishment whose cheese kottu had more parata than cheese.

Look at how gorgeous this station is

We woke up early the next morning, since the train to Colombo was due at 6.15 am. We picked up our breakfast of rotti and sambol from Vimala Fast Food store (it doesn't serve fast food) and boarded the train in good time. The train stopped in the middle track, away from the platform, so we all had to clamber down and then climb up the tree steel rungs of the train ladder to get in at the door. Thank goodness we were all wearing pants.

Sunrise from the station

That's it for my family trip to Ella folks. I haven't travelled since then so my blog's gonna be quiet for a while. Unless of course, I put up a video on YouTube.

*All pictures are subject to copyright © Asuka Randeniye 2017

Chasing Ella - and Little Adam's Peak

Ella Rock as seen from Little Adam's Peak. #feels

One week later, let me reassure you that I did take lunch. After spending all morning making Sri Lankan style fried rice with my mother, and packing them all up neatly, I wasn’t about to forget that.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, even anti-climactic really. If you follow me on Instagram, then you know that our journey was mostly through the rain. There was a lot of mist. Soon it became too dark to see outside and when we finally arrived in Ella, it was past 8PM.

We stayed at Ella Okreech Hotel, a lovely place with cottages made mostly of old railway sleepers. I was so fascinated that I left my poor mother trying to figure out the complicated hot water system to take picture after picture of all the places they’d used railway sleepers. None of them were very good btw – night lighting is sooo bad. It cost us LKR 6000 for 2 nights without food.

Stairway to heaven :)

Dinner was at ‘Fish and Chips,’ a humble place compared to the big names like Café Chill. But 6 of us dined on noodles, fried rice and sandwiches for less than LKR 2000, so I consider it a win. That was the only meal-related ‘win’ we had that whole trip. Ella is EXPENSIVE everyone. Beware if you are on a budget like me.

Next morning, we had breakfast at ‘Rotti Hut’, just a few doors below ‘Fish and Chips.’ The food wasn’t that great, but we were in a hurry and anyway, we’d been warned that Ella wouldn’t be cheap. We left by 7.30am or so and started walking towards Little Adam’s Peak along the Passara road. There’s about 2.5 km to the turning off point next to Flower Garden Resort (more on that later) and it’s an easy walk.

This doggo is sleeping inches away from a cliff. Inches!

The walk up was great too. There were already tons of people but we managed to go up pretty fast. There’s stairs most of the way, so if you’re scared of heights, you’re covered. The bad news begins when you get to the top. There are two summits: the normal, safe one and the dizzying one. We left our parents at the safe one, under the one lone tree and began the death-defying trek down (and up) the next one.

Our parents stayed at the tree at the end;we risked our lives a little more

Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit. Just a bit. The 2 summits are connected by a thin spine of land and to get to that you have to scramble down the sheer face of the mountain you’re on (there’s no path, just rocks exposed by run-off water) and then climb up another 90⁰ slope to the top. Nope, I have no pics – my phone was safely jammed into my bag while I squealed and squeaked my way down on all fours.

Climbing up was easier and sooo worth it. If you are under 40, hell if you’re under 50 and up for it, I seriously recommend going for it. The view is fantastic. You can see all the way to Ravana Falls and you literally feel on top of the world and dwarfed by all the mountains at the same time.

I don't like putting up pics with my face on it, but this is the only pic I've got that shows how high up we were. Btw, I'm grinning through my fear here. Phones don't capture sweat beads :P

Going back was another nightmare but I did it. I survived. Can I talk about Nine Arches Bridge next week? If you can’t wait, go check out my blog on seeing it the first time round.

Have a great week guys! 

*All pictures are subject to copyright © Asuka Randeniye 2017

Chasing Ella - the Train, Actually

This was our view pretty much throughout the entire journey

Sorry about the week’s break; I’m afraid school puts everything out of whack (for those of you who don’t know, I’m a teacher).

That tuk-tuk driver was a gift from heaven. He broke about 50 traffic rules chasing the train and I had a sneaking suspicion that he enjoyed every minute of it. He made the tuk fit into teeny tiny spaces that even I wouldn’t have, and he overtook, undertook and left-took every vehicle on the road to get to Gampola station before the train did. I obsessively watched us get closer and closer to the Gampola town on Google Maps, and then just as we reached the outskirts… we hit traffic.

Really???

Needless to say, we missed the train. But the game wasn’t over. The driver revved the engine, and off we went again. This time we were determined to make it to Nawalapitiya before the train.

I counted the stations between Gampola and N’pitiya and there were 3 major ones. The train was climbing uphill, slowing down now and I knew it would stop in N’pitiya for 15 minutes to change engine drivers. This was our one chance to get on that train!

“What if we don’t make it?” my mother asked worriedly, staring at my pinched face.

“We have to” I muttered (no joke, I actually said this). Oh, me and my theatrics.

Just to give you an idea of how far we went in a tuk tuk - that's just under 1/3 the complete distance to Ella :P

I eyed Maps again. We were close to Ulapane station but I couldn’t hear the train. I called my boyfriend.

“No, we didn’t reach Ulapane yet” he yelled over the sound of train wheels clacking. “I think you guys passed us.”

And finally, we were ahead. We flew over the roads, past Ulapane, past all the other stations and began to get close to Nawalapitiya. That’s when the rail gates started. Three times we were forced to watch as that mad-cap train rumbled past us, inches from our noses, as we waited for the railway gates to open. Each time, my bf and his family watched us from the back window, waving occasionally, like some messed up version of a WWII movie.

We were neck to neck now. The road and the rail. We kept on the train’s tail until it passed a bend and disappeared from sight. But almost immediately, the most beautiful sign on earth came up on the road.

Nawalapitiya Station

We fairly fell out of the tuk and I would have happily given the driver 2000 bucks, but my ever-pragmatic mother already had LKR 1600 in loose change ready. We paid him, thanked him profusely and ran onto the platform just as the new set of engine drivers took their seats.

We did get tea...

And there they were, waving furiously through the smoke and the crowds. My bf had the biggest smile on his face and his family couldn’t stop talking about what an exciting and scary experience that was. I was sure the entire carriage knew what happened, but luckily they’d been too preoccupied.

I fell into my seat. I don’t even remember who put my bags onto the rack or when the train pulled out. I was so relieved, it took me a few minutes to realize that everyone was looking at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

“Huh?” I looked at my bf for help.

“Lunch babe” he said impatiently. “You were supposed to bring lunch, remember?”

(To be contined)