Ella to Kandy, Sri Lanka: Train Ride of a Lifetime

Perusing online message boards, everyone universally raved about taking a train through the hill country/tea paradise. The train from Ella to my next destination was 7 hours (I was headed to the city of Kandy, which they call a cultural capital of temples and other stuff), I was thoroughly excited about taking the train. Seriously, people are beside themselves about this train ride. It's apparently the most stunning/picturesque ride ever.

The Life-Changing Train Ride:

• I'm not sure I need to describe a train ride, so I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves. All I can say is that I've never seen such stunning, life-changing views in my entire life. It was like a postcard for 7 hours straight - and the most amazing part was how much the scenery changed as we moved through the country. The most breathtaking scenery of my life included:
• Countryside/jungle (huge rainforest-looking jungles of trees)
• Breathtaking high-altitude views of valleys and tea fields
• Little villages and towns tucked into gorges and fields
• Straight-up mountain/forest, a la Colorado's mountains
• Tons and tons of waterfalls, rivers, lakes, etc. 
• Local people going about their everyday lives - ladies picking tea leaves, men bathing in rivers, children heading home from school. We went through so many towns!
• Anyhow, I loved every second and now I am going to photo overload the journey

Tiny, adorable little Ella train station

Mountain views down into the valleys were ridiculously gorgeous

Just drying clothes on the tin roof, of course

Tiny house in a tiny town

We're crossing a bridge! Trains are the best because you can hang out of the windows/doors (and people do), and nobody cares. Pure lawlessness.

Tea hills and green as far as the eye can see

Overlooking a valley

Pano of a little tea village

Entering the Colorado-like forests

Wheeeeeeee

The sides of a bunch of mountains - and you can barely see it, but tons of waterfalls near the back!

Another tea town

I can't stop taking photos

Little village

And tea grows in such nice, cute little rows!

Ladies picking tea!  They carry these huge rucksacks and hang them on their heads 

Up-close of tea-picking ladies

Just a woman waiting for the train to pass, with an abandoned train shell in the back #NatGeophotographer

Waterfalls! There were so many of these that I just stopped taking photos after awhile

Can't. Stop.

One of my favorite parts is how mist clings to the sides of some of the mountains

This photo fails to show how high up we were, but we were super super high. Which made the views that much more gorgeous

Fields

Local women chilling by the side of the tracks

This river isn't that pretty, but there were tons of much prettier ones I missed out on because my phone almost died halfway through from all the photos

The outskirts of a city. I love how colonial jungle these houses look

Ah, now we're approaching a real city

Cliffnotes of the Day:

• I swear I did other things than just ride the train. The train was actually going somewhere. I finally arrived in the town of Kandy - but can't make myself add a "What It's All About" section about it.  Kandy is a cultural town that was the last ancient capital of the kings in Sri Lanka. One of its most famous sites is the Temple of the Tooth Relic, which is purported to have a tooth of the Buddha, and it is one of the holiest sites for Buddhists.

Kandy streets - so colorful!

Kandy Lake - man-made by some king who insisted it be built

And some very holy tree people were praying at 

And here is the Temple of the Sacred Tooth - where Buddha's tooth may or may not be. You can't see it anyways, and only 13 times a year, they unveil the box it's in (but won't open it). So there's debate on whether or not the actual tooth is inside or if it's a replica to keep the real one safe

Police guard: "Oh madam, your skirt is much too short to enter the temple."
Me: "But my skirt is well below both my knees! How long does it need to be??"
Guard: *points to ankles*
And that is how I'm the proud new owner of a sari skirt!

The entrance to the temple has painted depictions of the festival they throw once a year where they parade the tooth through the streets on elephants. These paintings are all new because some crazy blew up parts of the temple in 1998

The entrance has pretty carvings. And also, use Skype.

Here is where the tooth is kept! Under wraps, of course

Gold lotus flowers on the ceiling

Here's where Buddhists from other countries have donated Buddhas to the temple, since it's so famous and important. There's Buddhas here from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Cambodia, etc.

And the creepiest part - this is an elephant that carried the tooth for special occasions. He lived to be 86 years old and was a favorite of many kings - so they had him stuffed when he passed away. And now he's on display.

• After a thoroughly interesting tour of the temple, my new sari skirt and I had tea nearby, then took an evening train back to Colombo for my early AM flight out the next morning.

I love kids in uniforms in other countries

Another torrential downpour ushered me out of Kandy. Everything in backpack = wet. Time to invest in a cover maybe.

Leaving the Kandy train station. I love this building too!

Arrived in Colombo during sunset. I will miss you, Sri Lanka sunsets

Final Notes on Sri Lanka:

To be honest, when I landed in Sri Lanka, I had no idea what to expect (also had done sub-par research, so that's kind of a given...).  But the country ended up blowing me away with its depth of culture, incredibly kind people, wide range of landscapes, and super-majestic scenery. Who knew such a small country could have such stunning beaches, but also amazing mountains?!  There were a million more cities I heard about in my time in Sri Lanka that I wanted to visit but didn't have the time to (Siggiriya, Koggala, Mirissa, Uda Walawe National Park, Yala National Park, Polonnaruwa, etc.) - did you know that in their national parks, you can go on safari and see elephants and/or leopards?! Ugh, I would have loved to do that too.  I loved this country, and loved that I added it to the itinerary.

Next up, Nepal!

Ella, Sri Lanka: Greenest, Prettiest Mountain Village

Ella! How British does that name sound??  I had this city on my radar and was super excited to visit because I'd heard it was gorgeous and cool (literally, since it's high in elevation), and very outdoorsy.

What It's All About:

Ella is a tiny mountain village located in the heart of Sri Lanka's tea country. There are tons of little mountain towns but Ella is one of the more popular ones to visit: the views are absolutely stunning, the town has a great vibe, and there's a plethora of outdoor activities to do (tea plantation visiting, hiking, nature walks, etc.)  

Ella views. Tea may have just usurped rice as my favorite crop of all time.

Ella's tiny morning veggie/fruit market

Cliffnotes of the Day:

• After arriving and finding a homestay, I set out the next morning on one of Ella's famous hikes up a mountain called Little Adam's Peak (or Little Sri Pada). Its name comes from its larger, more famous sister mountain, the actual Adam's Peak (or Sri Pada): according to who you ask, Adam's Peak is where Adam first stepped down from heaven, or where Buddha took his last step before Nirvana, or it's also believed it's where all butterflies go to die. Needless to say, Adam's Peak is a pretty holy/revered place for some worshippers and the climb is no joke (maybe 7-8 hours; can take twice as long on holy days and holidays).  And before you all call me a sissy for hiking Little Adam's Peak instead of the real thing, Little Adam's Peak is in Ella and Adam's Peak is not (it's a couple hours away outside a town called Nuwara Eliya. So there.) 
• Regardless, the hike up Little Adam's Peak was beautiful and the vistas were so, so pretty. One of the best parts about it is the beginning of the trail is a commonly used footpath for tea plantation workers and locals, so you encounter a lot of local characters on the way up.

Just a man walking his cow

The entire path has views of Adam's Peak, and it is so green and so stunning

And then I finally reached the top of Little Adam's Peak!

And at the summit, there were local cows, just munching away

And a very sad, very mange-ridden dog. I want to take him home and save him. Unfortunately I only had bananas in my bag, which the dog was totally unimpressed with.

You can see the crazy winding mountain road, as well as a tiny (it's actually huge but looks tiny from up here) waterfall in the distance

The hike back down on the untrimmed path. Luckily it wasn't raining, or this would be prime leech territory

• Post-hike, I visited a nearby tea factory called the Newburgh Estate. It's special because it's a green tea factory (all the other tea plantations in the area produce black tea). Sri Lanka's tea industry is a result of the British when they occupied the country - they burned down a ton of jungle/forest and turned them into tea plantations instead, given their love of and obsession with tea (....am I British?).  Tea plantations are seriously some of the prettiest places I've ever seen in my life.

Newburgh Estate - the factory is owned by Finlay's

And this was the only photo they'd let me take, of all the tea varieties in different qualities. As if I'd steal their tea-producing secrets by taking photos of the factory tour; I can't imagine anything more boring than photographing a bunch of giant steel machines. 

Tea plantations! The prettiest! I want to drink you all

• Randomly wandering out of the tea factory with all this rando tea knowledge in my brain, I found that I was quite near another hike to a landmark in Ella called the Nine-Arch Bridge (which I'm sure you can deduce what that looks like).  So I checked it out.  The walk was filled with animals.

I'm obviously very mature

And chickens! Chickens running astray everywhere. It made me wonder how chickens know to go home, or how people keep track of which chicken is theirs

And here is the Nine Arches Bridge! You can actually walk all the way down to the bridge to see the trains pass on it, but the walk was apparently an hour and I wasn't an-hour's-hike-worth enthralled with it

A tiny Hindu temple tucked on a side road

• Back into town, I caught a tuk-tuk a little way down the mountain to visit Rawana Falls - a set of gorgeous waterfalls on the side of the mountain on the way up to Ella. I'd passed it the night before on the bus, and though it was dark, they looked amazing so I wanted to pay them a visit. I would also like to add that there were random waterfalls everywhere on the drive up to Ella - Rawana Falls is just the largest.  

My tuk-tuk driver picked up pretty quickly how enthralled I am with monkeys, so he would always pull off the side of the road when he saw one to show me. Apparently there are two kinds of monkeys in Ella - these are the smaller ones.

And here is Rawana Falls! You can see how huge they are by how tiny the people on them are. Apparently these falls are especially impressive at this time because it's rainy season - in dry season, the waterfalls aren't as robust

Welcoming you to Rawana Falls is an adorable monkey perched on the sign

My driver was awesome and asked if I wanted to climb up some of the falls, which I obviously did

Chilling at our hangout spot in the middle of the falls

• My tuk-tuk driver then asked if I wanted him to show me another waterfall without all the tourists. Um yes. He drove me up the road a ways to another waterfall - this one was smaller and had no people. He then told me to remove my shoes, and we basically scaled up this waterfall together. It was incredibly dangerous - all the rocks were slippery and I was kind of worried about dying - and the driver was doing it in flip-flops = mad props.

Sitting at the top of the waterfall after managing to climb up without dying

Me and my tuk-tuk driver. The top of this waterfall was cool because it had a mini waterfall feeding into a little pool  - my driver said they come up here a bunch to relax and go swimming in the mini pool, which is awesome to envision because there's so much foliage that this section is totally invisible from the road

And then I rewarded myself with tea and cake. And Wifi, since my homestay didn't seem to have any

The sun sets on adorable little Ella town

Fun Facts of the Day:

• Sri Lanka is the world's fourth largest tea producer
• Larger tea leaves = weaker = fancier, more expensive tea
• "Thank you" in Sinhalese is pronounced "Estuuti." On that note, Sri Lanka has two main ethnic groups - the Sinhalese and the Tamil (originally from India). Sinhalese is the dominant ethnic group and language, but tensions between the two were what caused Sri Lanka's civil war (which went on from 1988 to 2009 = crazy).

Moment of the Day:

There's a treatment called Shirodhara in Sri Lanka, which is basically where they drip oil on your forehead for a long period of time. It's supposed to bring wellness and clarity to your mind, as well as alleviate stress/headaches, etc.  Sounds weird, but when in Rome - so I tried it out.

And it looks just like this

Um, WEIRDEST FEELING EVER. SO WEIRD. It tickled so much at first that it wasn't even comfortable, but after about 20-minutes, it was fine. Did I have more mental wellness after? Maybe?  Let me tell you though, the biggest takeaway was that there was SO MUCH oil in my hair.  I think I washed my hair maybe 3 times (and the oil has a very distinct smell because it's herbal oil), and the next morning, it still looked like I had bathed in a pool of grease. I've never showered so much in such a short period of time.  Come to think of it, do we think that was helpful to my mental wellness...?

The Hotel (Homestay):
I'd arrived in Ella in the middle of a downpour at night (typical) with no accommodations or any idea of where to stay.  I had started wandering down the street in search of a place when a lady approached me and asked me if I wanted to stay in her homestay. She claimed it was 5-minutes away (which you know means 10), and the price was super low ($12/night). Usually I'd do more diligence - but it was raining and dark and she seemed very sweet. I agreed to check it out, but her house ended up being at the bottom of this incredibly steep hill of death, and there was basically zero way I was going back up that hill in the dark while it was raining. So that matter settled itself.


Anyhow, her homestay ended up being called Green Village Homestay, and she had just started offering up an extra room in her house for the extra income. The house was adorable, and there were three children aged 10-20. Nobody spoke much English, and the kids were all way too embarrassed to try and talk to me, but it was the sweetest family ever and I was so glad I stayed with them.

My lovely homestay lady and her son in front of their house

My room! Not sure I needed two beds, but so cute right!? Though let's not talk about the sheer number of insects you find indoors in the jungle. I basically lived under that mosquito net in the room.

The highlights of the homestay were the food - the lady cooked dinner and breakfast every day for me. Dinner was served at the kitchen table, where she would hover right next to me and anxiously stare at me to see if I liked it.  And she would practice her English by asking me questions, which was the cutest. There was a lot of gesturing and acting out things, to say the least.

Dinner, accompanied always by a giant plate of fruit that I could never finish

Breakfast, consisting of coconut rohtti pancakes and more curries. And that aggressive fruit plate again

And breakfast was served every morning on their front patio

Somehow, the lady also found out about my love of monkeys (I swear this is not something I offer up) - and even though they're considered huge food-stealing pests in this section of the world, the lady, her husband, and the son all went running around the house in search of monkeys to show me. CUTEST.

Which they didn't need to do because this one showed up and tried to steal my breakfast. No common language was needed; I'm pretty sure the lady was shouting to move all the food inside and we ran around grabbing plates of food to hide from the monkey

It was such a treat overall getting a glimpse into a Sri Lankan family and their life, not to mention the absolute sweetness of the family. At the end of my stay, I tipped the lady something ridiculous (like $3), and she was so, so excited and kept saying "thank you, thank you madam."  Loved them.