As I mentioned yesterday, Mona were tanning a bit, what I didn’t mention was that she skipped sunscreen – I’m happy to say my future wife now closely resembles a
panda. After the last breakfast at Hilltop Guesthouse we checked out and walked to the train station.

The train was slightly late but quite crowded and we were happy we got our tickets in advance. The observation wagon was basically the last wagon with a glass wall to the back, we didn’t have those specific seat numbers by the very end but overall it got more proper light into the wagon but second class would probably have been fine as well if seats were occupied.The train ride lasted for somewhere between 7 and 8 hours at 15-20 km/h, but we made do with yogurts that were sold at stations. The last 6km required a train change and we would need to wait an hour, instead we took a tuk-tuk straight to the hotel which didn’t cost more than 3EUR anyways. The driver was friendly and drove safe while pointing out some of the landmarks as we passed them.

We checked in at Amanda Hills and asked where we could find an Indian restaurant. Following the instructions we walked down to the lake and took a tuk-tuk from there to Balaji. Well there we only found out that the restaurant only served vegetarian dosas, luckily there was another larger Indian restaurant nearby, Sriram. We ordered, after some resistance from the waiter, Masala Paneer, butter chicken, a salad and two mango lassies.

The mango lassies were OK but the food was ridiculously bad, very likely the worst Indian food I’ve ever had. Tasted more or less nothing, imagine salad cheese in bouillon but with less taste. We were hungry enough to not bother though. When settling the bill the waiter asked if we enjoyed it and we were truthful and a little surprised by him simply ignoring our response. It was comically bad overall but it had filled our stomachs. We walked back to our hotel along the lake and took two hot showers to wash away all the travel dust and then hit the (soft) bed.

After breakfast we slacked on the roof top for some time, me blogging/reading and Mona working on her tan. We figured today might be a day where we would use a tuk-tuk to get around further outside Ella’s immediate scenery. Trip advisor guided us towards Halpewatte Tea factory so we were soon on our way.

For reasons not entirely solid it’s forbidden to take photos from inside tea factories, our guide wasn’t enforcing this strongly but then the tea process were in a stage were photo opportunities would be scarce anyways. The guide was really knowledgeable and had excellent English. After a learning and fun tour we finished with some tasting and shopping and briefly enjoyed the view from the factory which, of course, place high in the mountains.

We asked our driver to take us to Demowara train station next rather than heading back to Ella – the station has quite a unique design. We managed to time a train really well but in order to get a picture detailing the interesting track design (a loop to lower the elevation) one would likely need a helicopter or higher vantage point. I did manage to get some shots of locals in trains though.
We headed back to Ella for lunch at Down Town Rotti Shop, which had similar qualities and offerings as the lovely Dewmini in Mirissa. After chatting politics with two guys from US we’d met earlier, it was back to our room for more slacking. My brother Jonte and I talked for some time over Skype, it seems that my accommodation in Oslo is a solved problem – but he’s leaving for Melbourne which means our plans of finally living in the same place get postponed for quite some time…

We had made reservations at the popular Ella Village Restaurant earlier during the day, which enabled us to walk by the line like douches. We had chicken/vegetable curries which were good but quite spicy given that we asked for medium strength. I would argue that our guesthouse was on par with this food, and I’d still rate the rotti from Mirissa as best. Sri Lankan curries are, in our humble opinion, not as good as it’s Indian cousin, that said it was by no means a bad meal.

We had a good night’s sleep, or at least until local new year celebrations started around 0600 with fireworks and chantings, but with good earplugs it was easy to fall asleep again. We had a lovely breakfast, with some extra cookies since it was New Years.

Today we would take the slightly longer trek to Ella Rock and sat out at 1030 or so. We had some printed basic description on how to get there but would likely need assistance or a fair amount of luck to get the whole way. We started walking on the railroad tracks, something that normally is a really bad idea but here seem to be the norm and also much less dangerous given the speed of the trains just barely beating a tuk-tuk in traffic.We passed a quaint little train station that looked in great shape for being abandoned, turns out the reason was that it wasn’t abounded but fully operational and the fact that timetable was printed on wood and a sign limited speeds to 15km/h just made it seem like a relic from the past.

A friendly local pointed out which path we should go from the tracks and we kept on walking, asking another girl in the next junction. While enjoying the scenery the first local passed us now quite confused and explained we were on the wrong path and would show us the right one. We kept on walking for quite a while and there was no way we could have gotten their without help, and most of the foreigners we met had done the same. We gave our local guide 500 LKR (2.5 EUR), which was the standard rate, for his help once we were on the last stretch to thank him for his help.

The last part was not without a challenge, and we took some brief pauses until we reached Ella Rock, and by know the sun had really broken through the clouds and evaporated the misty clouds. The sight was breathtaking and we had a picnic on cookies and mango before heading back home. The return was much easier to find and we thought that we would drop off some things at the guesthouse and then book massage before having a late lunch.We checked out the Ayurvedic spa Suwamadura but decided it was past it’s prime in service and offerings so we went to Dream Café in order to have lunch. It was New Year’s Day after all, so we went for a traditional pizza (they lacked kebab pizzas though) which was surprisingly good, crisp with fresh vegetables and tasted great!We got back to our room and instead of the massage had a long warm nice shower and snuggled into our beds reading and slacking until dinner. The home-made Sri Lankan dinner was just like the day before nice and more than filling. The day was concluded after some more reading so it turned out to be yet another early night.