Sleeping next to the main road wasn’t ideal, but we felt we were in a way better position to solve our accommodation situation as well as figuring out what to do next. A few calls later and the situation had improved significantly. Hilltop Guest house, which we tried to book in the first place had a no-show and could offer us a double room 🙂 It was located 300m from Dream Cafe so a quick walk and we were there and could take in the magnificent view from their restaurant and roof top.

We took the opportunity to have some laundry done, and I didn’t have to state nothing should be tumbled since the washing machine consisted of a flat rock with a bar of soap. I took my chances with the exercising clothing but decided that I’d save one of my favorite Eton shirts for another laundry service. After settling in and taking the potential rainfall in consideration we figured a shorter trek today would be ideal.

After a nice lunch at Curd Shop in the centre we headed off. The trek is really light, thus one can make it a little more exciting by, as we did, ignoring the stairs and continue with the path winding up the hill until it disappears and one must trod a new one. The view was really nice, and we thought that if we had been a larger group the fancy 98 acres hotel nearby could have been an option with amazing views as well as quite nice gym.
At the top we snapped a few pictures and I walked around and was quite surprised to find myself a few meters away from a cow, who apparently liked the scenery as well as the grass. A short break with freshly cut up mangos and we started our decent. On the way back it started to drizzle lightly and we enjoyed afternoon tea and some cake along the road.
We got back to our hotel just in time to avoid the rain and slacked for an hour or two until the dinner we had booked at our guesthouse. I called a colleague at Netlight to discuss my first assignment and it sounds like I will start the very first day at
a customer, which feels great. Shortly after the power, and thus wifi, died but soon a generator got lights back.

Lights and power were still intermittent during the dinner but our portable speaker playing Melody Gardot and live candles complemented the nice curries really well. After the last round of desert we took a stroll down to the centre and had a drink at Chill who was surprisingly hip and nice, which partly explained why the two drinks were about the same price as our complete dinner. Unfortunately the gate closed at 22:00 so we had to get back home by then, or rather we stopped the proprietor from explaining how to enter afterwards explaining we were old and sleepy people. The end of the year was spent reading together in our cosy room hearing raindrops on the metal roof, a splendid finish and I hope 2014 will bring as many good memories as 2013.

After a morning Yoga session and breakfast we checked out and chatted with Avi and family who had their lunch after being on a more successful whale watching trip. We decided to splurge the transport to Ella rather than head to Matara and try the buses so it was a van for about 60 EUR. It should be said that the van had four spacious seats so it was a nice and safe ride and we accepted the drivers offer to take a slightly longer (5 more EUR) passing the national park and some other sights along the way.
This turned out to be a very good choice, we stopped at some huge rock and some enormous Buddha statue. I also stopped the car for taking photos of various wildlife along the way, monkeys, bats(!) as well as nice nature. While passing next to the national park we very quite lucky and saw a small herd of baby elephants grazing just next to the border of the national park. After five fun hours we were closing up on Ella though, and had to back track a little since “2.5km into the jungle” didn’t mean from Ella but rather 15km from Ella and then off into the jungle.I got some bad vibes since the 400m walk was after the 2.5km straight into jungle and took quite the time. By now it was pitch black and when we finally arrived there were torches here and there and the place looked like something from a Survivor tv-series set. We were shown to our awesome room with glass walls, or so we thought. The room had no walls, no power outlets and no door.
I asked repeatedly if this really was the deluxe room and indeed it was, we needed dinner by now but I passed their “office” which was the only place where there was something resembling wifi and checked my mail. Indeed I had confirmation for a room with glass walls, I once again showed this and were then informed that well, they did have rooms like that but they had given that to someone else already. So it wasn’t a deluxe room I asked and the guy squirmed being caught lying a few minutes ago. Someone more senior stepped in and offered a deluxe tent(!) which we had a look at. It was an improvement but still quite a bit from our expectations. We had dinner and then made up our mind, we’re out of here. Initially they tried to charge us for the jungle ride and the food but they agreed after some persuasion to drop us at the main road as compensation for our hassles. Ella Jungle Resort may be an awesome place (for scouting groups), but their staff combined with the hassle of getting to Ella/back make it impossible to recommend.

So now it was 22:00, we were quite a bit away from civilization and we had nowhere to sleep for the next four nights 🙂 We paid a ridiculously high price to a tuk-tuk driver that Ella Jungle Resort had called to get into Ella town (5 EUR) and we found a place called Dream cafe which fortunately had a spare room due to a no-show by someone. We quickly fell asleep after quite the day but had a roof and warm beds and actual walls and could walk to Ella to start to figure out what our next move would be.

After waking briefly at 0230 I managed to sleep until 07:00, appreciating the earplugs as well as 11 hours of sleep, can’t really think when I enjoyed that the last time. It was in other words a good time to join the morning Yoga class at 0730 while Mona slept on.

Fewer participants and different postures and exercises, except the sun salutation which seems to be a standard part. We did head stands which was surprisingly easy, but in general a little less taxing than the previous setting, still not flexible enough after two sessions though, I’m impatient 😉

A quick and steady breakfast with Mona before heading out surfing again, this time at Nilwella, which was a really good looking beach more resembling a bay. I skipped instructor this time and headed for the larger green waves, I managed a few long runs but also did a few nose dives at high speed. And the constant paddling caused some marks on my lower ribs despite me wearing a tank top but just as the day before – great fun and good exercise! When we got back to the (open) truck one backpack which had been left was missing, it contained nothing more than sunglasses and towels but still. We spoke with some locals who found(?) the bag just 20m further inside the jungle, probably some of the kids we saw earlier asking for money, everything left but searched through – the locals were not proud of the incident but it was a good reminder to indeed not bring valuables…

Avi’s wife Annelie and the kids were at the restaurant and Avi soon joined so we had lunch together. After lunch we enjoyed the pool and I did some blogging before our scheduled massage at 17. It was a good full body massage for 90 minutes (80 in practice), Mona was really happy with hers and mine wasn’t bad by any means but neither spectacular. That said the body felt much better afterwards.

The dinner was nice, but the tuna the other day was a notch tastier. I can’t recall myself having full plates of backup so I’m wondering if my appetite has improved. The rest of the evening was spent in bed reading and relaxing after another day of hard work.