The Hill Country – Part One

We’ve left the beaches of the South and the elephants of Udawalawe behind to head into the hill country of Sri Lanka, once prized by the British for not being quite so d@mn hot as everywhere else we’ve been.

Part of the adventure of traveling is finding one’s way from one place to another. In isolated Udawalawe, we didn’t seem to have a whole lot of options— elephants just don’t need public transportation. We were planning a simple solution: a PickMe ride (~ Uber) to our next destination of Ella for about 50 CAD. However, our guesthouse was able to call around and find us a local driver for the same price. We liked this option, since that would mean that this driver would get the full fare, without giving PickMe a cut.

So the next morning our driver showed up for what I can only assume was his first day of work. He was young, polite, didn’t speak much English, and seemed a touch nervous. But we headed off and his driving was great… and so of course we got a flat tyre. No problem for us: our driver did an excellent job of demonstrating to me and the kids how to put on a spare tire, but once we were back in the van he was clearly a touch frazzled. After all, the van had a temporary tyre and we still had a good distance to go. Fortunately, we were in no hurry, and managed to communicate that via a translation app to our driver. Relief took over his face immediately. We stopped for fuel*, spent some time in a local garage seeing the boys change the tires (all of them!) on our van, as well as those of a transport truck. In the end, we made it to our destination a little later than planned, but after an afternoon with the kind of entertainment that tourists would line up to pay for. Our driver had a rough first day on the job, but he did great, and looked to be momentarily on the verge of tears when I gave him a decent tip.

*(As a side note, the Israeli-Trump war with Iran is clearly having its effect on life and tourism here. When we stopped for fuel, there was a long queue of vehicles overseen by a soldier with an assault rifle. Drivers now have a QR code to keep track of their ration of fuel for the week, and just as we were leaving the station closed (at noon). Due to the fuel shortages, the work-week has been shortened to four days. Our guesthouse here is reporting fewer tourists due to cancelled flights as well. On a personal note, we’ve had to cancel our planned trip to Jordan (due to travel advisories) and have opted to spend a little more time in Asia.)

That was the long version of “we made it to Ella,” a touristy town in the hilly interior with a very relaxed vibe. We had an amazing guesthouse with a beautiful view overlooking Ella Rock and the surrounding hills, and opted to take it rather easy over our few days.

In the mornings we did short hikes (out to world-famous-in-Sri-Lanka Nine Arches railway bridge one day, and to little Adam’s peak another day), did some homework in the afternoon, and perused tourist shops before finding a resto for rice and curry in the evening. It was great, with the exception of the monkeys terrorizing breakfast that one morning.

After Ella, our next stop was Nuwara Eliya. Normally, the way to travel in Sri Lanka is by train and the routes in the Hill Country are known to have some spectacular views, so much so that reserved cars are rumoured to normally sell out well in advance. Unfortunately, these days there isn’t much chance to ride the train, as a cyclone last December (and subsequent landslides) damaged a good part of the rail network.
 However, we did manage to take a short two-hour trip from Ella to Ambewele (completing the journey to Nuwara Eliya by taxi), so we at least got a taste of what we were missing. And the ride was beautiful, passing on ridges high up and offering stunning views of the valleys below.

Nuwara Eliya had a very different vibe compared to Ella, and we had trouble placing the feeling it left with us. I would describe the city as a mix of bustling Sri Lankan city with some sort of amusement park called “Little England,” where there is a golf course, Victorian gardens, a post office out of the English countryside, and a surprising number of horses. Since the town is at 6000 ft, the climate is relatively cool, so we were able to get fresh strawberries, and we also had the thrill of putting a sweater on for the first time in months!

Sri Lanka (or * Ceylon * if you’re trying to sell a tourist something) is of course famous for tea, and we were in tea country, with hillsides covered by plantation estates. So one morning we grabbed a tuk-tuk out to Somerset Estates and did a tour of the Tea Factory. Our guide took us through the factory and explained the whole tea-processing operation. We learned a lot, helped by the fact that we’re not too shy to ask really dumb questions. Though the tasting of all of the different teas at the end was a bit disappointing (they were extremely bitter… maybe over-steeped?), the tour finished with tea and cookies in the shop, where the kids could put as much milk and sugar as they liked.

It turns our kids aren’t used to that much caffeine, and our early bedtime routine proved to be a casualty of our curiousity.