Matt: Here's a basic flyby of the trip; Hold tight!!
Day 1: Arrive in Sri Lanka at 3:45am, get picked up and driven to Kandy, where quickly settle into our guest house. Drive to Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage to watch the Elephants bathing in the river. Move on to Millennium Elephant Foundation, where we go for a ride through the paddy fields on an Elephant and then help wash them in the river. Return to Kandy , head to watch Kandian Dancers perform traditional dances and then a demonstration of fire eating and walking. Visit the Temple of the Tooth, a sacred Buddhest temple in the middle of Kandy. Crashed for the night, exhausted.
Day 2: Up early, drive 2.5 hours to Sigiriya, a huge monolithic rock north of Kandy, Which was the site of a 5th century rock citadel. Now a World heritage site: Explored the ruins of the temple and citadel, A hard climb up stairs clinging precariously to the side of the rock to the top for amazing views. Then we drove to Dumbulla to visit the Cave Temple, climb yet more stairs to and impressive Temple built into a large rock and a series of caves. 48 Statues of Lord Buddha grace the largest of the caves.
Day 3: Catch the early train from Kandy to Hatton, rattling along through an impressive landscape of Hill Country, tea plantations, paddy Fields and forests for 3 hours. Then take an hours Tuk-Tuk ride to the quiet town of Delhouse. Off season this place is a bit of a ghost town. After exporing the town we relaxed for the afternoon and took an early night, for this is the base camp for Adam's Peak (Sri Padda), [
Info] A mountain, whose peak reaches into the cloud canopy, which must be climbed at night to reach the summit for an amazing sunrise where the mountain casts a shadow of a near perfect triangle over the surrounding terrain. It's another sacred site but this time to the followers of the world's four major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam and has attained a legendary status as a mystic pilgrimage destination.
Day 4: Warning: This climb is not for the unfit or fainthearted. During the pilgrimage season it can take people up to 12 hours to reach the summit, it's basically 7 miles climbing up stairs!!! Really tough..we had no idea how tough this was going to be, no one had enlightened us! We left the comforts of the guest house at 2 am, very dark and cold, giving ourselves about 4 hours to get to the top before dawn. A couple of dogs from the village decided to accompany us, the company was welcomed for this was a lonely and eerie walk, We named them 'Captain' and 'Bullseye'.. Don't Ask!! It didn't take long to realise we had completely underestimated this walk, we'd climb a flight of stairs hoping for a reprieve only to be confronted by another stone stairway leading off beyond our torch light. As we got higher the air got thinner, the fog and cold got thicker, was this rain as well or just a product of being inside a cloud. With the impenetrable darkness added to the fog this was a very surreal and spooky experience. The silence was eerie, the occasional break of Captain or Bullseye rushing off the path in search of something their superior hearing had picked up!! They would rustle through the undergrowth or the trees and disappear completely into the black, only to join us again a little while later, creeping silently up behind us. At irregular intervals there we'd come across abandoned stalls and shops, now looking like some kind of skeletal remains, frames of bamboo strung together with cord or vines, the Blair witch project often sprung to mind! We seemed to be the ones foolhardy enough to be attempting climbing this peak.. How much further? Became the often muttered rhetoric, there appeared to be no end to the perpetual stairway to heaven.. and neither of us had the answer to this question. We just trudged on, breaking occasionally because our legs could barely step up another crumbling stone stair. Eventually we reached a better constructed stairway with a handrail; this gave us new hope that we weren't far off!! But the new found vigour was soon eradicated as our hands froze on the metal handrail or slipped where the mist and rain made the rails wet, the ground here was soaked too so sitting to rest wasn't comfortable and we needed rest, the end still wasn’t coming. Even our canine escort were lying down to rest now when we did pause to catch our breath. By this time we were soaked to the skin, or was it From the skin?? You couldn't tell whether the wetness came from the wind billowing the mist all around us or from the sweat that covered us from head to toe, resting for too long just gave you a chill, so the breaks were few and far between. Looking up, we could see dark shapes looming out of the fog a little way above us, more stalls? or was this the summit? We pushed on.. Never has a ramshackled hovel of a building been such a welcome sight, we'd made it!! A series of stone buildings clung to the tight pinnacle, looking like they might slide down the shear sides at any moment, the shutters were battened down, and it looked like no body was home.. Then through the fog came the bay of dogs, not Captain or Bullseye, they were with us. As we climbed on, we were greeted by 5 or 6 dogs, it was like we were entering a small strange town in the middle of the night which was ruled by dogs, they came out of alleyways and from behind crates to greet us. It was just gone 4am; the intense climb had taken us about 2 hours. We were pretty pleased with our time, but this thick mist did not bode well for the sunrise spectacle. We set about trying to find somewhere to shelter from the biting wind and to eat our meagre breakfast of sandwiches and cake. As we unpacked we became aware of voices from below. Another couple and their guide had made it to the top. The guide ushered us into one of the shacks, where 2 other Sinhalese men slept, these were the keepers of the peak. How they lived in such squalor and so remotely I will never know. But they welcomed us in and at least it was shelter for us to sit and wait for the dawn to break. But alas, when it did the mist was still thick about us, we could barely see to the other side of the peak let alone over the edge to the vista below. So, a little disappointed, we started to make our way back down. This was still pretty hard going on the knees, but a lot easier on the heart!! As we dropped below the blanket of cloud, the early morning views were pretty spectacular. We didn't really get to see what we came for, but we both felt we had achieved something pretty amazing and we did it alone (Well with a little help from Captain and Bullseye). We returned our guest house before breakfast, ate heartily and then planned the next stop. A Tuk-Tuk came at 11am and took us the one hour bone shaking jouney back to Hatton train station, where we caught the train to Ella. Again great countryside views all the way, 4 hours later we arrived in Ella, and stupidly walked
to out guest house.. Called Hill Top (as if we hadn't walked enough that day). Great views from the guest house through Ella gap, a valley between Ella Rock and Little Adam's Peak (Another one not half the sized of big one).
Day 5: Up and out before breakfast, we headed along the train tracks on foot making our way to Ella rock, local use the railways as a walking route a lot and we were greeted by their smiles every step of the way. A pretty and tough walk to Ella rock, over the top of a water fall and climbing up through woods and tea plantations. It was almost as hard as Adam's Peak, but I think the daytime heat made it seem tougher than it was. The view from the top was brilliant. We made it back down in time for lunch. Then we jumped in a Taxi and drove 5 hours to Deniyaya. Our base for the trek into the Sinharaja Rain Forest.
Day 6: Sinharajah Rain Forest another World Heritage site, located in the south-west of Sri Lanka; Our host, Bandulla, guided us here, telling us all about the local flora and fauna, many of which in endemic to Sri Lanka. Leeches, Snakes, Lizards, Butterflies, Giant Millipedes, Spiders, Birds.. it was great. We even swam in the pools at the base of the Kekuna Ella waterfall, in the rain. Amazing adventure. The leeches are pretty nasty though – leech Watch every 5 minutes!! Mid afternoon we were back out of the forest, Then we got a driver to take us further south to the coast and to Unawatuna, just outside Galle. Upon arrival, we dumped our stuff and took a Tuk-Tuk to Galle, to walk around the walls of the old Dutch fort with the locals at sunset.
Day 7: We walked to the beach, 2 minutes walk, for breakfast. Then rather than relaxing on the beach 2 minutes away, which after the week we'd had so far most people would do. We decided (thanks Naomi) to walk to Jungle beach, so called because we virtually had to hack our way through a jungle for an hour or so to find the place Yes it was up hill and down hill again!! Not as idyllic as we expected, we didn’t spend too long there and trudged back, getting a little lost this time, once back then took a Tuk-Tuk to a Turtle hatchery, and paddled a local catamaran on the inland lagoon, to Cinnamon Island, watched how cinnamon is harvested, drank cinnamon tea and then rowed back. That evening we ate at a nice restaurant right on the beach, literally metres from the breaking waves and then strolled along the beach home by the light of the moon.
Day 8: 6:45 am; Tuk-Tuk to Galle to catch the train to Colombo, then fought our way through the busy streets of Colombo to the Bus station and caught a bus to Negombo, our last stop before the flight home. We made it to Negombo by mid day, where we stayed at the Ice Bear Hotel, a quaint little place run by a Swiss guy. We did actually relax here, played boulle on the beach, flu the kite, rested and feasted. Before getting up at 2am the next day, to catch our flight back the UAE.
Day 9: Fly home...from an Awesome holiday..
Full Selection of Photographs...
