Travel post: Kandy - Adam's Peak - Ella - Kandy

This post is for people travelling in Sri Lanka trying to figure out how best to do or not to do things :) I'll try to keep this factual, times and moneys and write about my personal feelings in a separate post.

We had a taxi booked from the house to Adam's Peak for the main reason that we'd climb the 5200 stairs overnight and there is no bus that would get us there by midnight. Most SL people who do this pilgrimage either climb during the day or sleep in a guest house and wait until it gets dark. Our driver slept in one of these places and allowed us to use his bathroom before we set off - I would only recommend it for the truly truly broken and adventurous / masochistic traveller: 2 bunk beds in a room only slightly larger than the beds themselves and a small, mouldy bathroom with a toilet, sink and shower head - I heard the expression from an Irish friend: you can do the 3 S's in one place, shower, shit and shave. Only in this bathroom there was a cockroach too. Don't know how much it cost but it would cost you more anyway :P

We left Kandy at 9pm, arrived by midnight, fuffed about a bit so as not to start the climb too early because we were going to wait for sunrise, between 5 and 6 am and it's cold up there.We heard various times of how long it takes to the top. It took us roughly 3 and a half hours and for reference, we are four mild to moderately fit girls (three of them 22 I think, I'm 32) and we stopped frequently to stretch our legs properly and catch our breath. We didn't take long breaks because it's very hard to start again after one. It is a challenge :) My main problem was that I was sleepy, one of the girls felt out of breath and all of us had some sort of leg pain at some point.
On the top, you need to take off your shoes and hat if you want to go through the Buddhist worship place. I didn't because I would have been frozen without shoes but the others did. There is a bell that you can ring up there and you receive a dot on your forehead (yellow one - if anyone could explain in a comment what it means it would be great!) and not sure what else was there. They expect a donation in there and for the record, we were stopped for donations at 2 other places too on the way up. One was just a donation (they say "please sign this book" and then you're signed your name in their book of donations), at the next one ("come, come") the monk marked our forehead with water I think and tied a colourful bracelet around our wrists. I gave r. 100 at both places because I had little money with me.
Coming down took us around 3 hours again I think. I stopped for breakfast at one of the many many shops lining the stairs and had something that looked like chapatti and the guy put 2 spoonsfuls of chili on top of it :) It was surprisingly stomachable at 8 am! Plus tea with milk and sugar = r. 80.
I might add here, we went up 2 weeks before the season is over at Adam's Peak (which means no lights and no shops, seems quite dangerous without lights as the steps are of uneven height and plenty of puddles too; you can hire a guide which would be money well spent), the monsoon season is on and it was so cloudy that we didn't actually see the sunrise which was very disappointing. Around halfway down (so relatively low) we started to see the surrounding hills and what a view! It must be absolutely astonishing from the top!

Taxi to Ella from here, it took us 6 hours and at the moment the road is torn up completely, so you can see some interesting, non-health-and-safety-conscious activities such as barefoot jackhammering and the likes. Also it is a VERY bumpy ride, I didn't get to sleep much. Arriving in Ella, our taxi driver took us to an Ayurvedic massage place (because we wanted to) where we could book what we liked and then he took us to a hotel / guest house. I would not recommend going with a taxi driver as many of them get commission from the place they take you to. If that doesn't bother you, it's still very cheap compared to European prices. I had a problem with it because the guy kept talking for us and he was very pushy - we didn't even bargain with the man who showed us the room but with the driver so it's very suspicious. I also don't like being taken for an idiotic money bag - and again, I must say, most Sri Lankan people are not like that! They will give you a high price everywhere, if you're happy with it, they certainly will be as well, but bargaining is expected in many cases or so I have been told.
Water price is set by the government, currently r.70 for 1.5 litres, r.60 for 1 litre, r.40 for 0.5 l. I tried to foolishly bargain, it was a bit embarrassing.

The massage set us back r. 3250 for ayurvedic full body, head and face massage, 1 hour. What they offered was: full body massage 45 min for r.3000, the combo we had was offered for r.3500 and the third option was the combo plus steam room plus something else, maybe sauna? 1.5 hours for r.4500.
The massage place was lovely, the masseuse was good, you can ask them to go hard, medium or soft, they will do it accordingly. Be warned that breast are completely included in the massage!

We stayed in a place called Ella Rock, in the very centre of this small town and paid 5000 for a room for 4, r.1250 each. It is spacious, the view is amazing and that's about it. They said there was hot water but there wasn't. They have mosquito nets and I had a very good night's sleep.

We went to Ella Falls before the massage, took a local bus: any bus will take you there, make sure you're heading the right direction which is towards Ella Rock. It cost r.40 there, r.35 back and be prepared for an absolutely mental drive on a winding mountain road with no railings and drive in true Sri Lankan style, overtaking in bends and what not. The Falls are worth the visit, very dramatic and it takes about 15-20 minutes. The buses are a bit mental altogether, they more or less stop where they want to and sometimes start pulling off while you're boarding or jumping off. There is a conductor at the door you can ask if the bus goes to the right direction and he will come to your seat once the bus is moving and you but the ticket from him there. There is music on the bus, shiny-glimmering Buddha symbols and quite comfy seats - I loved it.
We didn't go to the Cave because we had no time but it's on the way to Ella Falls if you want to do it. We also had no time to go to Little Adam's Peak but I found the entrance to it, it's easy to find and not far from the town centre.

We had dinner in Dream Cafe, the girls had pizza, I had pancakes with buffalo curd (it's like hard yoghurt) and some sort of syrup that was like honey. r. 325 + 10% service charge for mine, not sure about the pizza. It was delicious.
In a different place (there are 2 or 3 rotti huts, this was one of them), the girls had rotti with chocolate and banana, I had a bite and it was quite filling and really really nice - r.350 I think.
For breakfast we stopped on the way to the train station at an old woman's place, who laid the table for us and brought out mini rottis (35 each), breaded vegetable samosas (40 each), muffins (40 each) and vegetable rolls and more but this is what we had. The rotti wasn't amazing on its own, it wasn't fresh but she brought banana (r.5) and honey with it and it was much better with that. We tried to bargain and failed. It also felt unjustified but wanted to practise bargaining anyway.

The train is AMAZING! It is said that it's among the top 3 most beautiful train journeys in the world and I'll well believe that! It was certainly the most beautiful I have ever seen - I'll upload pictures into my more personal post when I get a chance. We took the one at 9:24 am (also runs on a Sunday apparently), it takes a whopping 6 and a half hours but I didn't mind, there is plenty to see and people to talk to. 3rd class tickets are r.130, 2nd class 240 and 1st class around 400, not sure. 3rd class looked the same from outside as 2nd but with a lot more people and first class has air con. 2nd class was perfect, there are fans on the ceiling, clean floor, seats and even toilets (hole in the floor type) and the doors are kept open so you sit at the door with your feet dangling or just stand there holding on to the sturdy railings...