Ella is town in the hill country of Sri Lanka popular with foreign tourists. The town itself is nothing special but it sits at 1000m above sea level and with that comes refreshing day and night time temperatures, a relaxed pace of life and great hiking in the surrounding hills! The iconic blue train covers the distance between Kandy and Ella with incredible views over the tea field clad hills. You will find every shade of green mixed with the bright sari's of the Tamil tea pickers. Leaning out of a rickety old train with your head and legs dangling from the doors, makes for an unforgettable experience. I think pretty much everybody visiting Ella hikes up to little Adams peak, and with good reason. A gorgeous and relatively easy 3km walk up through tea fields to stunning views up to Ella Rock and right down to the south coast. My little Harry Potter fans loved the Demodera Nine Arch Bridge! It was just like watching the Hogwarts train come past. We waited for the 12 noon train to pass by, before crossing over the bridge, through the train tunnel, and then along the tracks all the way back to Ella train station. We knew we had 90 minutes before the next train was due but must admit my ears were totally on alert just in case. Spend some time amongst the tea fields if you can, walking and speaking with the with the workers. Visit a tea factory to find out just what goes into your morning cuppa... it was far more involved than we ever realised; wilting, rolling, fermenting, drying and sorting! We visited the Rawana waterfall one hot afternoon for a swim. The rocks were VERY slippery and we watched 4 people fall over while we were there. A cheeky monkey stole A10's lunch while she was looking the other way and although it was nice to cool off, it's probably not a must see in Ella. The Sri Lankan food is simply devine and we learned a few tricks from Dilhani at Top Heavens cooking school. We made eggplant curry, coconut sambol, green beans, poppadom and dahl curry. Their open air kitchen is homemade with clay walls and oven. In Sri Lanka, we choose to stay in guesthouses whenever possible. You get a true experience staying in someone's home and the food is incredible. Most guesthouses will cook you meals at a reasonable price. Our favourite guesthouse was Restfull Homestay in Ella and the main reason that we stayed in Ella so long.
1 Comment
Nikki
5/11/2017 08:16:48 am
Love, love, love all these updates. Sri Lanka is definitely somewhere I would love to go now. I just caught up on all your blogs a and g, so cool!! Happy travels team xx
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