The train journey up into the hills from Kandy to Ella passes through some stunning scenery. Rice fields are replaced by tea plantations and the hillsides are dotted with tea factories and little buildings. The observation car was fully booked, so we went ordinary first class, which was very comfortable; just as well as the trip took about seven hours!
We arrived at our guest house after dark hungry and ready to sleep. When we got up the following day, we were greeted by a stunning view down Ella Gap, a forested canyon between two peaks. We spent many hours over the next few days relaxing on the balcony enjoying the view from our hammock. Ella is a cute little town with a main street lined with little restaurants and accommodation; despite it being touristy, we were pleased to see the restaurants as it is the first place we have had much in the way of options to eat outside of our guest houses.
There is a Sunday market at nearby Bandarawela, so we caught a tuk tuk to visit. Bandarawela is a busy town and, on Sunday mornings, it bustles with local people buying fruit, vegetables and all sorts of other supplies. We bought bubble mixture for Eleanor, Leo and Sandaru, the almost three-year-old son of our guest house owners. Eleanor and Leo's little pots were almost finished before we arrived back for an afternoon nap!
Sri Lanka has a particular type of head massage called shiro dhari, which involves having massage while oil is drizzled onto your head. We found somewhere on Main Street in Ella and decided to give it a go, along with a full body massage and steam bath. This place didn't have the drizzling apparatus, so the head massage involved a dollop of oil in your hair. The steam bath was kind of like a wooden sun bed that encloses you completely with a little space for your head to stick out. Herbs are heated in water over a gas flame, so it is all warm and smells great. It was all very relaxing and left our skin feeling amazing, but it took about four days and two washes to get all of the oil out of my hair, so there are lots of greasy-hair photos! Nonetheless we have decided to try again at the beach to see if we can find somewhere that drizzles the oil.
We ate at a couple of restaurants around the town continuing Adrian's search for a spicy curry. He had some good meals, but no joy on the heat front. However, I had a pizza that was so hot in places it made my tongue throb! Leo insisted on sharing it with me until he hit a good chilli and it made him cry. I had been taking them off, but obviously missed one.
We visited Dowa, a little temple with a four-metre high Buddha carved into the rock outside. I don't think it is big on the list of things for tourists to do as the children there made a huge fuss of Eleanor and Leo. Which kinda makes it perfect for us.
There are a lot of walks in the hill country, but many are several hours long and require an early start for a clear view before the haze sets in. We found a couple that were more our speed, so spent one morning walking up Little Adam's Peak for a spectacular view over Ella Gap and an afternoon walking along the railway tracks to Rawana waterfall. Eleanor continues to impress us with the distances she can walk now and both she and Leo enjoyed our little adventures, particularly the novelty of walking on the train tracks and stepping to the side when a train came along. It felt kind of like 'Stand By Me', except that we are not teenage boys and we weren't looking for a body!
The next day was Adrian's birthday and we left Ella that morning for two nights in a tea plantation bungalow.
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