The day was 17th monday,october 2011, i have a return ticket to nuwara eliya,Theodore Boone by John Grisham,a backpack with camping gear ,which weighs 30+ Kgs and no plan.well yes thats back packing.oh but i have a Lonely Planet ,Sri Lanka book,the bible of every traveler with me , so i will survive.
I reached the central hills of Sri Lanka at around 12 noon, so far the plan was to reside at the Pedro Scout center,in Nuwara eliya and to do my travels,i reached this beautiful camping area at around 1330h. i have been there before but about 5 years ago ,nothing much has changed except they have made one new building and yes it was freezing about 10 degrees of Celsius.The Person in-charge of the scout center, A Scout Leader Ajith Jayasekera ,a veteran mountaineer with sixteen climbs to mount Everest,was truly an inspiration to me.on my 1st camp out in Pedro back in 2004 i remember forgetting my under wears and that i froze my balls to almost a Popsicle every single day ,so i made sure that is not gonna happen on this trip:)
This was the very beautiful view i had when i woke up the very next morning.Misty ,chilly and a lot of green scenery:)
there was a waterfall,very small but the continuous sound of the water hitting the rocks was the best lullaby to put you to sleep with out any doubt.
I met this Australian Girl Sophie,on the bus from the station to the town and she was quite surprised to see a sri lankan back packing because i think its not much of a south Asian thing to do ,but Hey there is no law!even if there was i ll break it,backpacking alone is so much fun.:)
18th Tuesday,I got dropped off at the Pedro tea Factory, yes i hitched a ride:) i have been a tea enthusiastic for the last 19 years of my life but i never learned how it was made,though i knew quite a lot about its quality and the different tastes.the best and the most expensive come from the hills ,since the leaves are much smaller,much taste full and it grows very slowly.The process surprised me so much that from the moment i entered the factory i watched the whole play in such Awe.
The Tea Factory,Pedro,Nuwara Eliya
The tea plantations,A common view in all over the hill country.a walk through this would just make your day:)
The waterfalls are quite dry from what i heard but then i loved walking through the tea plantations and since my next destination was the lovers leap waterfalls i went there anyway.I passed many hard working tea puckers all of them being women,yes for some reason men are not employed to pluck tea leaves.the majority population is Tamils,since the British brought Tamils from south India to work in fields since our sri lankan people did not want to do so,The majority of the Tamils in these areas were Hindus but if u move towards west coast ,to the rubber plantations most of them are Christians.I ran in to a very beautiful Hindu temple and then i kept on running in to Hindu temples,each one of them being in the center of a residence in the middle of a tea plantation.It was peaceful,soothed my long walk as well.
It was true about the water being less in the water falls,lovers leap was not a big water fall but hey the view of the city from there was absolutely majestic.i found a rock in the shape of a bed ,shaded well too.so i decided to take a nap to the sound of the water fall for a few minutes and yes THE BEST NAP EVER!!!!
The Hindu Gods right after a Puja which, The Lovers Leap
I was very Fortunate to Participate.
well this was irresistible, i think i have millions of shots of tea in my computer now.
okey now half my day was done,so i found my way back to the city center of nuwara eliya,got some Tukka (Australian slang for food)in to my self.
I was headed to Haggala,which is a world renowned botanical garden which was not really my cup of tea or i just went in the wrong season.the best experience for me was it rained so heavily when i was there and i got stuck with some female works ,3 to be exact and it was very cold.i was badly wishing for tea and one of the workers were keeping me company by telling me loads of things i did not know about the garden and the surrounding area.lot of couples visit the gardens it seems ,and a lot also get lost in to the woods and commit suicide by drinking some poison looking at some nice scenery.how foolish is it when one doesn't understand the value of their own lives????
I was stuck for hour and a half when a lady came along who was another worker,and she had TEA and biscuit .i m thinking please share it with me and they probably thought it would be wrong to offer since we have this foolish class and cast difference in Sri Lanka.but hey i m a nice guy i was really nice to them so one lady offered me tea and YAY some biscuit too as well.
My ipod was dying so after i returned to the town i got it charged,and ran into my autralian friend we had tea i had dinner after she left,she already had dinner it seems.
Horton Plains,a national park which rose to its fame in 80s is one of the best hiking spots in sri lanka and yes its well known for its wild life as well.but here was my problem from the city to the entrance of horton plains ,the ride cost me 3500 the cheapest i could get.so i thought i ll split it with the australian friend sophie, but she said she needs to pay a ridiculous price of 3500 rupees for entrance as well where as i only had to pay 60 rupees.
I asked around the ways to get to horton plains and yes there was a bus going to the train station at 2030h so i got on it and went to the nanuoya station i was there by 2100h, but the train to ohiye, the closest that the train station to go to horton plains leaves at 0330h the next morning.i had no other option but to sleep in the train station since my budget was very low,but sadly i was not allowed to do that so i was chased away from the station at around 2200h.
Cold as i possibly could be and a bit tired too i was so very happy to see two buses ,that was parked and no owner was to be seen.I tried opening a door in one bus did not work but then to my own happiness the other opened and had a very large comfortable back seat.which ended up being my bed for the night.:)
it was 0430h,18th October, when i got down from ohiya,the sky was so beautiful not a single cloud in the sky and millions of stars and moonlight clear enough to go hunting made my walk very memorable.through out the walk i could hear a constant sound of water flowing and some wild boars running across the path from time to time,.well they are not very dangerous,they just mind their own business if you mind your own.i had the most beautiful view of the sunrise and i sat down to rest and to suck in the beauty to me as much as i could.
Majestic! isnt it?? look how clear the sky is ,no clouds on top.and yes those are clouds spreading infinitely at the bottom.this should be one of my favorite pics from the trip.
To my own suprise i met sophie and two other foreigners who were from Holland,Martin and Malush.we were quite an awesome group.oh they actually found it hard to believe i was sri lankan since i was traveling alone and everything.and i look a bit different than a typical sri lankan too.
left to right-Malush,Martin,Me and Sophie(way freaking taller than me they were,specially the Holland guys)
we started off going to see the mini worlds end , the hike was very entertaining and then to the Worlds end.we had our breakfast there and oh ,yes we were very lucky to see the worlds end before the mist got in the way.we actually got to see the mist coming up and covering the worlds end.well ever since i got to worlds end all i wanted to do was jump off of it,in a parachute or just para-glide.which i really think they should introduce and yes i still haven't done any of the above mentioned,but hey I'm still 19 got a whole life ahead of me to do what ever i want.
The next best thing was the trail to bakers fall,we took the hard way since it was the only was we could get to the falls,the other easy route just offered you a view but i wanted to feel the water,if i had some clothes would have gone for a little dip as well.so yes i m known as "mowgli" for a reason,jungle is home to me,i lead the group, helped them to get there and get back safely and we had quite a good time down in the falls.
The Bakers Falls
On the way back it was quite a tiring walk,but we were so happy about everything we saw ,though at the beginning the other three were complaining about the ridiculous pricing for their entrance but they finally said it was well worth it.but i still thinks it ridiculous and that it is just like robbing white people.theyearn their own money too,it does not grow in trees back in their country as well.surprisingly my government nor lot of the civilians in sri lanka does not seem to understand this.
I heard that there used to be elephants in horton plains but this British man ,back in the day named Bakers hunted down thousands of them,and they retrieved to other parts of sri lanka.Bakers is also the one who found the water falls and made the 1st path.but i wish there were still elephants in horton plains it would have been more exciting.sambar deer is a very common view and in fact they come to the streets to get fed by the travelers.leopards are more rare to see but i think i saw one on my way from ohiye to horton place. A lazy Sambar Deer
at the end of the day i was supposed to meet up with a friend from kandy but he said he is not gonna come and sophie told me she is going to adams peak and the couple from holland was also thinking of joining her.since i have not been there and i did not have this planned or any other plans to be certain, i said i ll join her.but she left before me and i left to adams peak later.after two long bus rides and hitching a ride in a van i got to delhousie,the starting point of the trail to adams peak.i found a cheap place to stay the night since i had to wake up 0200h next morning i went to sleep early.19th October, Thursday was the day waiting for me.
I was happy to see martin and malush at the entrance as well,the climb was tough 5 km and 5400 steps.the wind was cold ,so cold you cannot feel your fingers.but we some how made it.and yes i now know why people from all religions consider it to be religious monument.the Buddhist believe the foot print of lord Buddha is there,the Catholics believe it to be the garden of eden and to have Adam's foot print,the Hindus and as well as the Muslims have some claim over this peak.but in my opinion its the majestic view that does it.it feels so much out of this earth,such a spiritual feeling,a self cleaning feeling that made all these religions to claim it for them.
The sunrise,its not very clear due to the clouds but for me the clouds did add quite a lot beauty to the scenery. oh yes i kept like feeling jumping off this peak too and well there was risk of getting thrown away due to very high wind.
words cannot describe the feeling i had,or i simply do not have the language skills to do so.but the climb,5400 steps ,the wind,all of it was a cheap bargain for what we saw.i m hoping to visit there again very soon and get a view with out the clouds and probably use a different path to get there.
If there is a god,this is probably the view he gets right out of his window.
The climb down is fast but its the tough one,it all quite tricky.Me,Malush and martin got our back packs in a tuk-tuk and headed to the bus got in to the train station at 1200h noon but the train to badulla was at 1100h and it was the same train that the couple was trying to catch to get to ella.sophie was targeting the one at 1430h to badulla she was going to ella,so finally we all ended up taking the same train and yes it was quite a ride.the other three parted their way in ella and i was left to come to badulla.
after i got down from badulla two other backpackers asked me if i have a place to stay,since i already had a place i gave them the lonely planet so they could find out one.that place they looked up was expensive so i found them a place and they invited me for dinner.we all agreed to settle down and meet up for dinner.they were from Italy and yes they loved camping and had a tent with each of them.and they also did like the same kind of music i liked and one of them a guitarist and one of them was a scout.talk about good campanions eh.me being a scout i was more than happy to meet a brother .they actually planned to go to india but since after they went to india they were not allowed to go in without a visa they came to sri lanka.Daniel was a frequent traveller we exchanged our lonely planet books,he gave me india and i gave him my sri lanka.
Quite strange isnt it?how we just leave home alone all by our selves and end up meeting so many other travelers on the way and end up being a group of friends,how we just seem to run in to people who are quite like ourselves.End of the trip i have made some good friends and i m sure hoping that we all will cross our paths one day or another.
All the Above Photograph's were taken by Me,using an A590ls cannon.
Blogged by,
Malinda Senanayake,
Sri Lanka Scout Association,Sri Lanka.
malindamax91@gmail.com
