Day 10 of Sri Lanka Trip, Ella on July 20, 2017

A bright sunny day as woke up in the town of Ella. The plan of the day was to hike Ella’s Little Adam’s Peak, and visiting Nine Arch Railway Bridge in the afternoon before heading to Tissamaharama in the evening.

Tea Fields

 Tea Fields
Tea Fields

Just like Nuwara Eliya, Ella is located in Sri Lanka’s mountainous heartland. But unlike Nuwara Eliya, it’s not perpetually cloudy in July, and with a decent elevation of 1000 meters, its sunny July felt far from blistering. And it has got majestic mountains and rocks and valleys, sceneries that I was fonder of. And its Little Adam’s Peak didn’t (over)charge tickets for foreigners, for now.

So we checked out of hotel in the morning and reach the foot of Little Adam’s Peak at 10am. By the way there’s some construction on the road leading to Little Adam’s Peak, which wasn’t too much of a problem for us with a van. Otherwise, it could be problematic if one decide to hike the mile starting from train station.

Little Adam’s Peak

The first part of Little Adam’s Peak trail took us through fields of tea, which is typical Sri Lanka countryside, with majestic views of Ella Rock on the opposite side of the valley.

Valley


Valley

Ella Rock


Ella Rock
Ella Rock

Mountain Resort


Mountain Resort

Forest


Forest

Ella Rock


Ella Rock
Ella Rock

Forest


Forest

Valley and Distant Mountains


Valley and Distant Mountains

North Little Adam's Peak


North Little Adam’s Peak

Rocky Mountain


Rocky Mountain

As far as I could see, Little Adam’s Peak has three “peaks”, sort of. The Northern two were just on the trail with higher elevation, and it took some steep descent and ascent to reach the Southern one.

Buddha Statue on Mountain Top


Buddha Statue on Mountain Top

North Little Adam's Peak


North Little Adam’s Peak

Distant Town of Ella


Distant Town of Ella

Ella Rock


Ella Rock

Ella Rock


Ella Rock

Terraced Fields Below


Terraced Fields Below

Little Adam's Peak

 Little Adam's Peak
Little Adam’s Peak

South Little Adam's Peak


South Little Adam’s Peak

Little Adam's Peak


Little Adam’s Peak

Ella Rock


Ella Rock

Distant Mountains


Distant Mountains

Distant Ravana Falls among Mountains


Distant Ravana Falls among Mountains

Dog Resting on Rock


Dog Resting on Rock
It seemed that this creature was camera-shy.

South Little Adam's Peak


South Little Adam’s Peak


So we spent about an hour and half on Little Adam’s Peaks before heading down the trail.
Ella Rock

 Ella Rock
Ella Rock

Trail


Trail


So a quite conclusion about Little Adam’s Peak, I liked it. It’s free (which is very un-Sri Lankan), it got amazing views, and its trail wasn’t too long, and it’s not crowded. What could one ask for more?

There’s a restaurant called “Ella Flower Garden Resort” just by the beginning of trail, where we decided to have our lunch. Amazingly, it cooked quite good dishes to our foreign taste. Yes, it took them forever to serve the dishes, just like any other Sri Lankan restaurant, but the waiters bothered to make some decorations to the coconuts ordered, which sparked our infinite imagination as we started further decoration as we waited.

Coconut Decorations

 Coconut Decorations
Coconut Decorations

Lunch


Lunch
I learned that Kottu is a Sri Lankan dish that I can appreciate.

Ella Rock and Tea Fields


Ella Rock and Tea Fields

After lunch, our driver took us to Nine Arch Bridge, which is a railway bridge where people took wonderful pictures.

Nine Arch Bridge

To reach Nine Arch Bridge it was a 550 meters walk (with 60 meter elevation change) down to a viewpoint, which is called Nisee Juice Bar on Google Maps. After which it was a hike through people’s backyards and terraced rice fields down to the actual track.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the middle of a bright sunny day day is a good time to take photos of the bridge, a cloudy day or twilight would be much better in my opinion. (In this case some Horton Plains mist would help.) And I do believe the best photos came from the viewpoint, which would save one the laborious (and to my friends who got cut by the plants, hazardous) journey down to the tracks. Of course, that is, if you check train timetables and (in the case of Sri Lanka’s unpunctual trains) luck was on your side.

Nine Arch Bridge

 Nine Arch Bridge
Nine Arch Bridge

Railway


Railway

Nine Arch Bridge

 Nine Arch Bridge
Nine Arch Bridge

Tree


Tree
The trees they grow so high…

Binary Tree


Binary Tree
Oh, another contestant!

Banana Tree


Banana Tree


So after all these, we got onto the van and began a two-hour road trip to Tissamaharama, the first leg of which passed through the same valley that Little Adam’s Peak overlooked.
Little Adam's Peak

 Little Adam's Peak
Little Adam’s Peak

Ravana Falls

On the way to Tissamaharama we passed Ravana Falls, which could be seen from Little Adam’s Peak. Unfortunately it’s dry season in Ella, so there wasn’t much water. But this won’t stop tourist vans from making a stop here (and us taking photos), or the pack of monkeys on the scrounge of visitors’ food.

Monkey

 Monkey
Monkey

Ravana Falls


Ravana Falls

Pilgrimage

 Pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
Our driver told us there’s a huge religious festival in South Sri Lanka in a few days, and these pilgrims were making a journey on foot there.

Country Road

 Country Road
Country Road

Paddy Field


Paddy Field

After arriving in Tissamaharama and checking into the hotel, our driver took us to the side of Tissa Lake where we could end our day with views of sunset.

Tissa Lake Sunset

Sunset over Tissa Lake


Sunset over Tissa Lake

Tissa Lake against Sunset


Tissa Lake against Sunset

Sunset over Tissa Lake


Sunset over Tissa Lake Sunset over Tissa Lake
Sunset over Tissa Lake Sunset over Tissa Lake
Sunset over Tissa Lake

Sunset over Tissa Lake


Sunset over Tissa Lake

However, after that, the town of Tissamaharama was literally a ghost town for foreign tourists, as we scoured the main street for a decent restaurant for dinner, which there wasn’t (another reason might be that the sun has set, which for locals, meant that the day’s over). Finally, we made do with a local Sri Lankan restaurant where I tried really hard to finish part of my dinner (so as not to be too rude to the manager, who presumably took ever grain of rice as precious blessings from Buddha) before I was spiced to death. But to be fair, one of my friends who came from some chili-indulging part of China found these local food rather palatable. After that, we found a bakery shop and gladly stuffed up our bags for the night, and for tomorrow’s excursion to Yala National Park.
END

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Day 10 of Sri Lanka Trip, Ella on July 20, 2017 by Huang's Site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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