Ella
For those who cannot face the challenge of Adam’s Peak (2242m) with its 8000 or so steps to the top, there is always Little Adam’s Peak in Ella. It may be considerably smaller but it is much gentler on the joints. It is an easy stroll up through the tea gardens, with a short, not-to-steep climb up some steps for the final ascent to the top and good panoramic views of the surrounding valleys. The scenery around Ella is much more rugged and dramatic than Nurawa Eliya and as a result the tea planatations aren’t as extensive.
The tea pickers have a little sideline earning money for posing for photographs. They eagerly invite you to take their photo, some even providing their name and address in the hope that you will send them a copy, but all expect some litle ‘help’ in return. After snapping four of these diminutive ladies home for lunch and giving them 20 rupees apiece, which buys half a kilo of rice or thereabouts, we move on up the trail before any more pickers come along.
On the way down we stop in a little wayside cafe, although perhaps cafe is rather overstating the pretensions of this covered platform with a view and a couple of tables offering coconut juice straight from the tree complete with outer husk, a hole for a straw slashed in the top with a machete.
We discovered Kottu Roti at lunch time and it is delicious. There is a little cafe in Ella with a couple of tables that does the chopped roti with vegetables and spiced up with garlic, cinnamon, cloves and ginger freshly cooked. Mmmm! Definitely recommended. As the man there told us several times as he extolled the virtue of his kottu rotis, others have ‘no garlic, no cinnamon, no cloves, no cinnamon’.
We have met a Dutch/French couple staying at Hilltop who are at the start of a 12-month tour, so we have had lots to chat about and stories to swap. Their trip will take them from south-east Asia to Australia and New Zealand and then on to Paraguay, Chile and Argentina. We are quite envious; perhaps we will make it to South America one of these days.