Weligama to Ella

After spending a couple of days in Weligama, a beach side village in south Sri Lanka, Yolanda (from Spain) and I decided to split travel expenses by a sharing rooms and tuk tuks or taxis. She also had no real plan of what to see or where to go, so after consulting the oracle (The Lonely Planet), we figured that we couldn’t miss out on seeing the hill country. One slight hitch in that plan was how to get there.

​Travelling long distances in local buses isn’t recommended and after hearing some tales of treacherous driving and overcrowding we decided to find a private car and driver. (I’ve travelled in many local buses since due to necessity and they’re not so bad.) Our luck was with us and the charming Sunny, who is Nadia (from the mediation week) and Colin’s landlord, offered to drive us the 5 hours up to Ella in hills. As it also turns out he is the most caring and knowledgeable travel guide. We spent a beautiful morning, driving through large bustling towns and small rural villages, taking shortcuts and watching the greenery and lushness move past us. Sunny acted as horticulturist and pointed out various plantations. Groves of mango trees, clusters of coconut palms, rice paddies, tea plantations and the ubiquitous native cinnamon tree filled the landscape for hours.

We drove past Uda Walawe National park and one of the elephants decided to hang out on the roadside.

We stopped to view a waterfall and then continued to climb, up up up towards the former hill station of Ella. Sunny casually navigated switch back after torturous bend and managed to stay clear of oncoming trucks, tuk tuks and crazy local buses. We let Google maps guide us to our lodgings located on a mountain on the other side of Ella. We soon realised that the place was inaccessible by any vehicle (other than a mule) and we couldn’t imagine spending two days hiking up and down and into town. Sunny to the rescue again and he phoned a friend who had a guest house in the best location for less than the price we were going to pay.