30th April and 1st May - Nuwara Eliya to Ella

Brett Sedgwick
May 9, 2022
6 min read

Ayabowan from the way cool Ella,

We had a great sleep in, in the cool room - literally and figuratively - in the top of the chalet. Breakfast was served in a space at the top of the stairs and our host from last night - the carrom dude, whose name we never got, tripped up the stairs and spilt our first course. Not to worry, he made up for it in food volume. We had cornflakes, tea, coffee, french toast, hoppers (yay, finally) BLT's and salad... so much food.

Vish then drove us to the Grand Hotel again and we got some great pics as we strolled around the manicured grounds. A coffee, mutton samosa (mutton...droool) and a chicken leek and mushroom pie later and we were on the way to the station.

On the way I asked Vish to stop at one of the farmer's stalls on the side of road so that I could get some carrots. I ended up getting about 10 large carrots and a huge handful of beans for 200 rupiah, (80 cents) which I happily grazed on over the next few days.

Te minutes later and we were on the platform at Nanu-Oya Station to get a train to Ella.

This was one of the things that I was looking forward to doing after I saw the fabled pics of the 9 arches bridge near Ella. I had a whole Hogwarts vibe going with beautiful scenery, trolley snacks, tea etc, being delivered.

Wrong, very wrong.

The ticket price was 150 rupiah (70 cents) for a two hour train ride. It was also Saturday lunch time, so EVERY man and his elderly aunt was on the train.

This was nadir of the trip man.

We had to stand up, masks on, on a completley packed diesel train for nearly three hours. As Jen said: "If we don't get Covid now, we never will!"

This trip sucked and about 2 hours in, 30 teenage boys got on with a djembe and proceeded to sing and dance for the entire trip!! The train was stinking hot and stinking, and these boys were pogoing up and down singing their hearts out for all it was worth. I could never imagine Aussie boys doing this. I guess, in hindsight it was a cool cultural thing to witness but at the time it was fucked. Check a snippet vid below:

Ayway about 20 minutes before Ella, 90% of the passengers disembarked and we had a seat as we watched the rain drench the lush forestscape. We pulled into Ella station and it was bucketing down. It was also 4pm and we were pretty hungry. Vish then took us to the coolest cafe in Sri Lanka - Chill Cafe in the main drag of Ella and told us to take our time and well, chill.

Chill Cafe is a two storey teak and bamboo structure that looks like an undulating mountain. The top storey has an amazing curved roof and the patrons were mostly Euro backpackers - a lot of Danish/Scando kids here. We got our breath back and took stock of the town. The main street runs downhill and reminded me of somewhere like Ubud or Jindabyne - probably because it was raining - and the town definitely had a cool vibe about it. Lunch was incredible. We ordered fresh juices and Jen had a veggie burger with handcut chips and side salad. I had the same but my burger was BBQ pulled jackfruit. This incredible fruit grows in clusters from the truck of the jackfruit tree and each fruit can grow to 32 kilos! Anyway, it was delicious and there was no way that I felt I missed out on meat with this meal.

By the time we checked in to the O2 resort which was one street back from the main drag, the train trip was a distant memory and after a few drinks in the room we ventured out to see what Saturday night in downtown Ella looked like.

It was flogging down rain so we grabbed an umbrella, ella, ella from reception and went to the closest bar for a cocktail. Jen grabbed an espresso martini and I grabbed a largie of Lion and for the second night in a row we watched a local murder some soft rock classics - this time on guitar. To be fair the guy could play and sing but the words were anyone's guess!

Next stop was a subterranean bar with pool tables that we had spotted earlier in the day. We proceeded to smash multiple drinks over 5 games of pool with 3 English lads, James, James and Freddy. We had a great night before we grabbed a pizza from Chill at 10.30pm and headed home to eat it.

A big day, but no one can say we aren't giving it a red hot go!

The next we had a sleep in before an omelette, coffee, fruit and juice in the hotel.

Vish drove us a short way away to the jungle track to the see the famous 9 Arches Bridge. It was already baking hot by then and after yesterday's rain, the humidity was off the charts. Anyway, we sweated our hangover away as we trekked the 20 or so minutes through jungle tracks to the bridge.

It was pretty cool. It was 80 foot high and the 9 arches are made of rock brick and cement. It curves across a 90 metre gap and this viaduct is also called "The Bridge in the Sky!" Cool.

We walked across and back, got some selfies and shuddered at the clowns that were sitting on the edge.

The bridge was finished in 1921 and is part of the infrastructure that the British put in place when they ruled here. Colonisation is a dirty word in most of the world but the Sri Lankan's love the British for infrastructure, tea and cricket. Fair enough!

We then tried one of the orange King coconuts, but they were nowhere near as sweet as their green cousins in Thailand, in fact they were rather bitter.

We then had an oil massage at a bit of a dodgy place, but our legs were so tired from the train, playing pool and jungle trekking, that it felt like bliss.

Vish then spent some time on one of his phones - a lot of people still have the little Nokia's - trying to organise a cooking course for us. After many calls and mixed messages, we were locked in. It's just a bit out of town he said. Well technically he was right - it was only 300 metres from the 9 Arches bridge, but it took us about 30 minutes through winding mud tracks to get there. We were starting to think that this may be dodgy city, but then we came over a crest and saw the fat, happy face of Chef Ranjit.

Ranjit used to have a cookery school in the main drag of Ella and he had been on military catering crews all around the world. His wife and kids are in Kandi - earning bucks - while he lives in the middle of nowhere in this tiny shack with his mum. The front verandah is his classroom and we were his students.

The next two hours were awesome!

We really got a grasp of Sri Lankan cooking here. The just call any curry "curry," unlike in India, but the certain spices - whether to add or omit - determine what the curry will be - if that makes sense. Anyway, everything that we cooked and ate today was vegan and a lot of the things were picked from his jungle garden or acquired locally.

We made:

Coconut Sambal

Sweet and Sour Mango Curry

Aubergine Pickle

Caramelised Onion with Beans

Coconut Pumpkin

Red Dahl

Rice and Pappadums.

In a word - divine. Vish got to eat with us too and they even poured me a glass of arrack (which I later bought a whole bottle of back in town) and a Lion beer.

The food and knowledge gained was incredible and I've made a pact with myself to recreate the entire feast when we get home.