Before we eat, he tells us that they asked him something stupid - how we wanted our Rice & Curry (with chicken): Normal, hot or very hot. Niels had ordered it very hot - he did not want us to have tepid food. I could tell Niels that it was not the temperature he had been asked about but how spicy we wanted it! The food turned out to be uneatable spicy - so we had to ask for extra rice and boiled water...
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While Kurt and Niels finished packing, I went into town with my sandals, which were broken several places. I had seen some old men repairing shoes yesterday. All I had to do was give the man my sandals and then he started. A boy got his tennis shoes repaired for 5rs (13c) so I gave him 20rs (50c) after he had repaired them 3 places. It seemed acceptable to him. We take the train west through the mountains to a town called Hatton. We buy 2.class tickets for 40rs (1$). The trip takes about 3 hours and is fantastic. Perhaps even better than the bus trip into the mountains. The tracks wind through the mountains in an altitude of 1 to 2 kilometers (3226-6452ft). We also see a lot of waterfalls here and now we also see tea plantations and the traditional female tea pickers.
On 2.class there is lots of space, but when you look out the window, you can see that the 3.class are stuffed with people. Also the train service is irreproachable! All the time, people come through selling candy, fruit, sodas and several other home cooked things - and without being obtrusive. The price is also normal - not like DSB (AMTRAK, British Rail, etc.) who puts 400% on the retail price. The wagons are also very good - like the Danish 2.class - really! Even the toilets! One thing you won't find, is something called a garbage can - but what do you do with your garbage ? Out through the window!
Now to our fellow passengers: Niels walks around in the train and takes panorama pictures of the mountains and pictures of the train tunnels. He meets a printer (from a newspaper) who tells him when waterfalls and tea plantations turn up - so he can have his camera ready. Kurt and I were talking to a family sitting opposite of us. At first we thought that the father was a ticket collector - fortunately we didn't give him our tickets! The family consisted further of his wife, a daughter and a son. The son was 10 and the daughter 16 - a rather nice looking girl who looked older that she was ;-) They had been visiting another daughter who were studying at a university. They were another proof of the kindness of the Sri Lankan people - they gave both bananas and candy to us.
We get off in Hatton and buy lunch: (guess what ?) Yes, bananas, biscuits and Fanta. On the station, we meet white people for the first time, since we left the French guys. Susan (New Zealand) and Sarah (Canada). Nice to speak with somebody who speaks decent English - your English is ruined here because you have to speak the same (bad) way as the people here do, to be understood. They had been traveling in the northern part - in the ancient cities from the 4th century, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. I wanted very much to go there as well, but Kurt and Niels were much against it, they thought it to be near the Tamil people. It might have been in the border area. Well, they are, like us, going to climb Adam's Peak (Sri Pada). The following quote is from 'The Worlds Great Religions' - where I read about Sri Pada the first time and made me look forward to it. TSK has a chapter about it as well. Buddhist pilgrims climbs the 2245m (7242ft) high mountain to honor the legendary footprint of Buddha. Approx. 300.000 pilgrims visit this place a year. Sri Pada means 'holy footprint'. To the Hindus the mountain is holy for another reason: they call it 'Shivas Peak'. Christians from the old Indian Church think that the apostle Thomas have lived there during his mission in India, and the Muslims call it 'Adam's Peak' and interpret the footprints as those of the first man. In the history of religions, Sri Pada is a holy mountain of classic importance. We were previously told that we should go to a village called 'Nallathania'. TSK says that the village is called Dalhousie. The village is on the northern side of the mountain. The bus leaves to Nallathania leaves right outside the station. We all get a seat in the empty bus. Slowly more and more people enter. And more and more. And more and more. Then the bus is completely full and we move on.....but only to stop in the middle of Hatton. 40 more are waiting here! 10 minutes later they have, by a miracle, been crammed, more or less, into the bus. 5 of them are hanging out of the doorway! A pretty ride, but we sit a bit uncomfortably so it is a bit difficult to enjoy. We count how many that gets on and off during the ride and the result is that at the worst time, we have been 105 passengers in a 32-persons bus!!!! I think that is an entry for Guinnes Book of Records. No wonder why it is so cheap to ride busses here.
There is a small joint which has rooms for rent (TSK had warned us about it), and we have to pay 175rs (4.37$) for a very disgusting room. The room with bath turns out to be a room where the 'bed' takes up the whole room and the bath is a barrel with cold water. We try to sleep at 7pm but it is so hot that we cannot fall asleep until 3-4 hours later. Most people climb the mountain at night to see the sunrise. The path is illuminated all the way up by lamp posts.
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We get up at 0:30am to the big trip. We have decided to take the much longer and steeper trip down the south side, so we have to bring our backpacks. At 1:15am we are on our way up the lightened path. There is tea shops every 300m (968ft), so it is very festive - one should notice that the sodas cost 10rs (25c) at the foot, but 50 (1.25$) near the top. There are steps all the way - 7km (4.3miles). The season for pilgrims is from December through April, so there is quite some people on their way up tonight. But it should be really bad in the weekends and at full moon. It is mostly old and young people we meet tonight. Our backpacks make a big impression to people we meet, going down. All of them stops and looks amazed at us and some shake their head. Besides that, everybody greet us kindly with a 'hello'. Some groups of people sing songs - one of them leads the singing and then the rest of them repeat the song. A rather nice ascent. We sweat a lot, but are quickly cold when we rest - the temperature is close to zero (32F).
We reach the top in a new record time (that is backpack climbing record) - 2 = hours!! The normal ascending time is 3-4 hours. We had hurried the last stretch; we could not see the top and was afraid we would not make it before sunrise. We meet Sarah and Susan on the top. They had left about 1am too, but had not slept. A small castle is build at the top and in it, a small temple with the footprint. I go in to see it and talk with a young Buddhist. He explains that the print I see is only a cast and that the real print is underneath. The real print was a bit worn off by the many pilgrims. We mail a couple of letters - they have a nice postmark here, so be sure to mail one home.
Sunrise is at 6am. We see the first light beams from east and everybody is were expectant. But then clouds starts coming. We are quickly surrounded in grey and wet clouds and the expectation is relieved by disappointment. On the west side we should have been able to see a beautiful shadow of the cone shaped mountain if the clouds hadn't come. We are very sorry for the many children who have walked the long way up and waited (freezing) for a long time. People are busy getting down again and at 6:20 we are almost alone.
We start the descent of the southern side to the town of gems - Ratnapura. We had read in TSK that the trip would be much more strenuous (14km (8.75miles) of steps), but we thought we were tough guys. Furthermore it would gain us much more merits :-) - according to the Buddhists. Ascending Sri Pada gains you many merits - like helping people.
No problems on the first part though we can feel the extra weight of 15 kilos (33lbs) from our backpack, when we step down. After an hour (the vertical stretch), we enters jungle vegetation. Very vigorously though we still are in pretty high altitude. One hour more passes by and we are now rather sore several places and tired. Niels' neck hurts; just like on our way up, the temperature is changing when we rest. The rest of the descent is unfortunately rather bad. I had very sore legs and had to step down with stretched legs - so it was rather slowly. We had to admit that Niels had caught a neck infection and he his back hurts much too. Kurt's legs hurt as well, but it was him who kept us going. 3/4 the way down we were in real tropical rainforest - including all the natural jungle sounds.
Unfortunately, it was hard for us to enjoy it all... Next time, we will take this trip without the backpacks, but I promise we will do it again; the jungle was very beautiful and it is a great trip. There is also lamp posts all the way along the southern route, so it is definitely this one we would recommend people - if they/you are able to do with 14 km of steps. There is also small shops on this route. Suddenly a quick tropical rain shower hits us and we sit down in a open shed. Some workers come and try to talk to us. They don't speak English, so the communication is done by sign language and laughing. They cut some palm leaves for us to use as umbrellas. The rain stops rather quickly though. Almost down, near a village (we never discovered the name of this village), I'm almost fainting. We have only had bananas, biscuits and sodas for 20 hours. Finally; 8 hours after we had started the descend, we see a road. Niels is a bit behind, and I quickly walks through the village to find a bus or somebody who can drive Niels to a doctor. I ask a van driver how far there is to the bus stop. He asks some of the local people and tells me that there is still a long way. I tell him about Niels, and he accepts to drive us to Ratnapura (16km (10miles)). He is a salesman from a candy company. He has two people helping him. We drive quickly to the doctor and as white men, we come first in a long line. We cannot remember what neck infection is called in English, but we say it is like pneumonia - just that it is in the neck. Neck infection, he confirms and gives Niels a lot of pills and vitamins. The bill: 75rs (1.88$) - including penicillin and instructions only to drink hot drinks (equals tea) for 3 days.
Our saviour has his home base in a village between Colombo and Ratnapura (Kurunegala), and we chooses to go with them there. So unfortunately we don't get to see the gems in Ratnapura this time. He (J.B.Bavmewewa) finds a guesthouse to us. After 36 hours with only 2 hours of sleep, we quickly fall asleep - after a big and good dinner.
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| After 12 hours of sleep, we wake up refreshed, but with sore legs. Our friends come and say goodbye - they are on their way out with more candy. We give them a little money for helping us. The guesthouse has a lot of funny animals. |
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