What an epic day of travelling! First we got a tuk tuk from our accommodation to Colombo Fort train station, which took about 1.5 hours because of the crazy traffic and road closures. The pollution was immense! I can’t imagine having to do that everyday.

Then we took a five hour train journey out of the city and up into the hills towards Hatton. We climbed higher and higher into the lush green tea plantations and through the forests. Was so nice to have some cooler (and cleaner!) air to the lungs.

A quick pit stop in Hatton for the biggest rice and curry ever at a building that was the first of the nation’s ‘Hatton National Bank’ branches. Our bowls kept on being filled! We had jackfruit curry, dhal, rice, sambal, poppadums, two types of salad and a beetroot curry. Let’s just say it was difficult to lift my bag after. And it cost about a fiver to feed us both.

On we went to the chaos of the bus station where we found the right bus to get and got told to leave our luggage at the front…not to be seen again until the end of the journey as there was about ten thousand people on the bus. I think I lucked out and ended up in a window seat, first sitting next to a lady with a tiny baby who was very interested in the zip on my bag. Then I shared with an old lady who was very sweet but took up more shoulder room than you would imagine a tiny old lady in a bright yellow sari to!

We wound our way up into the hills even further, through the copious tea plantations – you could smell the tea in the air – where the ladies were finishing for the day, walking along the road with the tea leaves sacks on their heads. We passed kids playing cricket, tiny local villages and two beautiful lakes.

The drivers are mental and beep their horn round any tight corners to warn anyone coming towards them to hold back whilst they pass. Local Sri Lankan music blares from the speakers as men spit tobacco out the window (nice).

We are now on the final bus of the day waiting for it to leave. This one has an image of a Hindu god at the front. The last one had a Buddha. All around us are ladies in traditional dress, older guys in sarongs and a few young men playing some funky local music from their phones whilst we wait for the bus to fill up to the point of bursting before leaving.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m in the mountains again or because we’re on the road again but I’m feeling alive! It doesn’t matter that I barely got any sleep last night, and that I’m getting up at 2am to climb a mountain…I’m feeling good 💛