After our time in Ella trying to escape the hordes of tourists in town, we would be forced to join them for the next leg of our trip. The famous Ella to Kandy train ride, which winds its way through the stunning hill country and tea fields at the heart of Sri Lanka. The train ride is instagram-famous, as you can risk your life by hanging out the side to snap scenic photos (die for the gram). We did attempt this but it was a serious struggle to get a half decent photo with the camera (still a bit of work to be done on our photography skills). This was the first time we had paid extra for reserved seats on a train, and it was well worth it. Instead of doing the entire 7 hour journey from Ella to Kandy, we disembarked at Hatton, a small town in the hill country. From here we immediately jumped on a local bus (this time without the tourists) which took us on a windy hour-long trip through rolling tea fields to our next destination, Adam’s Peak / Sri Pada.

Sri Pada means 'sacred footprint' in Sinhala and the mountain is revered as a holy site due to a boulder at the summit containing an indentation resembling a footprint. It is revered by Buddhists, Sri Lankan Hindus, Muslims, and Christians who all believe that their respective god or deity was responsible for the footprint. This makes the mountain a major pilgrimage site and thousands of pilgrims climb the 5000+ steps every year to reach the summit. It was pretty inspiring to see people of all ages and stages climbing and descending this sacred peak, some looking pretty broken by the end. We saw young parents carrying up babies, groups of friends egging each other on with chants, and older relatives being helped up and down each and every step. For a lot of locals, they start the climb in the evening and take the whole night to get to the top, with lots of rest and naps along the way. Although we took it a lost faster, it was by no means an easy climb, with 5,000 concrete steps taking a toll on the body. Should have done more stairmaster at the gym. We felt very overdressed in our RAB shells and La Sportiva hiking shoes, most people were wearing jandals and were wrapped in blankets they had bought at the aforementioned shops. 

Another feature of Sri Pada, is the conical shadow it casts on the surrounding plains at sunrise. Naturally we decided we had to be up there for sunrise to see this legendary shadow. Unfortunately, this would mean a 2 AM start for us as the hike was supposed to take around three to four hours on the way up and two hours on the way down. We had met a friendly Italian called Alberto at our accommodation, and so we started the day at 2 AM and set forth on an adventure with bleary eyes. The start of the hike is like nothing I have ever seen before. For the first 30 minutes, we walked past an endless line of stores selling everything from local sweet treats, polyester hats, gloves and blankets for the top of peak, ayurvedic treatments, temple paraphernalia, foot massage machines, and even kids toys. We eventually left the bulk of the stores behind once the stairs started, although there were tea shops dotted all the way up the mountain which sold tea, cold drinks and snacks. We had heard some horror stories about the final 10% of the climb becoming a standstill due to the combination of narrow steps and the mass of pilgrims trying to reach the summit for sunrise. Fortunately, our homestay host had given us some killer local advice to take an alternative route near the summit connecting us to another path that would take us to a spot just below the summit from where you can watch the sunrise and the shadow simultaneously. This worked perfectly, and we made it to the spot with time to kill before sunrise. So we settled in enjoying the moment as our plans came to fruition. We sipped our tea, listening to buddhist monks chanting, while we watched the sun creep up over the horizon behind buddhist prayer flags flapping in the wind. As the sun continued to rise in the sky, the triangular shadow cast by the mountain slowly started to appear on the horizon. It was an incredible moment, and we found ourselves spinning in circles taking photos of the sunrise and then turning around to take photos of the shadow in the other direction.

Once we had finished feasting our eyes on the scenery and filling our camera rolls with photos, we pushed on to the summit to see the temple and the sacred footprint. There was a bell at the top which pilgrims would ring once for every time they had visited the peak (we watched in awe as an old man rang it well over 30 times). The footprint itself was actually covered by a golden cloth for protection (apparently it is very rarely visible) and photos were prohibited, Alice actually walked out saying “where was the footprint?”. Print or no print, the summit was a very peaceful and spiritual place, with people from many religions coming together to worship. We eventually decided it was time to go, and started on our way down. On our way we passed a long standstill queue of pilgrims stuck on their way up the mountain, which we had managed to avoid with the wise advice from our homestay host. The walk down was a breeze in comparison to the uphill slog and we skipped our way down many of the steps getting to the bottom in only two hours. Waiting for us at the bottom was breakfast served by our lovely homestay host, who was stoked to hear his shortcut worked a treat. By this stage our knees were starting to ache and our calves starting to cramp, but we still had a long travel day ahead of us. We needed to catch the hour and a half (windy) bus back to Hatton where we would hop back on the train we had left the day prior to finish the rest of the journey to our next stop, Kandy. We were very excited to sit down for the rest of the day and hopefully find some time to nap along the way.