Kandyland

DONATE -- click on this link

Gampola to Kandy
Kilometres: 24      Elevation gain/loss: 214m/167m


Two roads lead out of Gampola towards Kandy, one slightly more direct, faster and infinitely uglier, chock-a-block with garages, hardware stores, roadside restaurants and shops selling everything from furniture and kitchenware to bicycles and cheap fashions. It's congested with traffic, speeding buses, screeching tri-shaws. The air is thick with exhaust fumes and dust, litter lines the curb, and aesthetically-challenged concrete boxes pass for architecture along the route. The allure and popularity of this road completely escapes me, but there you go...

The second road, ever-so-slightly longer and with a slightly more beat-up surface, is a quiet, small route, almost free of traffic, that winds through small villages and rice fields and emerges at the edge of the Peradeniya University grounds.

The campus is extensive, serene, with huge shade trees draping themselves luxuriantly from one side of the road to the other. The cool and rarefied atmosphere of the university grounds is so peaceful and green, it came as an ugly shock when I exited and was plunged into five congested kilometres of bumper to bumper, hot, impatient traffic, everyone jostling to be one extra car-length ahead of the next. Crowds walking on either side duck in and out of the oncoming stream of vehicles, further slowing things down and increasing the annoyance of both drivers and pedestrians. But there was no way around it; all roads into Kandy are equally horrid.

Kandy is centred around a man-made lake, edged with a cluster of colonial era buildings and crammed with hotels and guesthouses, with a warren of backstreets filled with seedy bars and equally seedy characters behind the picturesque lakefront. To understate things just a tad, Kandy has an abundance of accommodation, all because, primarily, of one very famous temple. Most Sri Lankan Buddhists believe a pilgrimage here is necessary at some point in life, and it would appear all foreign tourists to the country have it on their Must Do List.

The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic is perhaps the most important Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka, housing (supposedly) the tooth of Lord Buddha himself, snatched from his funeral pyre by a disciple apparently not bothered by the macabre. Huge significance surrounds the ownership of the tooth, for with ownership follows the rightful rule of the country, or so the legend claims. The tooth never actually goes on display, but you can catch a glimpse of the box holding it twice a day. Actually, what you'll see is the box containing the box containing the box containing the box containing the box containing the box containing the tooth. Some say the Portuguese destroyed the original tooth; some claim they were fooled and instead burned a decoy. Some believe the tooth is actually inside the gilded casket; others think the real tooth has been scurried away to a more secure hiding place. Still others believe if there is a tooth, it could be anyone's but is probably not the Buddha's. This latter view is not exactly popular. Forensic dentistry aside, the temple is an icon and one of the lovelier examples of art and architecture to be found in the country, with a two-storied, gilt-roofed main shrine housing the relic, ornate decorations, intricately painted ceilings, and some beautiful statues of the Buddha.

A few more days to explore Kandy would have been ideal, but I was still only about half way along my route north wanted to get out of the bustle of the city and onto the back roads again. In the morning, I would wake before dawn and begin walking before the sun was up. Wattegama was calling.

Down, Down, Down

DONATE -- click on this link

Nuwara Eliya to Ramboda Falls to Pussellawa to Gampola
Kilometres: 63.5 Elevation gain/loss: 1186m/2659m


The route down from Nuwara Eliya promised spectacular views, stunning vistas over tea plantations and rippling mountains falling away below me as I walked. But promises are not always kept... As soon as I hit Toppass, a few kilometres out of town, I was enshrouded in thick - THICK - fog, the dense clouds sitting smack on my head, making it difficult to see the oncoming traffic and for them to see me, so I found myself diving into the roadside ditch on more than one occasion to avoid an unobservant truck.

For several hours little improved, with a complete whiteout hiding everything but the sight of my own feet in front of me. I reached a small rest house and was offered their finest room, the one with the huge windows looking out over the dramatic scenery. This was the view for the best part of the day:

Only by late afternoon had enough of the cloud lifted to offer a glimpse of all that I had been missing.

And by evening, the same clouds that had ruined my morning view put on a dramatic show.

The following morning I continued down to Ramboda, famed for its huge waterfalls. From the road, the public view of the falls is impressive, but the messy little town that the road passes through, with its profusion of tea stalls and greasy restaurants, the noisy families of picnickers bathing in the falls, the litter of discarded shampoo packets and empty water bottles, all detract from its beauty. It's a sad reality that many of Sri Lankas most picturesque spots are being ruined by a complete lack of environmental sensitivity, and I quickly moved on.

If you continue down the road a few hundred meters, on your left you will come to the Ramboda Falls Hotel, the town's one "expensive" hotel. The lower levels of the hotel and the viewing area of the restaurant offer unbeatable views of the bottom of the falls, which can't be seen from any other position along the road, and it's well worth a small detour here even if you don't plan to spend the night.

One need not worry too much about seeing this particular set of falls or another, for several unnamed, unfamous, but lovely little waterfalls tumble down along the route, each with its own charms and most ignored by the cars speeding past.

The cool damp climate is a tea grower's paradise, and the flanks of the hills are carpeted in the green of tea bushes. Huge plantations like that of Labookelie and Rothschild dominate for miles around. In between, where there are villages, gardens are awash with colour and young boys run alongside the road to flag down traffic and sell their bouquets of bright flowers.

As you descend further from Pussellawa, the temperatures noticeably rise, the clouds are left behind, and the sun comes out again. Fruit stands display their luscious wares, pomellos and avocados and cocoa, and roadside vendors offer up boiled corn.

Eventually, I hobbled into Gampolat at the base of the hills. Little more than a transit point out of the high country and into Kandy, it offers little for the tourist, but I had come 64 kilometres from Nuwara Eliya in two days and was knackered. Accommodation is extremely limited in Gampola, but I managed to find a humble yet adequate home-stay. My 84 year old hostess, a sweet old woman with the short-term memory of Dory (the blue tang fish in Finding Nemo), kept me amused. We had this conversation no less that seven times:

Will you have chicken for dinner?
No, I'm vegetarian.
Will you have sausages?
No, I'm vegetarian.
What do you want for dinner?
Vegetables.
Will you have some chicken?

I humoured her. Hell, with the semi-permeable, molten-cheese like excuse for a memory I have, it's a future I can look forward to myself.

Fog and Cold on Horton Plains

DONATE -- click on this link

Horton Plains World's End/Baker's Falls Loop to Pattipola
Kilometres: 23 Elevation gain/loss: 603m/923m

Horton Plains offers scenery unlike anywhere else in Sri Lanka, a combination of windswept grassy moors, bogs and dense forests, more like what you would expect someplace in Scotland rather than on a tropical island 6 degrees from the equator. It's stark, bleak, the colours muted and the soil blackened. The kind of place you'd expect to find a tormented Heathcliff standing atop a crag, cape flapping in the wutheringness.

Scene from the movie

Horton Plains

I'm Canadian. From the Great White North. Land of blizzards and ice storms, igloos and the world's finest ice hockey teams. I'm supposed to be genetically able to handle the cold. My national identity demands it. But not so. Doubly not so when it's foggy, dark and windy. Horton Plains can serve up a bitter chill so by mid-afternoon we were happy to get indoors, although staying in the drafty, mist-swaddled Maha Eliya bungalow was anything but cosy. Hot, heaping servings of instant packet noodles (my grandmother's secret recipe) put a little heat in our tums, but we spent the night tucked under sleeping bags and four blankets each, still in our fleeces and fuzzy woolly hats.

By morning, most of the clouds and fog had lifted, promising clear (enough) views if we could get to the cliff edge early. After 9:00 or 10:00 a.m., the clouds will usually roll in again obscuring any view down below. From the Farr Inn (no longer an inn, now the information centre) at the centre of the park, it's about a 10-11 kilometre loop to World's End, the dramatic drop off which overlooks Belihul Oya some 1000 meters below, on to Baker's Falls, and back again. Circular, it's impossible to get lost on the route, which is well sign-posted at any junction, and in fact it's forbidden to walk off route to protect the fragile ecosystem. The beauty of Horton Plains, though, is not just the spots where everyone - and I do mean everyone - whips out their cameras and takes the mandatory shots (see pics below). The beauty is in the wide open spaces, the long, undulating grasslands, and the completely "other" feel it has. One thing you'll note, thanks again to the ever-guilty British, is the presence (infestation) of invasive, exotic species which are now near impossible to eradicate.

World's End

Baker's Falls

One joy of walking is that you make almost no noise, and so the wildlife doesn't take off running as you approach. You also go at a pace which allows you to really see, to look into the trees and find the bear monkeys, or get up close to a sambar, or watch a tiny lizard burying her eggs in the ground, things you can't do from inside a comfortable, speeding metal box. In the dim light of the foggy plains, it's easy to miss the wildlife, but it abounds. Horton Plains is unique in the country, the only national park you can actually walk through, and that alone is enough to earn it top marks.

From the exit gate of the park, it's a steady six kilometres downhill to Pattipola, the highest train station in the country, a pretty little depot that takes unusual pride in its display, with cheerful florals, and a dapper little station master who, quite obviously, daily polishes the antique-but-still-working-fine tablet machines. Unchanged from when the British first built the railroads into the hill country, key-like tablets are taken from and exchanged with each passing train to ensure there are no collision. The system has been used for hundreds of years, but hey, if it ain't broke...

Here in Pattipola, my friends departed home, and I spent a not uncomfortable night having rented a room in a local family home. There are no "proper" guest houses in Pattipola, so you take what you can get and are grateful for it. I had no complaints, but by morning - another long walk ahead of me - I was gone.

Into the Hills

DONATE -- click this link

Pallebedda-Badanamure to Weligepola to Balangoda

Kilometers: 35 Elevation gain/loss: 997m/614m

Kahawatta has a serial killer. To date, some 16 women have been murdered, the last few just eigh weeks back, often mother-daughter pairs, usually stabbed, or burned, sometimes raped. Every time a new murder occurs, a new motive is found -- drugs, politics, personal vendettas, underworld connections -- and the perpetrator is speedily put behind bars. Then a few months go by and another woman is killed. In all of Sri Lanka, nowhere is as synonymous with murdered women as Kahawatta. It has all the makings of a Criminal Minds episode (without the FBI) if I've ever heard of one. I'm just not buying the "we've caught the killer, you're safe now" line. Not on my life. I'm not going there. Nope. No way.

Which left me with a dilemma... Follow the road through Kahawatta and I'd have guest houses, places to stay, reasonable distances to cover and gentle inclines along the road. The shortcut, turning off at Pallebedda and heading due north, goes through Weligepola, where there would be no places to stay, insanely steep climbs, and a long, long way to go to reach Balangoda, nearly double my average daily distance. I had little choice; Kahawatta was not getting me.

As I started off, the overcast skies and refreshing drizzle promised a cool and comfortable day. By the time I had reached only half way, however, the clouds parted, the sun came screaming out with a vengance, determined to make up for lost time in the morning, and the heat began to climb. The road dragged on and on, my overloaded pack growing heavier with each passing hour, and the kilometers never seemed to end. At times, with the steep inclines, I barely covered two or three kilometers in an hour. I staggered into Balangoda finally, dripping with sweat, bedraggled, panting. Back cramping. Legs trembling. Feet angry.

I hauled my saggy ass up to the Rest House, and after a dramatic collapse in the lobby (one of my theatrical finest), followed by a shower and a brief snooze, I was temporarily revived. Balangoda proved to be surprisingly pleasant for an overcrowded, cluttered little town, with a you're-almost-in-a-city feel to it. I was invited to the family home of my Panamure friend, the smiling policeman Sangadasa, and was taken up a local hill to the Buddhist temple for a late afternoon worship, where views of the mountain ranges can't be beat. The panorama before you stretches from Sri Pada to Horton Plains and Haputale, but my favourite -- as was specially pointed out to me -- were two twin peaks, affectionately known by a local name.

My shortcut had brought me into the hills ahead of schedule. I was excited, as mountains always get my blood pounding and heart racing. There's something about them that calls to me, something that resonates with me in a way no other landscape does. The ocean? Eh. I can take it or leave it. But the mountains? Mountains lift me. For all my huffing and puffing and fainting as I climb them, there is no where else I would rather be. And well, here I am...