To the end of the world

As if this blog hasn't been disappointing enough, my laptop has recently "hit the fan" and all my backed up pictures are saved on it. So as of now I only have access to pictures of more recent events which are still on my memory card. In any case, I'll talk about a recent little excursion.

Recently, a couple of the volunteers and I took a trip to the Hill Country to visit some tea plantations and hike to a spot known as World's End. We were feeling adventurous and decided to take public transportation instead of hiring a private van. The price to ride public transportation is about 40 fold cheaper than hiring a van, but you run the risk of hopping on a bus with a suicide bomber... pros and cons. There are essentially three categories of buses:

I.Government run non-A/C buses (dirt cheap, but are most likely to be targeted)
II.Private non-A/C buses (same bus as government, but painted differently. Also dirt cheap but dangerous)
III.A/C buses (A bit more expensive, but still dirt cheap by western standards and relatively safe. They are about half the size of regular buses)

Example - The red one is a government bus, the white ones are private:



The A/C buses are the obvious first choice in any trip, but they only run on the most popular routes. We were told that A/C buses run directly from Galle (where I'm located) to Nuwara Eliya (our final destination in the center of the island, see map).



Upon arriving at the Galle bus station, we were told that there are in fact no direct routes from Galle to Nuwara Eliya (the bus station is choatic, so it's hard to tell if people properly understand your question or are just lying). So instead we hopped on an A/C bus to Colombo (the capital) in hopes of transferring to a Nuwara Eliya bus there. About 20km outside of Colombo, all buses have to pull over to one or more checkpoints. Everyone gets off the bus and Armed Guards search through everyone's bag (unless you're white, then you just get waved through). The bus then drives up onto ramps and the bottom is inspected for bombs. This happens to EVERY SINGLE BUS entering the capital. It is a bit comforting to see the thoroughness of their terrorist prevention, but still chilling to know why it is a necessity. I was going to snap some pictures, but the Army gets agitated when you take pictures of "sensitive" things.

We arrived in Colombo unscathed and proceeded to find another A/C bus to Nuwara Eliya... What's that? They only leave in the morning? Damn... It was now 5pm and we were unsure how we were getting from Colombo to Nuwara Eliya. Feeling even more daring, we decided to get on a non-A/C private bus. The bus had 5 small seats in each row, 30+ rows and barely enough leg room for me to fit (much less for the 6'0"+ volunteers). The bus was hot, smelt funny and below my seat was an unaccompanied duffel bag. I kindly leaned over and asked a Sri Lankan how long this trip would take. 7 HOURS!!! The whole situation didn't add up, so we unanimously agreed to get off before departure.

We instead hopped on an A/C bus and took it an hour north to the beach town of Negumbo. Spent the night in a run-down beach front hotel and managed to find the local drinking hole (called the Rodeo Bar... no idea why, they had no mechanical bull). After leaving the bar, we managed to find a Tuk Tuk (3-wheeler) driver nice enough to allow us to drive. It's amazing what you can do with $5.00 in this country.



Still determined to make it to Nuwara Eliya, we hired a van to drive us. We arrived in Nuwara Eliya 4 hours later after being pulled over once (the driver got ticketed and had to make a detour to the nearest police station). We stopped off at a hotel on the way which was set on a hill side over looking the Rambodha waterfall. It was a buffet lunch, the food and views were amazing.





It was a short drive from the the waterfalls to Nuwara Eliya and we arrived around 4pm. The city is nick named "Little Britain" because the climate is very similar to that of Britain. It was cool and damp, a nice change from the sweltering heat of the coast. It was really weird to see Sri Lankans walking around in jackets and pants, while our group was still in shorts and T-shirts.



We stayed one night in a small hotel and woke up around 4am to make it to World's End before 10am (the fog rolls in and blocks the view by midday). Getting to the trail head took 2 hours up a long a windy road. We finally reached the starting point and were greeted by this little fella:



World's End is the edge of a large national park known as Horton's Plain. It is a flat area (as most plains are) high above the rest of the island. On the south western edge of the park, the plains abruptly end and drop off vertically for over 1000m. The actual hike is quite easy since you start at the highest point and walk along a flat path. We hiked through some dense vegetation and which finally opened up to "World's End." The views were great and we got really lucky with the weather as it was cloudy in Nuwara Eliya that morning. Here are some shots from the hike including one waterfall we saw on the way.







After the hike we met back up with our van and began the long drive back to Galle. The road we took travels right through the Hill Country which is the epicenter for tea production in Sri Lanka. All the hill (literally) were covered in Tea bushes. We stopped off at one factory and got a brief tour and a free cup of Ceylon's finest. I took short videos of the factory, but since my laptop is broken I have no way of putting them together. Enjoy the pictures in the mean time.