130 km by tuk-tuk shouldn’t take too long we thought. And so around midday, with the coffin on top, our backpacks behind our heads and our daypacks on our knees we began the ascent to Ella.

Ella is located approximately 200 km east of Colombo and is situated at an elevation of 1041 metres above sea level.
It was nice getting out of the 38 degrees, and the higher we got, we understood why people say it’s a good place to “refresh your brain”.
With every meter of ascent we could feel our moods lighten up.
Our driver, Kias, kept us entertained. He talked a lot (I think mainly to keep himself awake) and played some of his favourite Sri Lankan tunes. He had installed a big speaker at the back of the tuk. I definitely had the better seat here, as it was blaring out into Chris’ ears.

About halfway to Ella, Kias stopped and got us some coconuts. In Sri Lanka, about 25% of the total land is used for the coconut farming.
We started by drinking a king coconut each. The king coconuts are of bright orange colour, it’s water is filled with “electrolytes, is refreshing, rejuvenating, healthy” and delicious (A coconut a day keeps the doctor away...).
After this, the lady who was selling the coconuts, used her machete knife once again to open up a more mature coconut (like the brown ones we see in shops).
In older coconuts the water solidifies into white coconut meat. We were able to eat the fresh coconut meat - which tasted just like a bounty without chocolate and was rather filling.
I unfortunately don’t have any photos of this. In Sri Lanka you’re always supposed to ask the people whether it is okay to take pictures and this lady asked us not to.

Back on the road again we admired the beautiful country side. It was breath taking. In a way I think we got a different experience due to being in the tuk tuk. With every kilometre driven we could smell the air getting fresher and less polluted. (Pollution is BAD here, but more about that on a different day...).
We had to make one more stop just before the final ascent due to the tuk-tuk “revving it’s tits off” and overheating.

Chris found a homestay online called “Mountain Miracle”. And when we got there it actually felt like a little oasis.
Far inside the mountains, overlooking the nine arch bridge it was just what we needed. Our host, a tiny lady with an ever existing smile made us a fresh pot of tea. After admiring our view from our balcony we walked into town to explore.
We instantly loved the vibe that Ella had to offer. Of course it was crowded with tourists but for some reason it was different to what we had experienced the days before.
After a lovely dinner in a local restaurant (prices were about half of what we had seen in A’bay) we made our way back to our Mountain Miracle lodge.
The roads were pitch black and after a while we realised we had 3 street dogs following us. We love dogs, but the street dogs there kind of freaked us out a little bit (rabies is still a problem in Sri Lanka)...

We were glad when we made it home after another eventful day and sank into our bed. This time we were in for a peaceful, quiet and long night.