Little Adam’s Peak & Nine Arch Bridge

We felt reborn after our first night in Ella.
And to make it even better our host brought up a lovely breakfast. Sri Lankan food portions are usually very big and again we had trouble finishing our two omelettes, 8 slices of toast and the plate of fruit.

Eager for new adventures we started our hike up Little Adam’s Peak. The beginning of the path goes through local tea plantations where

we saw some lady’s picking tea in their estates. It didn’t take us long to get to the top, the steeper parts of the track have got stairs which makes it fairly easy. The view all along and especially up top was phenomenal.

It was a quite warm day so after lunch we headed back to the lodge to seek some shade and chill for an hour. Our host surprised us with some homemade lemonade which we enjoyed on our balcony.

Refreshed and happy we made our way down to the nine arch bridge.
We had seen the bridge from our balcony but getting closer it was even more picturesque.
Behind the railway, you can see the dense forest and below, tea leaves are being cultivated. It was beautiful.
The other unique part about this bridge is that it is built entirely from rocks, bricks, and cement with no use of steel or metals throughout the structure.

We hadn’t looked up the train times but were lucky enough to actually see a train come through the tunnel, go over the bridge before disappearing again in the next tunnel.
After the obligatory tourist photos, we walked through the jungle (“the shortcut” as some locals told us) back into town.

We had seen a gym the day before and wanted to give it a try.
Once again we had the pleasure of locals sharing their music taste with us, as the Indian Bollywood music was blasting through the speakers.
Workout done we were ready for food.

Our host had told us the day before she would cook for us and when she served the food at 8pm sharp (Sri Lanka seems to be different compared to Balinese people - they are all pretty punctual) we were glad we both hadn’t eaten too much before. A big bowl of rice was served with 5 different sorts of curry. It was delicious!!
Our belly’s full we were in for another early night.