31.01. Nuwara Eliya – Haputhale

We were beginning the day with packing our bag packs after a very cold night in our nest.
Our breakfast was served on our own balcony, including some of the local tea. (Obviously, the locals don’t drink much tea or they like it very strong – we had some problems drinking this very intensive tea). A driver brought us to the bus station in town and we took the bus to Wedigama, where we had to change the bus. Our next host wanted us to call him when we changed the bus, so he could pick us up at the right time. We tried to find someone with a Sri Lankan SIM Card, but it was not that easy. Either they had a Singhalese phone but didn’t understand us or they understood us but refused to call somebody for us. Finally we found a young guy who gave us his phone so we could call our host ad organize our pick up.

Our accommodation in Haputhale was next to the main road of the village and the train tracks and had a beautiful view over the tea plantations. We decided to take a Tuktuk and go to the Lipton’s seat, a panoramic overlooking destination in the middle of the tea plantations.
You have to pay a fee to get up on the highest point and you can decide whether you want to hike or take the Tuktuk. Unfortunately our driver really wanted to drive us the whole way up, what ended in the fact that he really drove us to the overview platform…what a shame!!! At least we could convince him to walk down the path where he picked us up and brought us back to our accommodation.

In the evening we had rice and curry with two girls from the Czech Republic and went to bed early.