Nuwara Eliya - Days 115-116
- Meghann
- Nov 18, 2017
- 3 min read
Once again, we bid farewell to a town with a sunrise swim sesh. Once again, Ben was not pleased. It's nice to have Tyler around to be ambitious with me.
We needed another driver to tote us around for the next few days, so we called up and hired our old buddy John. At least we thought we did. Turns out that John works for a larger company - Dhushy Tours - so we ended up getting Rilwan. And Rilwan was certainly no John. First, he hardly spoke to us. Second, the road was very curvy and he beeped at Every. Single. Curve. Third, he put in the wrong destination. Both days. Anyway, we finally get to Havelock Cottages (adequate, nothing too special) and bundle up to go explore the town. It was cold here! At least in comparison to where we have been the past week.
Nuwara Eliya is an interesting town: it has some higher end attractions, probably from when the British were here (horse track, golf courses, gardens, fancy hotels) but it's still Sri Lanka so the infrastructure surrounding isn't stellar. We walked through town a bit and ended up at a Thai restaurant within the Grand Hotel - pretty tasty and quite filling.
Then, we thought we'd get some tea while we were at the Grand Hotel, which was one of the top activities recommended to do in Nuwara Eliya. Upon entry, they shuffle us in as though we were there for some sort of event, seat us and are immediately poured some delicious tea. Easy enough. Though once we took a look around, every other table had a 4 tier snack/hors d'oeuvres tower. Full to the brim from lunch already, we try to communicate that we did not want any food. We were not successful. We get brought our own tower of little tasters - sandwiches, wraps, pastries, desserts, etc - and slowly and reluctantly start picking away at them. While I was only able to take a small bite out of each, Ty and Ben finished all of theirs! An amazing feat. My favorite: fruit tart. Ben's favorite: fruit tart. Ty's favorite: chocolate cake.
After eating far too much, we tried strolling through Victoria's Park - a beautiful garden in the middle of Nuwara (in which we bought and were handed an entrance ticket only to walk 6 feet before handing over the entrance ticket to another worker, in that typical efficient Sri Lankan fashion). However, I seriously struggled moving after eating all of that food. I was in desperate need to get horizontal as soon as possible. Back to the hotel to digest, cozy up under the covers, and figure out plans for the next day.
Plan A was to hike Adam's Peak, but it was too complex to get there in the one extra day we had. Plan B was to go to Horton Plains National Park to hike World's End, but Tyler somehow became mega injured and needed to recoup before Nepal. Plan C was to let Ty rest and Ben and I would hike up to Single Tree Hill lookout in Nuwara, but sleeping in was better. So Plan D! We had Rilwan drive us around a bit, starting with De Silvia bakery for some tasty breakfast pastries. Then poor Rilwan and his tiny Suzuki struggled to take us up Single Tree Hill for a gorgeous view over the town and Gregory Lake. Finally ending our Nuwara adventures was lunch at an Indian restaurant (Indian Summer) with terrible service. We were all somewhat anxious to leave Sri Lanka, but still had a long drive back to the Colombo airport to catch our red eye to Kathmandu. We thought a "fun" game would be to guess how many times Rilwan would honk on the curvy ride back. Guesses: Ty 92, Meg 145, Ben 222. Actual count: >250 (we stopped counting after awhile). Good riddance Rilwan. Good riddance Sri Lanka.