Sinhalaya Travels

A week or two ago, we decided we’d sat on our haunches being productive members of society long enough, and asked hiker-extraordinaire Kirigalpoththa if he knew any mountains we could scale.

After deciding on Allagalla, a classical mountain-shaped mound of earth topped by a large pile of rocks, we set off. Alla Galla, literally translates from Sinhalese to “Potato Rock”. On this hike, we discovered many things. Foremost among them that Sri Lanka is truly beautiful, and that Sri Lankans shouldn’t be allowed to name things.

Being Prepared

This particular hike is not too long, and can be easily completed in a day. As such, you’ll only require a bare minimum of supplies. It is always a good idea to carry food for lunch, and always required that each person carries their own bottle of water. Or else you’ll be stuck at the top of the mountain being pelted by rays of sunshine thick enough to walk on. Yes, like the song; except you’ll be deliriously dehydrated, not happy. Other than that, footwear with a good grip, raincoat, light change of clothes, snacks and good cargo pants is more or less all you need.

Getting There

The trail is fairly easy to get to. Your first waypoint is the Ihala Kotte railway station, which is about three stations after the Rambukkana station. It is not a major stop, so make sure you don’t get on an express train. Any slow train that plies the track heading uphill towards Kandy/Badulla will go past this area.

We decided to take the last train out on a Sunday, which was at 11pm from Fort. Its last stop is Rambukkana, so we got off at there at about 1am and decided to spend the night there. After going through the usual ritual of deciding on a place to sleep, then walking all over the place for an hour looking for other places to sleep, we went back to the original place. To sleep.

The original place, in this case, was the train we arrived on, which was stopped overnight in Rambukkana. The doors were open and the lights were on. Thanking the gods of wasted energy we settled in to try and get some sleep on the commuter-train type seats.

There was a train that left Rambukkana at 5am which would take us to Ihala Kotte. We took it.

When you get to Ihala Kotte, look to the left of the railway tracks. Then move your gaze upwards. That is what you are going to climb. It might look terribly daunting because it is a steep face of rock, nothing less, nothing more. Thats why you have to go around it.

Get off the train and head toward Kandy along the tracks for a few meters and you should come across a path heading upwards through the trees to your left (waypoint 2). Head into it.

The Trail

This is the start of the walk to the top. This footpath will lead to Poththepitiya (waypoint 3), a small town on the other side of the mountain. Once you reach it, ask around on how to reach the top. There are a few paths that branch off, and you sometimes have to head down less obvious paths. But you can be assured of there being people in this area, who will usually be plenty helpful with directions.

After getting past the village, you will find yourself heading through some tea plantations (waypoint 4). The road will soon be winding around the mountain. There will be many great views.

Once you get past the tea plantation, you’ll head into thick jungle (waypoint 5). This is the last place you’ll see signs of human residence. Note that this is also the last place you’re likely to find water, so fill up. If you have the luxury of purification tablets, use them. But the water from many springs at this point is drinkable.

Head up the trail and depending on the weather, you might go through a stretch full of leeches. Whether or not these leeches will get to you is directly tied to your hardcoreness-quotient, we’ve found.

As you head higher, the trail will become steeper. And also harder to get through, thanks to it being slowly taken over by thorny bushes on both sides. After about an hour of pushing through all this, you end up near the top. You can see the top, and all that surrounds you is savannah-like grass. Except of course, that is not really the top.

The Top

Allagalla is a peculiar thing. Once you get to the “top” of the hill, there is yet another rock to climb. There is a massive pile of boulders that just sits there and mocks you till you claw your way up the thing.

Thankfully the rock was nice, dry, and conducive to a good grip, and didn’t give us too much trouble climbing. The view from the top is, in one word: spectacularly amazingly awesomeness condensed into a single view from the top of a big rock.

It was that good.

Getting Back

Getting back down should take significantly less time than the climb up. A storm was beginning to brew while we were on the rock and we decided to hightail it down before we were forced to take a ride down the big mudslide the trail was likely to become if it rained. We did get a nice bath on the way down through the tea plantation though.

In total, it took us about five hours to climb, and around three to get all the way down. The elevation at the base is about 380m, and the mountaintop is a good 700-800m up from there. After a quick change of clothes we caught the 4:45 train passing through Ihala Kotte back to Colombo. The train, unfortunately, was packed and we had to stand through most of it.

Note: The last train from Ihala Kotte leaves the station at around 6.30.

This is possibly the best experience we’ve managed to have in a one day trip, and is highly recommended. It’s mad fun.

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…Is a mixed bag of experiences. A half dozen of us decided to make the trip to the Jaffna peninsula in time to see the solar eclipse that was due to happen, and to poke around the area a bit to see what the big deal with the land was that they’d fight a war over it.

Getting There

There are trains at various times from Colombo to Vauniya; Best to check the Sri Lankan Railways website(http://railways.gov.lk) for information. We took the 10:00 pm train from Fort on Thursday, and reached Vauniya town by around 5:15 am on Friday. The train itself was the mail train, but it was old. Trying to sleep on the thing was like trying to sleep on top of a cow. Leathery seats and things sticking into you from all over the place.

Once you’ve put yourself through the initiation ceremony that is the train ride, you must make your way to Vauniya town. Turn left from in front of the station, turn right at the next junction, then turn right again to reach the pink bus depot. Once here, eat a quick breakfast and take care of any restroom needs at the loo in the corner of the depot. You probably won’t spend too much time there anyway, since most shops we encountered had at best mediocre food. Apart from your culinary exploits, you will need to find where the Jaffna bus is parked. There’s a bus every half hour or so, but don’t depend on it. Find the bus, and get in it. If it’s full, wait for the next one if you have the time. It’s a long journey to Jaffna and you’ll want to be seated.

The bus will take around three to four hours to get to Jaffna town. On the way there, you’ll pass much greenery and a few animals and birds. There will be the occasional bunker every few hundred meters and usually just one big checkpoint.

The scenery is a greener version of the arid lands found in the raw dry zone. The roadsides are kept neat and trimmed by army personnel who now exercise their hard won battle skills on pruning and weeding. The jungles of the Wanni will soon start stretching off to your left and right, sweeping to the horizon on both sides. If you followed the war, you will be awed to pass such celebrity locations like Omanthai, Omantha, Killinochchi, Elephant Pass etc etc. They are like bits and pieces of a wartime ‘situation report’.

Jaffna Town

When you first step foot in Jaffna, do not be alarmed if it looks like an undiscovered corner of Pettah. You have not made a terrible mistake You have not, in fact, been victim to quite a nifty prank. Jaffna actually looks like that. If you were expecting some barren wild west-ish frontier town, you’ll be completely confuzzled. Not that we were expecting anything like that. Of course not.

We got to Jaffna at about 12:30pm, a gang of hungry thirsty people. We picked a random shop to eat from, and sat ourselves down to a strictly mediocre meal. The Jaffnese Jaffnaen Jaffna food in Wellawatte seemed to taste better. Cursing our luck for picking the worst place in Jaffna for lunch, we decided to get a water bottle or forty. Walk around town a bit. Hopefully you’ll have better luck than us at finding restaurants. Especially because everyone who had been to Jaffna only started speaking of its culinary delights after we got back. Supposedly you can get great prawns and crab dishes.

What to do in Jaffna can be a conundrum. There isn’t much to look at in the town, except for a few interesting buildings and a market, but there is an ‘Old Town’ replete with fort and ruins. We didn’t get to visit those parts this time around so we can’t comment on that. We will be going again soon, so we will update you on that later. I know, I know, sounds like a huge letdown, but we did go to other, interesting, places like,

Point Pedro

Point Pedro, the northernmost point of Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, the beach there was crowded like a Sunday market. We weighed the merits of blogging about a beach that had the ambiance of Wellawatte beach with a bunch of stalls giving away money, and decided we’d rather go looking for something more exotic.

We discovered that the Nillady beach, a pristine place of splendor where sand and water met, was nearby, and all that was separating us from it was a navy base. So we set off to sweet talk our way into it so we could camp there.

Apparently it was near impossible to get in at night. So, we went to a guest house/lodge like thing run by a Muslim gentleman catering to the local Muslim populace by providing traditional meals etc. We managed to spend the night at his place, which was near the Navy base and only a few minutes’ walk from the Point Pedro bus stop.

Prices were super-affordable. He only charged us Rs 250 and there were six of us sleeping in is hall and using his kitchen to cook and his well to bathe. We forcefully pushed a few extra hundred rupees into his hand. We were feeling guilty about breaking his bottle of salt while cooking the previous night. But for the record, this has been the cheapest place we have stayed at so far.

After the disappointment of Point Pedro, we headed to the Jaffna Hindu College grounds, from where we had an unobstructed view of the eclipse.

The Eclipse

The eclipse was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and part of the reason we were there in the first place.

This was an annular solar eclipse meaning that the sun was obscured so that we could all live through the opening credits of “Heroes” together.

For some reason, the pictures we took of the eclipse have been harder to get our hands on than sunscreen in Batticaloa. Hopefully we’ll get them soon, and we shall make a new post on it.

We were offered some “pongal” by a few women cooking some up near the ground. It was the first time I’d had some, and it was pretty good!

Casoorina Beach

Now for the really awesome parts. We were wandering around Jaffna, disillusioned and low spirited when we heard of this supposedly amazing beach just an hour out from the town. Asking around from a few three wheeler drivers, we managed to find which bus would take us there and promptly headed for it, hoping to also get in some camping by the beach.

The bus there can be found at the main bus stand, and we managed to find it quite easily with the help of a few people around the place. Ask the three wheeler drivers which bus to take to get to Casoorina beach.

You should ask the conductor to drop you off at the proper stop, as it’s not the last stop. Once you’re off the bus, cross the road and head into the lane there. You can either walk the couple of km’s to the beach or take a three wheeler. Either way, ask for directions. Though the road is pretty simple and you can always ask someone by the road.

When we went, the access road to the beach was being repaired and paved, probably due to the impending construction of hotels in the area. As you enter the beach, it’ll feel like you just stepped into an episode of Lost, sans the crappy storyline. There are strange western-ey looking trees all around and pine trees line the sand. Even the grass looks trimmed.

The water here is simply amazing. You can wade out for hundreds of meters and still remain at most, chest deep in water. Mild waves lap and tug at you like a puppy trying to wake you up by licking your face. Not quite as unpleasant though. Trust me, it’s awesome. The sand is powdery and littered with sea shells. If so inclined, you can have an enjoyable jog by the sea for at least a few kilometers, uninterrupted. Of course you can do the whole Baywatch thing and help local fishermen push their boats to shore. If you want to.

Camping out here was not possible due to all kinds of reasons such as Indian fishermen coming over, local fishermen going over to India and bloodthirsty rabbits haunting the beach at night. Our tamil wasn’t too good so we’re not too sure about that last one. Suffice to say, nobody is allowed on the beach too late into the night. Instead, we were directed to a nearby kovil which takes in travelers.

The kovil is about a kilometer away, and is pretty impressive. It’s on a vast tract of land populated by a few impressive looking buildings. When we got to the kovil, we were offered lodging at an empty house that was nearby, presumably kept by them for travelers. We respectfully declined and instead pitched the tent nearby. We were damned if we were going to drag this thing on yet another trip and not use it.

The Maggi Noodles were aplenty and firewood was free. After a night there, we set off in the morning back to Jaffna town. A quick breakfast later, we were wandering through town back to the bus station. From there it was back on a but to Vavuniya to catch the afternoon train. There are usually plenty of  pretty good fruit on sale along the roads round here.

The nice new train that will take you back to Colombo and mediocre beaches is also a great place to try out some gymnastics on the handrails.

Verdict: If Jaffna isn’t on your list of places to visit within the year, we will flog you on the streets!

Note: This post was written quite a while ago, and as such, Casoorina beach has now become crowded and populated. We will probably be going that way again soon, and there’s bound to be another nice beach somewhere around. We will keep you updated!

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What we did after we got to the fort, that’s for another post to tell.

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On the last day of our backpacking venture, after lounging about in Polonnaruwa, we decided to leg it to Badulla to get a desire for some hills and mountains out of our system.

Now Badulla aint no short distance from Polonnaruwa and we found ourselves on the road for a good 5 to 6 hours or so bussing it to Mahiyanganaya and then Badulla. Direct buses from Polonnaruwa to Badulla are less common but Polonnaruwa has a steady stream of buses leaving for Mahiyanganaya from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. But do mind, the last bus to Badulla leaves Mahiyanganaya at about 6 pm.

Badulla Town

Is a pretty modern city. Resthouses are affordable and are easily found after some quick consultation with a friendly tuk tuk driver. We got a comfortable two-bed room for Rs 1000 or so. Food is not included of course but delicious kottu can be had from townside shops.

The weather can get chilly, and a persistent drizzle is common during many months. A raincoat/ umbrella would be handy to have around.

Not Ella

Our original intention was to head over to Ella, a place famous for its natural beauty intertwined with a deep history of lore and er, other such dreamy stuff, but a last minute logistical difficulties forced us to reconsider.

Also, after a week of tiring but happy travel, our city slicker butts were calling out for creature comforts; deeply embarrassing our ‘hardcore’ outer veneers. So when the station master at Badulla railway station said that observation class tickets were only available for Saturday and not Sunday, we seized on the opportunity to leave that very day, convincing ourselves that the famed train ride from Badulla to Colombo in Observation class was worth sacrificing Ella.

It wasn’t of course, nothing short of a life threatening situation is really worth sacrificing Ella for. A day in Ella followed by the train ride we will detail out below would of course have the makings of a perfect trip. But 50% is way better than nothing at all, Confucious say.

The Train

Observation class is the rear end of the train. This end of the carriage is one big glass window affording splendid views of the surrounding countryside. The seats are laid back and comfortable and also feature wider and more tourist friendly windows.

You must ensure to book in advance to be sure of getting one of these coveted seats, especially on weekends. If you are lucky, like we were, you’d be able to snap up a few unbooked seats that sometimes are available. Tickets cost Rs. 750.

The Ride

At first, you may think it romantic to travel in 3rd class seats with first class tickets and you’d be right. Mingling with the people and enjoying the atmosphere of hill country trains can be one of those cliched simple pleasures in life that guide books always talk about. But after a while, 3rd class gets crowded. And you may consider returning to your comfortable first class seats after a while when that old man you are squashed next to starts a coughing fit and that runny nosed little kid wedges himself between you and the window.

The scenery of course, is breathtaking. The railway lines were installed by the Brits roughly two centuries ago to transport tea and coffee crops from the hill country. The train meanders through plantations, tunnels and along ridges that afford sprawling views of waterways and distant hills.

Sit back, relax and enjoy. Take your laptop and 3G dongle if you like. Grab some drinks and food and chill out in observation. The ride takes roughly 10-12 hours and you will soon be overcome with a happy doze as the gentle mountain air caressingly buffets your face.

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