We arrived from our long 3 hour bus ride through the winding hills to find smiling faces waiting for us at “Spring Garden” Guesthouse in Nuwara Eliya (a city of 25,000). The guesthouse was a short 10 minute walk to the town center. Our hosts, Wasanthe and Dhalip warmly greeted us and checked us into our room aptly named “The Eagles Nest”. Contrary to our last room, this room was amazing and the views from our balcony were stunning.
View from the “Eagles Nest”
Hills of lush, rolling Green tea fields surrounded the very picturesque town of Nuwara Eliya, which was set in the middle of the sprawling valley. For US$35/night we considered it a steal of a deal.
As a bonus, Nuwara Eliya is set at the highest altitude of any town in Sri Lanka which means the night are cool and refreshing. It was a welcomed change from the sweltering weather of the previous towns where you feel like you are slowly being cremated throughout the day. It was cold enough that when we grabbed some late night thin crust pizza from downtown we forgot our sweaters and nearly froze our royal rastafarian nay nays off.
The next day we headed out to check out the tea fields and the accompanying waterfalls that zig zag through the rocks high above the fields. We were joined by Sara, a Swiss freelance writer who we became friends with over the following days.
The day ended with a humongous curry meal at our guesthouse that was enough to feed an army. To be honest, the portions here are huge and every meal is too much food for us to finish which leaves me feeling a bit guilty. Not sure why.
Brown rice, dhal, pompadom (crispy chip), chicken curry, curried beans, eggplant, and potato curry, and I can’t remember what the dish on the bottom is.
As a side note, we do not order all these dishes. This is what comes when you order a Sri Lankan curry dinner for two. The cost for all of this was about $11.50.
The following day we awoke at 4:30AM and did the Horton Plains 9km nature hike which was not difficult but extremely expensive ($27 each for park entrance fee). It was nice but somewhat underwhelming for both of us.
The highlight of my day came later in the day. We happened to stumble upon a tiny, local eatery called “Devon Food City” which was buzzing with locals and drew me in like a magnet. All eyes were fixed on us as we sat down at a table (I don’t think this place has seen many tourists).
I pointed at some food that looked appetizing and hit a gold mine. They served a delicious dish called “Devilled Chicken” which was incredible. The single best dish I have tried since being here. I felt a bit guilty pulling out my camera in such a restaurant so I’ve attached a picture of what devilled chicken looks like.
The perfect amount of sweet and spicy fall off the bone chicken. The whole meal: rice, one piece devilled chicken, one piece curried chicken, a large bottled water, and a 7up for Meg costed a grand total of $4.60. Finding this type of hole-in-the-wall restaurant makes my day.
We finished the evening by visiting a local market….
And playing cards and Carrom with our new found friends from the guesthouse.
Megan and Sara playing cards at the local pub.
With much sadness, we departed from Nuwara Eliya and pushed deeper into the highlands with a 3 hour train ride to the small backpacker town of Ella. After purchasing our 2nd class “standing room only” tickets for the train we really weren’t sure what to expect but it turned out to be a memorable journey. I’ll save that for the next blog……
Kamikaze Canuck 