A fellow guest at the hotel told us he had been trying to get a ticket for Ella for three days, as they sell out very quickly. We were going to be catching the same train, but alighting several stops before. Not sure how this would impact our travel plans, we arrived at the station to find that we could purchase a ticket, but with no seat reservation. As it turned out, the train was indeed packed, more tourists than we had seen anywhere on our trip so far. We stood for the 2.5 hour trip to Hatton, the doors and windows all open, we could feel the air getting cooler as we climbed higher into the central mountains.
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| The White House hotel |
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| Nallathanniya |
A lunch stop and a visit to a bank before hiring a tuk-tuk for the one hour trip through tea country to our hotel in Nallathanniya at the base of Adams Peak. The roads were busy with busses, each turn on the winding road revealed a new vista with mountain slopes covered in bright green tea bushes. The weekends are holy days and Tuesday was Poya - the full moon and also a holy day, with thousands of Sri Lankans making the pilgrimage to Sri Pada (the Sinhalese name for the peak). The weather forecast didn't look too promising, so we decided not to do the popular overnight hike up to the monastery to see the sunrise and had a good nights rest instead, for an early start in the morning.
A fellow guest at the hotel told us he had been trying to get a ticket for Ella for three days, as they sell out very quickly. We were going to be catching the same train, but alighting several stops before. Not sure how this would impact our travel plans, we arrived at the station to find that we could purchase a ticket, but with no seat reservation. As it turned out, the train was indeed packed, more tourists than we had seen anywhere on our trip so far. We stood for the 2.5 hour trip to Hatton, the doors and windows all open, we could feel the air getting cooler as we climbed higher into the central mountains. 
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