Day 9 Nuwara Eliya to Ella

Day 9 - Nuwara to Ella

Saturday 8th August, 2026

Wow - that was a very cold night ! We asked for a second doona for our bed as the hotel is built into the side of a hill and natural rock face was inside the hotel. The difference in temperature between here and Colombo is significant !

Up for breakfast at 6:45 - the staff were still turning on the bain maries to warm the cold food ! Breakfast was not nice and just as well we had decided to go light due to the 3 full meals we ate yesterday, Graeme had just fruit and a cup of tea, Tania just a little bit more.

Rain and limited visibility has been the norm for the last couple of days, we left the hotel at 7:30 to get to the train station in time to get tickets for the train to Ella, in fact we were going past Ella to a station called Demodara, which meant we trained over the famous nine arch bridge, one of the major attractions in Sri Lanka. As we past over the bridge, there were lots of spectators on the surrounding landscape taking photos of the train. We will be one of those spectators tomorrow morning.

Got to Ella at 13:39, toilet stop, hand luggage into room and straight out for a coffee. Thankfully the hotel here in Ella is right next to the main street and we could find a coffee lounge within 50 metres where we shared a table with Simon, Wendy, the Irish girls and Hayley.

We then left them to stroll along the main street consisting of food places, souvenir and clothing stores, some art and craft stores etc. Very nice strip, but very tourist oriented !

We got back to room at 15:45, did some laundry and caught up our journal. Dinner with a small group at UFO turned out to be very enjoyable - good food and company. Back early to finish blog catch up and Tania to undertake a repair to Nale's shirt sleeve. Prior to COVID he was in the rag trade, he dresses very smartly, and the quality of t