Royel River Resort Ella

... fast, I&#8217;m a backpacker trying to see asia cheaply. Food and drinks and everything is cheap here but anything touristy tends not to be and I don&#8217;t want to blow too much money doing all the touristy things. I just want to discover what the country is about. So I will stop my whinging and tell you what I have been up to the past few days.<br><br>So the first thing we did was head down the coast towards Galle. This was the coast that got hit by the tsunami and the ...

... The teachings of Don Juan&#8221; by Carlos Castenada which had me by page two. It&#8217;s a true story of a Californian University student and his experiences with a Mexican Indian shaman during his &#8220;apprenticeship&#8221; into the mystical arts of sorcery using mushrooms, peyote and other Indian rituals. It was written in the sixties and was believed to capture a piece of North American culture that was fast becoming extinct. From what I&#8217;ve read thus ...

... carry the bag up the hill... unfortunately the tuk tuk could not make it and got stuck so we had to walk up the hill anyway!<br><br>The views were down the valley from the hotel and the rooms were clean and nice for 1500rs.<br><br>We went for a walk up little Adams peak - which without local peoples help would have meant we would have got a little lost or at least ended up in peoples houses. We walked past tea pickers in the fields up to the top of the hill.

... all about the various plants/animals etc. We trekked to mini worlds end, and had fabulous yet scary views straight down into the valley below. We then went to Greater world's end, by which time, unfortunately, the mist had risen and so we were met with a wall of cloud. We thought this was great however, as we could see why people thought it was the end of the world - a sheer 800m ...

... Lanka is slower than the buses. We decided to take a train to Ella so we could take some fun pictures but it ended up taking us something like 4 hours longer than a bus, garh! This was the same day we woke up early to hike Adam's Peak so we were exhausted and I was getting sick from being so cold at the top of the Peak (the wind chill alone was intense!). The ride was worth the getting into Ella late since we had more amazing views of waterfalls in the ...

... for about 20 mins on a clear sunrise, which is known as a Buddhist mystery because although the peak is quite an irregular shape, the shadow appears as a perfect triangular shape. After the sunrise, we started to make the descent, which due to the steep, continual downward stepping motion makes your legs turn to jelly. It wasn't really painful, more just worrying because your legs started to feel quite useless and like ...

... where there is only rice. You then grab a bit of this and a bit of that and mix it all together with your fingers. You then scoop it up with your fingers and use your thumb to flick it into your mouth... I made a huge mess but it was a lot of fun..! After 2 plate loads i was definitely full so we said goodbye and went back to our hotel to get a good nights sleep... its a active day tomorrow.!

... couple of games of Cricket. This was also the place where i got introduced to a Muslim family who tried in vain to get me to marry their daughter.... i politly said 'erm im staying single while im studying so i can do well in life' (they seemed to like that answer!) Obv we did loads more, and for anyone reading this who is part of AIESEC i just want to say i had 7 HOURS of singing on the bus upto the mountains, i felt like murdering somone... Inbetween these trips ive been at work ...

He Said: So just like the last time I was in Sri Lanka, again we couldn't get motivated to leave in the beach town of Unawatuna! We had the best of intentions to stay here just two nights then go to the highlands, climb a mountain called Adam's Peak, and trek through the tea plantations. Before we knew it we'd been lazing on the beach for four days! Look back at the photos on the previous post and you'll certainly understand how tough it would be to leave that place ...

... to these friends who have seen me through walks, leeches, elephant-poo... There is absolutely no way they are coming back with me but I will miss them. And the resident flies too... So there you go. Will sign off for now but am really looking forward to seeing you all soon. Start clearing space in your diary for me as of this weekend... and be warned, I'm not as brown as you'd think (unless you see me before my hot bath) xxx