We departed for Delhousie and Adam's Peak (Sri Pada) at around 4:30 PM. When Benjamin said he hired a car for us what he meant was he hired about half a car. Our driver, Manog (sounds like ménage as in ménage à trois) showed up in a blue Maruti Suzuki 800 AC. I looked like an old four door rabbit. I assume the 800 was for the number of cylinders and AC was for the little air conditioning button near the steering wheel. I will never know because we never used AC on our four hour trek to Delhousie. I am learning that, like traveling in Romania, in Sri Lanka you never measure time in kilometers. Never was there a stretch of road without the possibility of peril. At one point a random Hindu cow just decided to cross the road in front of us. We nearly had steak for dinner. The last section of the road from Hatton to Delhousie was rough but Manog handled it with expert skill. He said that it was easier to drive at night because you could see the headlights of the oncoming buses as they took wide turns around mountain bends. In daylight you were just driving blind hoping you would not be pushed off the cliff by oncoming traffic. I said a prayer to Ganesh, the God of the intellect and the remover of obstacles.

We pulled into the Slightly Chilled Guest House (Adam's Peak, Delhousie Sri Lanka 22070, [email protected]) my accommodations for the evening a bit past nine. The Slightly Chilled Guest House was set on a hill within walking distance to the start of Adams peak. At 6250 rupees ($50) per night it was pricey in comparison to the other places I have stayed, but I was unsure how available lodging was in Delhousie. Hoài Anh and Thắng found a place next door for 3700 but they said the rooms were not as nice. Finally I had a room where the shower did not spray directly on the toilet. I also had a balcony that proved useless because as soon as I finished my dinner (included in the board) I was in bed looking to get four hours sleep before our 2 AM climb up Adams Peak.