Had the worst night sleep last night, it was the full moon national holiday and the owner had music pumping until about 5am, my bed was the other side of the wall to the common area so I could hear every word of the songs and their awful singing, I had to put my headphones in and listen to my music to try and put me to sleep.

We were plodding on today because there were a fair few trains going to Ella so we didn’t rush to get up - not that we could because we were awake most of the night listening to the awful music.

When we did eventually get up and pack our crap up we walked back up to the Pedro tea factory for a tour and a brew. We grabbed breakfast on the way, a vegetable rotti and an egg samosa each; it cost us all of 60rupees each. They were from one of those grotty restaurants that have cooked their food early morning and put it out in the glass container for the flies to try and get their sticky feet on. Not very sanitary for the western tummies but we’re a week in now so of course we are pros at the grubby stuff!
(Tummy update: strong, maybe not so strong after this breakfast on the go?)

The tea factory was interesting, it went through all the stages of how they clean it and dry it to the different teas and how they dry them out or burn them to give them flavour. That particular tea factory has 22,000 acres alone in Nuwara Eliya and the surrounding towns.
We finished earlier than expected at the factory so walked down to the hostel and left for the earlier train, was t fancying sticking around in the cold and damp at the hostel. The tuk tuk drivers down to the train station was lovely! Very cold though and breezy though!

There were a lot a lot of people on the st station waiting for the same train as us for my liking...

It came around 1pm, the locals already pouring out of the train in all three classes of the train. Plus all of us on this station needed to get on (locals, rucksacks, silly travellers taking the cheap way and tourists going back to their swanky hotels)
We barely got on the train, we were stood by the doors and the toilets (toilets that smell worse than game day arrive trains wars toilets) pretty sure as soon as I put my rucksack on the floor it went in a little pee that’s come out of the eastern hole in the floor - fantastic!! Let’s hope it’s water from someone’s shoe where it rained?....

We were absolutely crushed, no where to go. No where to manoeuvre and people kept trying to go and use the damp toilet! Two Germans stood next to us gave up half way through and cracked open two lion beers... we joined them with the one I took from the hostel which we hadn’t used. And shared half a vegetable rotti between us. This really was one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world, I can really see what they mean now! Not.
It wasn’t the train journey everyone had raved about to us anyways, not that it helped being he weekend and their full moon excuse for a national holiday weekend either.

Thank god for my google maps I could track where we were going and could count down how many train stops there were until our greatly anticipated stop until we could all pour out into what was a very foggy and damp....still! I’m not sure how much of this damp air I’m enjoying now.

We got a tuk tuk to the moonlight homestay, wasn’t quite sure how he was going to get up the hill, the Main Street of Ella was very touristy! Lots of restaurants and bars a few too many selling western food aswell :/ boring! wWe were almost vertical going up I thought we would have either toppled backwards or he would have lost power and slid back down!

After finally finding the owner once I banged on all the doors and windows and walked into their living room we had a Luke warm shower, sent some washing off and chilled for a little while before we went out to find some good Sri Lankan food. Which by the was incredible at a little hut perched on the side of a rock face called Matey Hut. Our eyes way too big for our bellies again but we hadn’t eaten since breakfast so we could justify it... can’t we?

We booked a cooking class for tomorrow, headed to a UFO bar for a drink before hitting the hay for a long walk tomorrow. Only once we sat down and ordered a beer he gave us some fantastic news which could only end in one way....”sorry ma’am it’s dry day today because of the full moon holiday” ...an absolute disaster! So a coffee and cake is required instead just to keep us perky that we can’t have alcohol.
Come to think of it, a lot a people were staring at us on the train today having a drink (I mean people staring isn’t abnormal here) but maybe because we weren’t supposed to be drinking alcohol, haha! I’m sure if that was the case on a metro in dubai I would have had my bloody hands chopped off! Never mind it was needed to get us through the bloody journey.
No booze which only meant that our crazy Friday night would consist of us going to bed for 8pm and using our herbal homemade hair removal cream on our armpits.... absolutely crazy wild night!