Sri Lanka's Hill Country

Journeying from Kandy to Ella by train

- Nicola Venning

I peered at the vast wooden timetable in Kandy’s colonial-era railway station. There was a row of large clocks, each with a different departure time next to a destination in Sri Lanka’s hill country. My husband and I were catching the 8.47am to Ella, a small and increasingly hip mountain town surrounded by tea plantations and jungle forests. And about a 163km-long train ride away. Our blue “express” was already 20 minutes late, but that was part of the charm: tourists and local Sinhalese gathered excitedly on the busy platform, itching to start this renowned train journey.

Sri Lanka’s 19th-century railway line was originally built to connect the remote tea country with the coastal ports of Colombo and Galle. We were taking the central section which is generally considered to be one of the most scenic train journeys in Asia: we would be passing lush green jungle, rugged mountains, misty cloud forests and verdant tea plantations.

As the train lumbered out of Kandy, the scruffy suburbs soon gave way to caterpillar-green rice paddies. We crossed the wide brown Mahaweli river, the longest in Sri Lanka and the rice paddies grudgingly gave way to dense dark jungle. Every 20 to 30 minutes the train stopped at villages with small smiling Buddha shrines and pastel pink or faded orange stations where the platforms had pots of exuberant ferns and palms, and once, a fish tank with bright orange goldfish. Gruff stationmasters in starched white uniforms would patrol as families hurriedly boarded. When the station master wasn’t looking, unauthorised food sellers would sneakily creep on, calling “wade, wade, wade” (a spicy chickpea doughnut), or selling bottles of water, “chai” (sweet white tea), nuts or fruit.