Ella

Ella is the main backpacker stop in Sri Lanka's central highlands: a village of five thousand people at 1,050 metres among tea plantations. It stays cool even in summer (18-25°C), the mornings are misty, the slopes green, and the island's most famous stretch of railway begins here. Two or three days is the usual length of a stop on a two-week Sri Lanka itinerary.

The essentials

• The Nine Arch Bridge (Demodara) — the symbol of Ella and of the country: a colonial viaduct of 1921, 91 metres long on nine stone arches, built of stone and brick without a steel frame. The moment everyone waits for is a train crossing the top, which happens several times a day; the exact timetable is easier to check at your guesthouse, as it shifts. The bridge is reached on foot along a path through tea bushes and rails, twenty to thirty minutes from the centre.
• Little Adam's Peak (1,141 m) — the easiest and most popular climb: an hour and a half to two hours there and back on a well-trodden path, with a ridge overlooking the Ella valley. A classic at sunrise.
• Ella Rock (1,041 m) — more serious: around four hours there and back, part of it along the railway line and through tea terraces, and easy to lose without a guide or a track. The panorama is wider and there are fewer people.
• Ravana Falls — a 25-metre cascade right by the road 6 km from the village. In the Ramayana this is where King Ravana hid Sita; the Ravana Cave 11 km away is tied to the same legend.
• The Newburgh tea factory — a tour of the production with a tasting, with a clear explanation of the differences between grades.
• Lipton's Seat — the viewpoint above the plantations near Haputale where, by tradition, Thomas Lipton surveyed his holdings. An hour and a half to two hours each way; go for sunrise, before the cloud comes in.

The train

The Kandy to Ella run is called one of the most scenic railways in the world: six to seven hours through tea plantations, tunnels, waterfalls and bridges. From Nuwara Eliya (Nanu Oya station) it is about two and a half hours. The carriage doors stay open, and shots from the doorway have become the route's calling card — but that is also why accidents happen here, and leaning out on curves and bridges is a bad idea.

Reserved first- and second-class seats go weeks ahead; without a booking you are left with unreserved third class. There is no direct train to the south coast: for Galle and Matara you change in Colombo, a full day of travel.

What is nearby

• Horton Plains, 50 km away — a plateau at about two thousand metres with cloud forest and the World's End escarpment, a sheer drop of roughly 880 metres. Start the trail at dawn; by nine in the morning the drop is swallowed by cloud.
• Adam's Peak (Sri Pada, 2,243 m) — a mountain sacred to Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians, climbed at night by stairway to reach the summit at sunrise. It is a long way from Ella, four to five hours of driving, so it usually gets its own place in an itinerary.

Food and prices

The cooking is Sri Lankan: rice and curry, hoppers (including string hoppers and egg hoppers), kottu roti, dal and coconut roti. Thanks to the backpacker crowd Ella also has plenty of pizza, burgers and Thai food. Lunch at a local canteen runs to 1,300-2,700 rupees ($4-8) and dinner at a restaurant to 4,000-8,400 rupees ($12-25). A fresh tropical juice is 340-1,000 rupees ($1-3), a tuk-tuk 670-2,300 rupees ($2-7), and scooter hire 2,700-4,000 rupees ($8-12) a day.

When to go

January to March and June to September are the clearest months, 16-24°C. Rain falls in April and May and from October to December. At 1,050 metres the nights are cool, 10-15°C, so a warm layer is essential — many guesthouses have no heating. The morning mist, though, is half of what makes the Nine Arch Bridge what it is.