No Fixed Abode: People of the world, join in, it’s a love train

Sun 24 Apr 2016 - Train ride to Hatton for Adam’s Peak

Reluctantly we left the King of Kandy hotel and made our way to Kandy Station for our 3rd class reserved seats to Hatton. Kandy station was full of hot and sweaty foreign tourist backpackers, as this station is the central hub to the east for the tea and hill country and west to Colombo. The train pulled in right on time and we clambered up into the 3rd class door and the melee of locals carried us through to the carriage. Oddly, we noticed not one tourist joined us in this carriage. Yvonne had predicted someone would be in our reserved seats and there they were. A family of three older women, one older man, three young men and two children all spread across 10 seats with two of them in our seats. Still wearing our backpacks people were pushing and shoving past us as we tried with hand gestures to explain they were in our seats. One of the young men spoke english asking what seats numbers we had and took our train tickets from us and thus commenced the juggling of seats and numerous carrier bags being passed along the family. We managed to get our backpacks in the overhead netting by pushing together other people’s bags under their eagle eyed scrutiny. As the train jolted out of the station we fell back in our seats bathed in sweat, sticky and crammed in a carriage where we were the only foreigners. For a while there was much muttering, stares and hand gesturing towards us as we had clearly disturbed this family who now didn’t have the luxury of the wide open window seats, or facing forwards or with the breeze on them and it was stifling in the carriage.

Two of the muttering ladies then started singing songs and banging the table with a plastic cup in some sort of rhythm indistinguishable to our western ears, to the tune they were wailing. And on they went, going through their repertoire of well known Sri Lankan tunes, occasionally the rest of the family joining in at what must have been the chorus. And on it went. Glenn pulled out his MP3 and plugged in. So much for international relations! There was nothing else to do, Yvonne joined in the banging on the table trying to copying the rhythm and smiling outrageously at them all. If you can’t beat them, join them. Inevitably, this brought about huge amounts of hilarity and everyone started smiling and the atmosphere relaxed. Conceding her total lack of musical ability, Yvonne gave up, hoping when she stopped so would the women. Unfortunately, this took awhile but one by one they all quietened down and the whole family started to nod off in the heat.

The train was packed full and we spotted the white arms of foreigners dangling out of the open windows in the second class carriages ahead. Bet they weren’t having as much fun as us, crammed in with the locals, sweaty and joining in the singalong as best we could. Another feature of 3rd class allows you to stand or hang out of the doors of the boarding compartment and Glenn joined the locals there for some part of the journey.

There were various stops and starts along the way with the scenery not changing much once we entered the hills and as expected there were row after row of tea bushes in huge plantations. The air cooled a little and smelled of pine and eucalyptus and in the distance we could see forests.

Refreshed after their snooze one of the young men in the family bravely spoke up and asked the ‘where you from’ and this time, ‘where you going’. We explained our journey was taking us to Adam's Peak and it transpired this family from Colombo were making the same trip to climb the peak for their pilgrimage. They were cutting it fine as Pilgrimage season runs November to the end of April.

Arriving at Hatton we all disembarked, with the young men helping us to jump off the train down onto the platform three feet below, passing our backpacks to us and saying ‘pleased to meet you’. What a difference a singalong can make! Our prearranged tuk tuk driver found us, saving us from further barrages by other drivers, and we were off up into the mountains towards Dalhousie on a very bumpy road for the next hour, only stopping to take photos of the tea pluckers.

Slightly Chilled, our hotel for the next two nights had fantastic views of the valley and our room had a balcony looking up to Adam’s Peak and as darkness came the lights up the route sparkled and wound around the mountainside and the peak was ablaze with flashing lights. Probably all very tastefully done. We shall see.