Sri Lanka: Days 6-7

Travel diaries for Thursday, April 3 to Friday, April 4 written Friday, April 4

Thursday, April 3:

We were woken around 5am by a very loud Muslim call to prayer that seemingly was mic’ed directly into our rooms. I was a little surprised but able to fall back asleep pretty quickly. Daniel, however, was not, so he took the opportunity to wander the grounds. He found a cute garden path and thought he spotted a red panda, but Aparna told him later that it was probably a civet.

At breakfast, I decided that although I am more of a coffee drinker than tea drinker typically, on this trip, I should really lean into the tea lifestyle. Sri Lanka is a major grower/exporter of tea, and Bandarawela, where we were staying, has a ton of tea plantations. Plus, most of the coffee in Sri Lanka seems to be of the instant variety. We had breakfast at the hotel buffet, then Daniel took me and Aparna on the garden path he’d scoped out earlier while Etosha brought his car to the shop to get the AC fixed since it hadn’t worked very well on the drive up. Sri Lanka is a hot place, and April is a hot time of year. Happily, the mountains of Bandarawela were a reprieve from the intense heat, as the altitude and mist provide a nice cooling effect.

On the garden path around the hotel grounds, we saw lovely flowers and vegetable gardens and a big snail and the dogs that live at the hotel – three golden retrievers named Lily, Lexi, and Cooper. After the garden walk, Daniel decided to do some reading outside, but I was starting to feel a little nauseous, so I stayed in the room to start writing my travelogue and charge my phone. The plan was to leave around 11am for a hike.

Below, I shall provide some foreshadowing quotes that had all been said in the days or hours prior to the hike which, looking back, ended up being quite ominous:

“The hike is labeled advanced but family-friendly, so it should be fine for us.” – Etosha

“It’s gotten kinda hot out, so I think I won’t wear long pants on the hike.” – Daniel

“I think the nausea is fading and I’m well enough to go on the hike.” – Gabriella

“I have a huge fear of leeches.” – Aparna

I wasn’t feeling great, so I delayed our departure by about 20 minutes to see if I would feel a little better. I thought the nausea seemed to be passing, so I rallied and the four of us set off in an Uber to Haputale (ha-PU-ta-lay), a nearby town where the trailhead of the hike was. In the Uber, I concentrated on my breathing, willing myself to not be sick, and I made it to Haputale without incident. The hike started innocently enough, with a paved path that sloped up the side of a mountain. Little did we know, things were about to take a turn.

Once the paved part of the path ended, the trail led us into the jungle of the mountainside. The ground was wet and muddy, and Aparna and I both immediately stepped in puddles large enough to get our socks wet. As we went deeper into the jungle, the path got narrower, with jungle foliage brushing against our legs. At this point, Daniel was regretting his decision to eschew long pants. Etosha, looking at his hiking app, assured us that the muddy jungly part of the path would end soon. Aparna said: “Eto, there better not be leeches here.” I looked down at her feet and immediately saw her fear come true: one small, wriggling black wormlike creature had attached itself to the heel of her left shoe. I alerted her to it, and she was able to kick it off. But then I realized there was a leech on my shoe as well. And Daniel’s. Then more on Aparna’s. We started scraping them off with the bottom of our shoes, flicking them off with our fingers, and dousing the leeches with DEET to try to get them to let go. Etosha was, remarkably, completely leech-free.

After we de-leeched, we ran through the jungly muddy path, the plants scratching against our legs, until we would come to slight “clearings” (i.e., the plants weren’t directly touching us), by which time we would have acquired more leeches on our shoes, which we frantically scraped off, only to make a mad dash through the next jungly stretch to the next “clearing”.

Finally, the really jungly part did seem to end. We entered a stretch of the path that was more typical “woodland” vibes, with plenty of elbow room between human and plant. By this point, Aparna was pretty much 10/10 furious at Etosha, who not only hadn’t gotten any leeches himself, but also had filmed us as we three frantically fought the tiny beasts. Aparna hypothesized that Etosha, who was leading the way, was essentially alerting the leeches to the presence of humans, then by the time the rest of us followed, they were primed and ready to attack us.

Once we reached the woodland stretch of the path, it of course immediately began to downpour. Luckily, we were near a hut structure that some of the ladies who pick tea leaves in the area use to unload the leaves and hang out. They let us linger under the hut structure while the rain passed in exchange for a chocolate biscuit that Aparna had to offer. The storm was over fairly quickly, and we continued on our way.

The next stretch of the hike was quite scenic – it had opened onto a rocky mountain path with plenty of space and open air. Etosha picked a flower from the mountainside to try to win Aparna’s forgiveness, which didn’t really work but earned him a smile at least.

Although I by no means enjoyed the leech attacks, I had to admit that they had distracted me from my nausea. Without the distraction, I was starting to feel quite ill again. As someone with a sensitive stomach, I know that I typically feel better if I just go ahead and throw up. After retching, I did experience temporary relief, but unfortunately, the nausea returned. I barfed four or five times as we trekked along the rocky trail.

As we ascended higher, the mountain became shrouded in mist. We had been following trail markers, and we came upon one that seemed to be pointing us to a steep, treacherous route up slippery stone. We didn’t want to turn back at this point, so we had no other choice but to forge ahead.

After a steep but achievable ascension, we were let out into another muddy, jungly stretch of hike, which made Aparna 11/10 furious, as Etosha had strongly implied that no muddy jungly stretches would again occur. Here, the foliage was even taller and the trail was even narrower than before, but luckily, it didn’t seem like there were leeches. After moving as fast as we could through what was essentially the Sri Lankan jungle version of a cornfield, we emerged back into open air.

At this point, Aparna demanded that we abandon the hike and find a main road, and Etosha was able to navigate us through a nearby mountain village to a road with a bus stop. As we weaved our way through the little village with its small houses set into the side of the mountain, young children waved to us and said “hi!” and “bye!” over and over, which was quite cute but also pretty exhausting given the state we were in.

We waited for a fairly long time at the bus stop before a bus destined for Bandarawela pulled up. The bus first stopped at Haputale, the town we started the hike from, and all of the other passengers got off the bus. This was a relief, as the presence of other people was exacerbating my nausea. But then, like some kind of joke, an entire school’s worth of children got on the bus, filling every crevice and pressing and leaning into us. For some reason, it then took ages for the bus to start driving, and then another millennium for it to arrive to Bandarawela. During the drive, I focused every ounce of willpower and concentration on not vomiting all over the children in their nice all-white uniforms.

When we finally departed the bus, I took about 20 steps towards the hotel before I had to run to the side of the street and projectile-vomit. Since I had already thrown up all of my breakfast and had been only consuming water for a few hours, it was a perfectly clear, high-velocity jet stream straight from the depths of my belly into a litter-filled ditch about a meter away. This was my first projectile vomit experience, and my main takeaway is that the human body is actually pretty remarkable; like, the physics of it all. After that, I felt quite a bit better.

Back at the hotel, I showered and crawled into bed while Daniel found me some electrolytes. Daniel, Aparna, and Etosha hung out in the hall outside our rooms and drank and chatted while I scrolled TikTok in bed. They ordered dinner up to the rooms, but I could barely look at the food, let alone eat. Luckily, Etosha had some bland bran crackers, which I was able to nibble on before falling asleep.

Friday, April 4:

I woke up this morning feeling better, but not amazing. Daniel brought me buttered toast and tea, and he did most of the packing in preparation for leaving that morning for our next destination. We were heading from Bandarawela to the east coast of the island, where we’ll be for the next couple of days. On the way, we stopped in a town called Ella, which is very touristy, for a brownie sundae that one of Daniel’s friends had recommended to us before we came on the trip. My appetite was still quite suppressed, but I was able to stomach a little vanilla ice cream and, as per Aparna’s suggestion for a tummy ache solution, some black tea with lime. In Ella, Daniel bought me a large teddy bear to use as a car pillow, and I did indeed sleep for most of the 3+ hour drive to the east, interrupted by a few quick stops at a convenience store and a restaurant where I was able to stomach a small portion of noodles.

We arrived to our current location of Niketh Villa Komari in the east of Sri Lanka, which is a popular area for surfing. I think Aparna, Daniel, and Tosh saw a lot of wildlife on the drive, like buffalo and crocodiles and goats and other creatures, but I was pretty much asleep. The villa we’re staying in is beautiful, with a private pool and direct access to the beach. Feeling better and better throughout the day, I was nevertheless still feeling a bit run down, so once our rooms were ready, I showered and got into bed and wrote this travelogue.

Go to next: Sri Lanka Days 8-10