The day started with a problem. As I reorganised the money in my wallet (with seven denominations the notes get very muddled) I realised that all the R5000 notes were missing. We tried hard to make sense of it, but couldn't. Pretty sure we hadn't spent it, but who would take just the largest notes and leave the rest? Complete mystery.
Now we didn't have enough to pay the guesthouse, but luckily our driver loaned us sufficient. We drove to the ATM to replenish our cash but it wasn't working. As we were parked outside the bank the driver asked for the address of the next hotel. As I opened the display book with the reservations in it, a shower of banknotes landed in my lap!
What must have happened was that the pile of large denomination notes must have got trapped between the pages of the book when I was sorting them out the day before. We could hardly believe it. Such a relief, the driver thought it was funny too.
We were dropped at the very pretty Ella station and boarded the train for Nanu Oya, the station for Nuwara Eliya. We had reservations in the observation car, a first class carriage at the rear of the train with panoramic windows at the back.
The seating was luxurious, the suspension meant we trundled along ( I estimated the average speed as between 13 and 14 mph), and the overhead fans were new. The views were tremendous. Much of the uplands were either forested or given over to tea plantations. The track wound upwards clinging to the mountainsides and climbing a thousand metres during the journey, which took the best part of three hours.
Through tunnels we went accompanied by whoops and echoing screams from children in the lower class carriages. Eventually we hit cloud base and it started raining. Mountains loomed out of the mist and we passed the summit and started to descend. As we did so, passing wide valleys with waterfalls, the rain eased and stopped.
The driver was waiting for us at the station, it had only taken him half the time for the journey, and found our hotel for us. The Villa Cassandra is very new and our room is beautifully appointed.
We ventured into town on foot, explored the market, then later took a tuk-tuk to the excellent Grand Indian Restaurant for supper as it had decided to rain again.
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