Andrea Hearts Traveling

I think my expectations of Yala were too high so I ended up extremely disappointed by the whole experience. They day of the safari I got picked up at 4:20 am and drove to the ticket office of Yala National Park. My driver drove like a maniac! He was going super fast, it was cold and I felt very much unsafe on the back of a jeep without a seat belt so I held on to the bars as hard as I could.

At around 5am we got to the ticket office and the driver went to queue to wait for the office to open at 5:30am. Once he got the ticket he drove like a maniac once again to get us to the gate of the park. When we left the office it was already light and as we drove we saw that there were at least 60 other jeeps parked all through the streets. We arrived at the gate and there was a huge line of jeeps waiting but our driver decided he didn’t want to be in the back of the line so he went to the side and then stuck his jeep in between two that were closer to the entrance. The two french girls and myself were embarrassed… why didn’t he just wait? What was the hurry?

It’s time to leave Ella and I decided to go to Tissamaharama (Tissa) and do a safari in Yala National Park. At first I didn’t really want to stop but then I decided that since I’m already here I should do it.

WHERE IS THE TRAIN?!?!?!

Well, rumor has it that this part of the train ride is the best one yet! Felix and I left the hotel at 7:30am to get on the 9:30am train. When we got to the station we got our 3rd class ticket for 60 rupees ($0.40) and went to platform 2 to wait for the train.

So sad to say good bye to friends but ready for the next adventure!

A couple of people from the hostel near Sirigiya said that Nuwara Eliya was not worth it, that we shouldn’t do it, that they even regretted stopping by instead of going straight to Ella. I looked at Felix and said “what should we do?” Felix just looked me so I said that I really wanted to go and that if we didn’t like it we could leave the next day.

The day I left to Kandy I was having a sort of lazy morning. I had breakfast, packed, sat on the swing upstairs and chatted with Laura, went downstairs and paid my bill, sat on the table and talked to more people, and by then it was late so I decided to wait for Felix so we could move on to Kandy together. Before we left I was approached by Jenny, a girl from the hostel I had met two days before, and she asked me about my plan. I told her we were going to Kandy but didn’t know where we were staying so she said they had two nights booked at a guesthouse, I immediately talked to Felix and asked if he was willing to share the room and split the cost, he agreed so I called the guesthouse and made a reservation.

Yala National Park

Tissamaharama

Ella, Ella, Ella!

Nuwara Eliya

Kandy

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