Time To Go - Leaving Sri Lanka After 3 Months Backpacking!
*Disclaimer*
There are still more blogs for us to post about Sri Lanka and they will all be posted eventually, in the meantime enjoy a mixture of Sri Lankan and other countries content!
We travelled from Sri Lanka to Malaysia in the middle of October and this was our journey getting from the mountains of Ella to the high rises of Kuala Lumpur. We will now be posting blogs both about our time in Sri Lanka as well as our current adventures in Malaysia and beyond.
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The last days in Ella
After our adventure in the south of Sri Lanka, it was finally time to leave this beautiful island. We had been here for three months, and whilst we could never say we had seen everything our visa was finally running out. We had booked the cheapest flight tickets out that we could find. The flights were booked, perhaps unsurprisingly, for the unlucky day of the 13th. This gave us a week to relax before our visa deadline and our flight's departure. We decided to spend our final Sri Lankan week back in the mountain backpacker haven of Ella. Its many bars, restaurants and activities, making it the perfect wind down to our Sri Lankan adventure. We came back to our home-away-from-home, the Rock Face guest house and settled into our final week in this amazing country.
Cheers Ella!
The final week flew by. The week had revolved around a daily routine of walking, relaxing, eating dosas, the Ice bar and of course the Chill cafe! We had hiked up mountains, wandered down to see all the waterfalls on the side of the road and eaten out weight in rice and curry, but eventually our time ran out.
Thursday the 13th came and it was finally time to pack our bags and leave this beautiful country. What had started as a 30 day fling, had turned into a three month love affair, but as with all travel romances it had to end.
Getting from Ella to Colombo / the airport
Taxi
To minimise hotel stays, maximise our time in Ella, and to be frank, because we were lazy, we had opted to take a taxi directly from Ella to Colombo’s Bandaranaike airport. Ordinarily a 200 plus km journey via taxi would not be the backpacker choice, but surprisingly it wasn’t a massive expense (33000 LRK or £68.85/ $82.08), especially when you think it saved us spending money on a night in Colombo or Negombo, as well as multiple train or bus tickets. Have a read below for our…experience…
if you have a group then booking a private taxi or minibus makes a lot of sense, the cost divided between 2-8 people can actually be pretty reasonable.
You can book taxi’s in the town or in advance through 12GO here.
Bus
The cheapest way from Ella to Colombo would be by public bus. This would by far the most complicated route but, if you have the time, it would also be good fun. From Ella you can catch a bus down the Mountain to Wellawaya from here you can either change to another bus to the coast (this is how we got from Mirissa to Ella in the first place) or even, if you time it right, a bus all the way to Colombo. Just be prepared for this to take a very long time!
once in Colombo you can easily change and catch the airport bus.
When we travelled from Mirissa to Ella we changed at Wellawaya, please be aware that there are some scammers around the bus station. We were repeatedly told that we had missed the last bus of the day and would have to pay for a Tuk-Tuk to take us up the mountain when this was false. There are plenty of buses to and from Ella from Wellawaya!
Train
You could, of course, travel from Ella to Colombo via the famous railway. This epic journey winds all the way down through the mountains through the historic capital of Kandy and onwards to the capital. The journey takes between 8-10 hours so plan accordingly. The tickets also sell out super quickly so book them well in advcance (they go on sale 30 days prior to departure). Check out 12Go for advance bookings.
Driving from Ella to Colombo
After one last breakfast in the Chill Café (poached eggs if you’re curious), we bundled into our taxi and set off through the hills. We’ve had several wonderful journeys during our time in Sri Lanka and this one started off well. Stunning mountain vista’s looked back from our cab windows. It wasn’t to last however, as we wound down through the central mountains and tea plantations a blanket of fog and rain closed in all around us. The further we descended, the harder the rain fell. By the time we were on the highway approaching Bandaranaike airport we could barely see the road in front of us.
The journey slowly morphed from a comfortable posh packer jaunt, to a terrifying thrill ride through thunder, lightning, and heavy rain. On the toll road between Colombo and the airport, cars with no lights appeared out of the fog in front, or suddenly overtook us from behind. Our young driver, seemingly unfazed, took this all in his stride. We however, were white knuckle gripping the door handles!
When we finally got to Bandaranaike airport, we both questioned whether we had arrived at the correct place. Arriving in Sri Lanka back in July there had only been us, another couple backpacking, a Sri Lankan family and a small handful of airport staff. This time however, was a completely different story. Scores of people, queues of taxis and all the usual chaos you’d expect at a busy departure terminal. Shaken and on a high from the drive down, we bundled out, and bid our taxi driver a farewell before entering the chaos.
Bandaranaike international airport
There are two types of people when it comes to international flights, those, like us, who like to arrive hours early, fearing security checks, queues, alien invasions and all the other things that can go wrong when travelling by air. Then there are those carefree individuals, who like to rock up as close to their departure window as possible. Frequently seen power walking or in a panicked dash through terminal buildings, we can only regard these second types of people as psychopaths. Like we’ve said, we like to be early. This time however, we might have been too early… Our check in desk wasn’t due to open for another three hours, let alone our flight that would be departing in six and a bit hours in the future. We may have played it a little too safe this time.
At some airports our extreme earliness wouldn’t have been a problem. At Singapore’s Changi airport for example, there are cinemas, the world's largest indoor waterfall as well as multiple other free entertainment options. However at Bandaranaike this is not the case. We were greeted by a sad parade of souvenir stalls and one lonely, extremely overpriced, coffee stall. We sat down and settled in for a long wait.
Food at Bandaranaike airport
After what felt like an eternity, our check in desk finally opened. Bags checked in and boarding passes collected we eagerly headed off to the food court. This enthusiasm was soon deflated. We passed by a Burger King and thought we might treat ourselves (remember we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and it was now 7.30pm), but seeing the extortionate price we thought better of it. 16 USD for a single cheeseburger didn’t seem worth it, even on our empty stomachs. Thinking this was just because it was a Burger King (something of a rarity in Sri Lanka) we moved on. Unfortunately, this was no blip. The prices for food in the airport were utterly incredible, and we don’t just mean by Sri Lankan standards. Out of all the airports we have been to, we don’t remember seeing prices like this. A small pastry, that wouldn’t look out of place in the 99p range at Greggs, was being sold for 10 USD. We wish we were kidding! Stomachs rumbling and after circumnavigating the expensive food court, we settled on a depressed looking sandwich from what is apparently Trip Advisor’s number one recommendation at the airport (they were proudly displaying stickers all over their shop). The toasted sandwich (ham and some sort of cheese paste of dubious origin) was fine and nothing special, but at 3 USD was the most affordable thing we could find. After our lacklustre meal we settled in for the long wait to board our plane.
Please note that we were, as we have said, travelling Sri Lanka at a very strange time. The fuel crisis and economic collapse were weighing heavily on the country and imports had basically stopped when we were there. As such we may have experienced much higher prices on the more international faire available at the airport.
Flying out - Sri Lanka to Malaysia
Eventually our AirAsia flight was ready to board and we made our way to our seats. With heavy hearts the end had finally come. The engines roared and we left Sri Lanka. We had arrived exactly 3 months ago against government advice and had absolutely fallen in love with its people, landscapes, culture and food.
Goodbye Sri Lanka you beauty! This will definitely not be our only visit!
Four and half hours, one surprisingly good chicken and rice meal and very little sleep later, we arrived at Kuala Lumpur airport.
Kuala Lumpur Airport to the city
Our bags arrived quickly and we made our way to the airport exit. There are many ways to get from the airport to Kuala Lumpur’s city centre. The more expensive being a taxi, a mid range (but still quite pricey) direct train, or our choice (the cheapest option) the bus. For two tickets we paid 30 RM (£5.64 or $6.36). It maybe possible later in the day to get a cheaper bus than this, but this was the cheapest option for our early morning arrival. The bus arrived exactly on time and made its way out of the airport and towards Kuala Lumpur Sentral. Passing by massive developments, towering skyscrapers and lush vegetation we made our way to the city centre.
Arriving at Kuala Lumpur Sentral bus depot, we disembarked, hefted our backpacks and headed towards the MRT. We were staying in a hotel just outside of Chinatown and needed to take the red KJL line from KL Sentral two stops going north.
Exiting the station we had arrived in the Masjid Jamek area of Kuala Lumpur. After the sedate pace of Ella and the hill country of Sri Lanka, Kuala Lumpur was an overwhelming assault on the senses. Surrounded by urban modern life, with monorails overhead, roads congested with busy traffic and crowds of people, it was a world away from what we had left in Sri Lanka. At this point we’d like to point out we had been awake nearly 36 hours and this may have contributed to our slightly shell shocked reaction to this massive modern metropolis.
Navigating the busy streets, we made our way to our accommodation, 1000 Miles Hotel (more on this in another article) for the next two nights, where of-course we were far too early to check in. We left our bags and headed out. Our sleep deprived brains unhelpfully overloading at every car horn and pedestrian crossing. 150 metres down the road, we smelt something amazing, a steamer full of pork buns. With only a sad sandwich and aeroplane food eaten in the last twelve hours, we were powerless to resist.
We bit into the fluffy buns, filled with sweet Chinese spiced char siu pork. We think this was the point where our brains caught up with our feet and we knew we had finally arrived in the great melting pot of Malaysia.
Thank you for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
