Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Adam's Peak


Hi guys!Sorry for not writing and depriving you of life in Sri Lanka! I've been a busy little bee!Loads to tell you all about this past weekend! So... where to start?Saturday morning 10 volunteers including myself set out early morning for the mountains and a town called Dalhousie. We road the local public bus from Panadura (my town) to the capital, Colombo where we were suppose to take the train up to the mountains, but arrived to late to get a seat. As soon as we looked confused on the next step to take, we were approached my a local man offering to take us where we needed in a private 10 passenger van. I guess this happens regularly to tourists like us, I'm glad there were other volunteers there to barter him a good deal and make sure the offer wasnt some crazy scandal. But we made sure the van was safe to get into and the man wasnt taking us off to some weird jungle somewhere... haha! It was a bit more expensive to travel this way then by bus, but it was a 6-7 hour trip to the mountains and if we took the bus we might not get a seat as well. And standing that long was not an option for me! I was very glad we took the van because the roads in the mountains were a bit scary we found out!! they were only wide enough for one vehicle, but busses, vans, cars and trucks alike squished on these roads that had no gaurd rales and a shear cliff on one side! OH MY GOD it was scary. anyhoo... we got to Dalhousie, found our hotel for the night and had some dinner.The mountain we were there to climb is called Adam's Peak. Its a mountain that is more that 2500km high and over 5000 steps to climb to the top. It is believed that this mountain is the footstep of buddah, Adam, and some other religious figures i cant remember. millions of people come to climb this mountain to worship him between the months of december and may (go figure we choose the pilgramage season to climb, one of the busiest times of the year!). the best time to climb is during the night to reach to top by sunrise and experience something magical. well... we started our acent around 11:30 at night all excited about the hike... only to find out that everyone else and their mom had the same idea we all had. SO... it was a brawl trying to move anywhere. Squished in like sardines and not to mention the sri lankan men that couldnt resist any oportunity to grab our butts or make comments to us. it was one of the most frustraiting and belittleing things i have ever experienced. I cant even explain to you how i felt. I delt with it though, trudged on cause how many times will i be here to climb this amazing mountain. from the bottom you could see the trail lit with lights all the way to the top, the only way i can describe it is that it looked exactly like the last scene of Mamma Mia where the mother is climbing the path up to the chaple for the wedding, how beautiful the lights made the mountain look! We climbed for about 7 hours until i couldnt take the locals and their games. i was another 3 hours from the summit and to me i had just broken down. so just as the sun was rising i was on my way down with 2 other volunteers, exhausted beyond belief! but the trip down was just as vicious at going up. i was afraid for my life at one point where so many people were trying to go down while others were trying to go up, people shoving and pushing their way through. it was so nasty!!! but we arrived back at the hotel around 8 or 9 in the morning and was immediately served breakfast and a cold drink. thank god!As the rest of the pack trickled in, only 2 of us conquered the peak! We finally made it into another private van to take us home around 1pm and off we went for another crazy ride over the mountains! only... every other van/bus/truck or car had the same idea we had! there were traffic jams and problems getting out of Dalhousie. we waited in traffic, inching forward every 20 minutes or so... we hadnt moved more than 4 miles in about 4 hours! so by 6 pm the driver turned the van around and attempted to go another way. only the road he wanted to take closed in 5 MINUTES! he was weaving around these switchbacks like it was his job! speeding i dont know how fast on these mountain roads, i though for a minute that i was on some crazy rollercoaster in universal studios!!!!! people were grabbing "oh shit" handles left and right! i though i was going to die... but luckily we made it in time and we were all alive! HAHA! for the next 4.5 hours i was in and out of sleep, not remembering much of that part of the drive home. i was running on my 40th straight hour of being awake! but we made it, safe and sound. i finally layed my head on my pillow around 11 pm that night. and oh... on top of ALL of this extravaganza... i was jet lagged, sick with a fever and cough/congestion. kinda misserable actually. but worth every minute!what a crazy couple of days i was thrown into my first weekend in sri lanka! i slept in the next day, did some laundry, read my book (by the way... i'm on the 4th book of twilight! bella just had that monster of a baby! i cant believe this shit!) and took naps! it was a good day of recooperating. i needed some quality R&R!!!!stay tuned for more from Sri Lanka!!xoxoLauren

This is the crazy van we rode in all weekend!

Switchbacks through the mountains!

This is the madness I delt with for 8 hours climbing this mountain! uggh.... gives me anxiety just thinking about it! All the locals are bundled up because the elevation has dropped the temperature a considerable amount! I was fine... but I guess it was a bit chilly! Brrr...

The spectacular view from the top of Adam's Peak! BEAUTIFUL!

2 comments:

  1. Congrats! Didn't you take some photos of sunrise? It's awesome!

    Me and some of my friends at uni went there some time back, I still remember it was a fantastic trip.

    These are some of photos we took:

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=818970&l=458df477b1&id=692976862

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=818971&l=639233b64d&id=692976862

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=818969&l=161c3e43b4&id=692976862

    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=818978&l=b7b229eb9c&id=692976862

    And the best one is,
    http://yfrog.com/7eimage037wj

    ---
    And.. shame on that poor men.

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  2. Hi, sorry to hear about the trouble made by those shameless men. They've just insulted that glorious place.

    @Shakunthala: Nice phots !! here is a pic of sun rise I took last year.

    http://kalanir.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/sun-rise-at-sripada/

    It was an amazing exp though the sky was bit cloudy.

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