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so you're thinking of coming to Sri Lanka but you're not really sure what to fully expect this is exactly why we came up north maybe you're looking for all of the famous Instagram hotspot they really don't or maybe you're looking for adventures on the roads less traveled but don't worry whatever it is that you are looking for we're gonna share with you our honest experiences in this wild and colorful country and because we are the budgeteers and we specialize in having bigger and better adventures unless money we're doing this trip on less than a thousand dollars each so sit down and relax and join us on this epic journey around sri lanka okay sighs do the honors roll that intro
series four was made possible thanks to Sri Lankan Airlines providing convenient and cheap connections to the island book your flights with Sri Lankan Airlines we're also brought to you by a wonder go the must-haves out for any digital Nomad discover destinations workspaces accommodation and much more download it for free from the App Store today in this episode we are going to head to the popular backpacker town' in the mountains called Ella we have heard a lot of good things about this place and we wanted to check it out and see how beautiful the scenic train rides through the mountains really are but after traveling the unseen and Untersee parts of Sri Lanka were now 16 days further from when we started our trip in Colombo
on day 1 and we have now made it into the most touristy hotspot of the entire island we've already shown you in our last episode the most popular sights to see in candy city and have even discovered a crazy temple by chance in the area come on no I'm skipping that note I come on but the real highlight was our trek up Adam speak where we climbed the high mountain during the night to see the sunrise so far our budget lasted very well outside of the touristy area but now in the popular traveler spots everything is gusting us twice three times even ten times as much as in other areas so we were really fearful to use the last half of our initial thousand dollars right here but since we want to show you all
the beautiful things and activities of Sri Lanka in this series we were determined to find a way as we always do here at the budgeteers we find a way to do more with less so after our adventure tracking up Adam speak early this morning we got in our tooktook and made our way along the mountains towards the town of elam and decided to stop along the way we saw something interesting and as you know when you're driving it took through see Lanka it doesn't take you a long time to see something interesting but the Hindu religion is most diverse original strange amazing and then it can it is and you've got that astray road and who carry on our way to making our destination what was that and that kind of being happens quite often yes
these cultural sites you just wouldn't get to see if you took the train all the way to Ella the famous train ride from candy to Ella is really popular with both tourists and instagramers but as you can see having the tooktook was still providing us with amazing views too and we could all just enjoy these awesome little surprises of Sri Lankan customs and since we could just go at our own slow and steady pace before heading to Ella itself we decided to make a detour and go all the way to the highest village of Sri Lanka called nuwara eliya it took us a while to make our way up the mountains but we could feel this place was something special because we went from a very hot and a
very humid climate to mild and cooler climate high up the mountains this area is very famous for its tea plantations and we saw a lot of them but once we arrived in town we still needed to find a place to stay and as always we haven't moved anything in advance so we went around town and stopped everywhere where you can see to barter for the best price and that's how we got lucky and found this little bargain new to our area Illya we drove round this is more on the touristy routes and I think the rest of our trip is gonna be on the touristy route so we're gonna try to figure out some couchsurfing for upcoming accommodations we went to one hostel and they were gonna charge us nine thousand rupees for two nights
Express then we came over to this one we found this one on the road and hiya budget Udhas a room a private room for six thousand for two nights so that's about 30 USD or $5 each per night so pretty get which is about how much we can afford yeah we're the only beautiful thing it's like a private cottage villa I really like this town we're like carrying meat we'll show you around this town properly soon we're still a bit tired from the last episode when we climbed that giant mountain that was this morning we climbed it the biggest mountain this morning so we haven't eaten lunch yet so you haven't eaten yet that's a crime so with Lina almost fainting from hunger we quickly got some cheap curry buffets
in town and whilst we were in town we also bought some extra supplies in the local supermarket and headed back to our gorgeous villa we still couldn't believe just how it managed to black ourselves our very own budgeteers crib and for just $5 per person we had a huge private room with two big beds and it certainly was a change to the tiny room we had last night at the base of adam's peak but since we were absolutely exhausted and we had this place to ourselves we just wanted to chill out and get some much-needed rest so we settled in for a lazy evening together so we could start off tomorrow completely refreshed good morning Lena eyes here arises in the toxic saying up we're about to leave and explore new
irelia why we want to introduce you to a friend of ours come here my friend this is an independence in quite a few times we saw you in Colombo yeah Colombo come out in the East Coast in the trinka Valley where we did the whale watching and we just want to ask you because he's gonna come out and explore new earlier with us today how have you found Shawn because he's been here the same on that times we have but he's been having a different route so yeah what do you think else America in general do you recommend them I think Frank has been an amazing place so far you get a lot of Southeast Asia vibes like accessibility to travel the distances they're really short which is awesome and if you're so
little travel like I am you meet a lot more other backpackers as well so you're never really alone and there's beautiful places to see if you like mountains we got it like beaches it's got a tea plantation name it's not everything yes we and yeah we're heading actually to the touristy place tomorrow Ella so we'll see what that's like are you guys all ready how could we miss your big bomb the plan is that we're gonna get in old gee-tar mamacita I just exploring your area today there's a bunch of really nice view points some waterfalls and some adventures to be had on a budget
so we all got in our tooth took and drove with the four of us of the mountains as far as our to two to take us and park them because our only goal was to catch a view of the highest tea plantation of Sri Lanka called elephant tea and steak we thought it was a good idea to stretch our legs again and get our blood pumping so we made the rough climb upwards and carefully made our way through the beautiful tea fields and our efforts were rewarded with gorgeous views
all right so we've just explored the plantation here and we found a nice little spot up there where that tree is and we're just hanging out and taking all of this in it's stunning a super beautiful out here we're the only ones the villages were super fine with us coming up here yeah so we are headed to so we're headed to a waterfall and then after a water well an ending to take us to a really good lunch spot that he's discovered $1.00 all-you-can-eat buffet vegetarian food yeah so we will see you if we survive this downhill battle we'll see you there
or you can give them coming through the mouth okay so we got poppadoms dog three bean or a carrot curry coconut sample agree to anything and why not a little dried chilli to go with it obviously some white rice and this is a weekly right that's all you can eat instead this is just plain in one but uh patty yes the food was delicious and we obviously stuff their faces several times because for one dollar than ten cents you can go wrong and we know the restaurant that Court might not look very cozy and clean but we can insure you we had no problems at all here in nuwara eliya the tap water is drinkable and everything is all very clean and even Western with pubs golf courses and full of English colonial buildings like this post office it's
very funny to check out and Patti almost felt like he was back home in England but with our lunch devoured we went in search for that big waterfall okay so we've made our way up a dodgy bubbly bumpy road it was very dangerous and then we have to walk about ten minutes and we're here at Lovers Leap waterfall and it's and as you can see it's very disappointing give it a little bit of a break basically if you're coming up to this waterfall Lover's Leap waterfall wait until rainy season because there's only a five minute hike so much they need to get up here yeah maybe I'm being harsh on it a minute that's why yeah I didn't want to go for a dip but so what we're gonna do now since it's the afternoon and we actually have a picnic
ready we're gonna go down into town and go to Gregory Lake Park where we can put down a little picnic blanket and possibly some beers here and enjoy the afternoon before we head to LA tomorrow yes we really just wanted to relax and take in the views one last time this region has plenty of other waterfalls to check out but we just really love the chill atmosphere of this town and as we drove down we bought some beers and some sandwiches and we set up our picnic by the lake the side of the lake where we didn't have to pay an entrance fee but we just perked up our tow truck right here on this side of the lake and you know we saw this big green patch right by the water and decided to set up
camp here so we're gonna listen some music and just hang out not bad spot anybody how much lip that appears please guys here's to a lovely day in New Year Leah a new warrior Elia no that's the one Cheers one more time because I love you guys so much no better wait and the lovely day then a picnic by the lake I love picnics and that was the end to a lovely chill evening or so we thought because Sri Lanka seems always have a surprise for us so we're at the lake having a picnic you can't see my face right now that's okay you can hear his poem in ears it's dark there's like a
bus rain going on so we left the junk on the street part I got lights and oh yeah light and we are going to the bus rave look at this there's a rave going on anus the guy just said to me can I dance so while Patti was showing off his dance skills like some crazy Quasimodo we were really shocked and wanted to check out this big party bus as soon this mad dance party - it turns out it was a family party with even the little kids who are waving away as well and some of them even got their break dance moves out in the meanwhile pedi found a couple of uncle's we keep to let us taste some sorta like a drum
we think the cops are here just drinkin with that the Cubs didn't seem to bother at all so we all party further into the night the next morning we had to leave our villa early and get on the road fast but as we drove the weather kept getting worse and so we got a refreshing rain shower to wake us up and even though the weather was gloomy our tooktook always gets us in a party mood and our spirits up we didn't have much time though because we had a pressing appointment this morning at the train station in nanoa because we were going to get on the train to ella to see what this famous train ride is really like and luckily tuktuk rental had arranged for a driver to pick up our seat up so we could jump
on the first train out in the morning to experience the most scenic part of the train ride before it got busy and the tickets once we got here they were there was only third-class tickets left so we just bought what was available and it costs us a hundred and forty rupees each so the last three hours one hundred and forty rupees so we weren't mistaken this was indeed the first train to ella but it wasn't empty at all and as you can see it was already packed full with local people and backpackers and everyone was running around trying to find a way to fit on the crowded train trains here we tried all the wagons but the only option left was to jump into the first-class carriage and find the place to stow away
and hope we wouldn't get kicked off the train we couldn't go into first class as the tickets cost almost $30.00 instead of just the 80 cents that we had just paid we're just gonna keep quiet you try not to make any commotion keep very heads down and if the train starts to leave we have achieved our mission which is a nice area next to the seats so next to the door sorry so we can feel the wind get some good views ya know I'm really nervous that we're gonna get caught out so we got on the train that's the most important part exactly we were thinking we might miss it so we were nervously waiting for the train to leave and really hoping nobody would notice us and kick us off but luckily the train started moving and soon we hung out the
door eager to see all the Cee'd views over the mountains at our doorway spot we even had a better view than first class but a panoramic wagon with big windows but we enjoy the fresh mountain air and we soaked up the amazing sights but our fun didn't last long and the next stop should come - and by just electric an employee inside this window Guardians without at the next station so with only 10 minutes left to the next station we were thrown out of the first class wagon and we're hoping to get onto another wagon if
there was any space left and after a lot of squeezing we made it back on the train so it's the next station now and second question Klaus and the most popular one this is what's going on trying to figure out place mistake anyway a bunch of local people got off of that station so we managed to get that place manages budgets here ourselves some seats in the aisle any special feeling regrets I'm joking no this is great which we've traveled in much worse trains than this but paddy spoke too soon because in the next three hours not a single inch of space opened up and we had no view out of the windows whatsoever and so while we were slowly boiling in this hot trained Thais who was stuck at the
doorway wasn't lucky either because everybody on the train was pushing around so that they could each take their Instagram picture as well so after what seemed like an eternity we finally arrived to Ella and we were more than happy to get off of the train and eager to get our tooktook back anyway we got here in one piece and we go find their couchsurfing which apparently is in a guesthouse so yeah see how that situation and we don't have a tuk-tuk so we have to get a tuk-tuk there which is gonna feel really dirty
it's kind of feel like we're cheating on vida all right let's get off vamonos but since we needed to save our money we opted to take the bus because tooktook prices here are ridiculously pricey so after half an hour on the local bus with the little school kids we made it to our hosts guesthouse which was in a little village just outside of Ella and we were welcomed by her host goby and our tooktook visita which had been dropped off here goby he was still finishing up his guesthouse and was willing to let us stay for free in this private room which was perfect and we were really grateful but also really hungry luckily there was a code to place her right next door and we filled our
bellies with some delicious freshly cut photos totally recommend you try it but before the Sun went down goby wanted to take us to a secret waterfall Honua so he guided us through the mountains and across a little river uphill but it turns out that it wasn't as much of a secret as we had hoped Ella is a popular backpacker hotspot so it wasn't a big surprise to find other travelers here but we actually didn't mind because the cool water was the refreshing shower that we desperately needed and this place was perfect to just hang around and chill and we were really looking forward to see what else Ella had to offer us in the next few days all right good morning I'm doing a recheck today to climb I
think we've heard is only about a 30-minute so we're happy to do that this morning get our cups working again yeah doing some activities working off those all those beers all the country we had yesterday okay so we haha little adam's peak and the walk up here it's pretty easy there's a staircase and once you get to the top there's a lovely little Buddha statue and we're very lucky because there's a big group of puppies they're so cute and okay one of the puppies are you okay yeah very nice little hike today to start your day if you come to Ella they're like three peaks along the way and you come up to the first one and there's two Buddha's and then you can keep going and I would say the best
views from the last one the furthest one so definitely if you come up here make your way back there for sure it is budgeteers approved cost you nothing only takes you half an hour to come up here and we're going to our next pot right now I'm gonna check out the nine are just bridge and see who is actually worthy or not and if it secretly Instagram cringy let's check it out nine arches bridge is just outside of Ella and it's one of the most famous tourist spots in Sri Lanka just like cigarette it's an Instagram hotspot and we were really fearful that this famous bridge might just be another overcrowded and overhyped place but we made the walk down to properly review it
great news we see the nine arches we've spotted them as you can see this bridge is actually really beautiful and it did have something special to it of course there was still a lot of tourists here taking photos and selfies but it was not to overcrowd and luckily it wasn't crawling with salesmen everywhere so we were really nicely surprised for a change and the best thing of all it was totally free yeah I'm gonna say I'm actually impressed this place is built up hyped up so you're always expect it to be not
very good not well sure and it is lovely I mean don't get me wrong is just a bridge yeah in England we have probably a hundred of these types of bridges but no mix of folks is no it is beautiful and made of bricks and there are nine arches like sure all right should we do lunch yeah let's go all right maybe this really sore scratching we're gonna take some pictures here and get lunch make our way back and so we made our way up towards downtown LA in search for the cheapest food we could find hey guys we're now in downtown LA and we walked around for ages trying to find a reason priced restaurant six to seven hundred rupees for a just standard pricing curry but Paddy's idea here was to just walk a bit out of town and find a restaurant
that's maybe not as fancy looking we found this nice vegetable curry for this just 250 rupees each if you're willing to part with the noisy buses and the getting some weird looks from like Lamar forest on the street this is a whole chunk of mango I read it's nice and spicy and sweet obviously yeah okay we're eating on the street but like go over it this is how you Janka if you wanna have delicious local cheap so of course we filled our bellies and in the next few days we just took some time to take care of some things we gave our little took a proper checkup and a good greasing since our cheeky little Xia loves the good old greasing and with new oil and air in her tires we continue to explore around Ella and we got greeted with amazing
beautiful views everywhere we went we found more waterfalls and we just couldn't resist to just jump in once again but whilst we were swimming our staff almost got stolen by crazy monkeys and they're just like snatching people stuff despite the higher number of tourists we really love the area here in l a-- and we just drove around chills out and loved life we even treated ourselves to some delicious coconut juices and some other beverages too and in the evening we even
met up with some subscribers and hung out with friends and just chilled out and got a peek into LS nightlife but the next evening we came up with a new challenge we were gonna hike up the biggest mountain in this area called Ella's Rock and trying camp up there under the stars so we made our way up as far as r22 crews able to because we were gonna need to carry a lot of stuff with us she goes up she goes all right so we have just driven up Ella's Rock as far as we can and now we're gonna head upwards trekking and going camping yeah sure the mo got in the cooler three guesses as to what we have in the cooler raisin cookies crackers bananas rice and
curry more cookies and B lion beers thank you very much it took us a bit of effort to be this well prepared but I think we got it all yeah and we're gonna start trekking up because we have very few hours left of sunlight I mean you get up there we need to find Chiron and the guys and we need to set up our tents yeah it makes me find the Kemp's bug yeah so we set off on what we thought was the path to Ella's Rock but it just led us to an old lady's house luckily the old lady showed us the way to the right track where we got a view of the town of Ella this grandmother must have thought that we were completely crazy tourists because we were carrying so much stuff all the way up the mountain and back just to go
camping for one single night and after an hour of trekking sweating and pushing ourselves up the steep hill we knew we were in for a really intense workout I said it wants to say again is this no way you could lug up 12 cans of beer and a bunch of curry cut them out and when you're 65 here so we tried to keep a steady pace and kept climbing up step by step with the summit just half an hour away we got our strength together for a final push upwards and so we made it to one of the many viewpoints on the top of Ella's Rock just to catch a glass glimpse of the valley far below
it took us a lot of effort to get up here but we were so happy to be able to share all beer together but there wasn't much time to hang around the last day light was fading very quickly so we had to quickly find a flat piece of land for us to put our tent up we've got a tent by a lady's eye and it wasn't until it was completely dark and our tent was already set up that our friends finally arrived at the top with us and so after they set their camp up together we made a big fire to warm ourselves up and cook something because after carrying up all those
beers and our camping gear we were starving and after our delicious Curry's under the stars we celebrated our climb even more by sharing our cold beers with this awesome group of friends Cheers all right who's going down for the next round and for the rest of the night he sat by the campfire enjoying each other's company and this amazing camping spot and because we were in such an amazing spot we did not want to miss the sunrise so we woke up really early and even though it was really cold we made ourselves to the cliff on the east nestled in our sleeping bags we waited for the first sunrays to shine over the mountain
and although we will really sleepy any need of a coffee this magical sunrise was definitely the highlight of our amazing time in LA and a nice and chill opportunity and this action-packed episode hello we just woken up to see the Sun Rise last night was fun yeah we am made a campfire and ate some dinner it's a marshmallows it was cute it was really nice by the fire and then sleeping in the tent wasn't too bad last night I slept fine yeah the whole surrounding areas here are beautiful and yeah we hope you enjoyed this episode in the next one we're gonna try and see some elephants we haven't seen any elephants yet it said the other one that was chained up and sick area which doesn't count
yeah it's gonna be our last day in the mountains today so it's gonna be our last day of driving through this amazing views yeah we can see the plane race ooh yeah we can see the planes and we're heading over yonder and yeah see you guys I'm gonna apologize thanks for watching the budgeteers if you liked this episode please consider giving us a like and subscribe it would really help us out and don't forget to turn that bellow so you never miss an episode if you're planning to go traveling yourself do consider bringing your very own budgeteers t-shirt we have our own online shop with many cool designs and as you can tell we purchase here's a really skeptical of famous tourist spots or cringy hotspots of that matter but
what place have you visited that are up to the hype we're curious to know your opinion in the meanwhile we'll just leave you with this teaser for our next episode where we do two safaris in two different national parts a leopard right in front of us we'll be that knife it's that's hiding or that is really hard to see but this is what we're looking at can you see it
