Hello faithful blog followers! I told you all I would start posting more frequently because you just can't get enough of the exciting world of Shari and Kevin (I know you all were waiting on the edge of your seats for the next post). Ta Da! Another holiday season post just in time for the new year.
In this installment, we venture to the amazing world of Adam's Peak, I very tall, steep and painful, but wonderful 7 km climb/pilgrimage to a sacred Buddhist temple located at the very top of the peak. Followers of Buddhism believe that a footprint cast in the rock at the peak is that of lord Buddha left on his journey to paradise. More on that later, let me back up and tell you how we ended up going on the trip to Adam's Peak in the first place.
Last week, we were invited to dinner by Denushka, one of Shari's friends from Bishop's College (they call schools colleges here-actual college is known as University or Uni for short). At dinner we met Rushika, another school friend of Shari's along with Rushika's husband Mark and their two children Javin and Ariana. Rushika and her family are from Brisbane, Australia and were in Sri Lanka visiting her parents and extended family for the holidays. Denushka's family also joined us at a nice little beach front restaurant called the Golden Mile. During dinner, Rushika told us that her and Mark would be heading up to Adam's Peak the following week because it is something that Mark has always wanted since living in Sri Lanka for 18 months about 12 years ago. They asked Shari and I if we wanted to join and we said yes of course! It is so nice to not have obligations to attend to so you can just pick and and leave on a whim!
The scene was set and we were to be picked up on the 27th for the journey to Adam's Peak (about a 4 hour drive from Colombo). Luckily for us, Rishana, one of Shari's other friend's from Bishops, caught wind of our trip and offered to arrange some lodging for us so we had a place to rest pre and post hike. Rishana had already hiked Adam's Peak and knew how challenging it was-we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
Rishana's friend, Mohan, runs a tea estate in the area we were headed called Campion. He was gracious enough to open his home for us to use as our home base both before and after the hike. Thank God for Rishana's experience, it proved to be invaluable since it provided us a retreat for which we could rest, eat and recharge, especially after the hike. If we tried to tackle the peak driving up, climbing and driving back in one shot as we originally had planned, it would have been far less pleasurable than the experience we ended up having.
With the arrangements set, we were picked up by Mark, Rushika and their driver Ajantha at 9:30 AM sharp on the 27th. Ajantha, or Google as Mark and Rushika call him, turned out to be a jack of all trades and was able to find out just about anything by making a few phone calls. We were in good hands as we barreled out of Colombo toward Hatton like a bat out of hell. I've formed an opinion regarding paid Sri Lankan drivers and have two words to describe how they drive: controlled aggression. We did make it to the Campion Estate in one piece though after a brief stop off for tea and another for some food. At the second stop over, three of us, including Shari and I, got some Kothu Roti for lunch. A decision we would regret later....
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| Rest houses are commonplace in Sri Lanka |
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| Good tea and a nice break |
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| Lunch time! We're starving! |
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| Our Kothu Roti lunch being prepared...is that grill sanitary? |
We got our lunch to go (plastic wrap wrapped up in newspaper) and were on our way to Campion. It's hard to describe the beauty of this area in words. Maybe these pictures will give you a better idea:
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| Factory at the front entry to the estate |
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| View of one of the multiple gardens |
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| The estate dog |
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| Gorgeous flowers |
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| A dog's paradise |
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| A view of one of the flowers beds surrounding the house |
We were greeted by the estate house attendants and shown our rooms, then retired to a room at the front in the house to have a quick introduction to Mohan before crashing out for a few hours. Shari stayed up talking and catching up with Mohan and Rishana who left Colombo about two hours behind us. I crashed per usual...
After a bit of a snooze, we awoke to a wonderful spread arranged by Rishana. Rishana had planned out a huge meal for us and even brought ingredients from Colombo, but had to improvise to a scaled down light dinner after everyone crashed (with the exception of Shari of course). No matter, a meal of leak and pumpkin soup, pasta and bread proved to be the perfect fuel we were going to need for our hike in a few hours. Unfortunately for me, the Kothu Roti I ate for lunch was now sitting on my stomach like a brick and beginning to cause a little heartburn.
Dinner complete, we hopped in the car around 9:30 PM for the two hour drive to Adams Peak. We had to coax the owner of a fueling station out of bed with 1,000 rupees so we wouldn't run out of gas, but overall, the trip to Adams Peak was fairly uneventful.
As we got closer to the base of the mountain, we got our first glimpse of what we were in for. Although it was dark outside, you could see what appeared to be lights suspended in mid air with a yellowish light way up in the sky. These were the pathway lights that illuminate the path to the top of the mountain-it looked STEEEEEP!
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| See those lights.....WAAAAAYYYY up there? |
I guess it would be appropriate to explain a little more about this Adam's Peak place at this point. According to
www.sripada.org , Adam's Peak or the Sri Lankan name, Sri Pada, is a 7,360 ft tall mountain climb revered by multiple religions as a sacred place. A depression in the rocky summit resembles a huge footprint, which has been venerated as a sacred sigh from remote antiquity. This was identified by Buddhists as the Buddha's footprint, by Hindus as that of Shiva, and by Muslims as Adam's. Later the Portuguese attributed it to St. Thomas the Apostle.
The hike to the top is about 7km, consists of about 5200 steps and takes about 2 and 1/2 to 4 hours depending on your fitness level and the number of people walking the trails. Although our fitness level left something to be desired, there were not too may people on the trail as we stepped off at 11:40 PM so we were able to get to the last rest stop before the summit in about 3 hours.
The journey to the top was amazing. It started off with a nice gradual climb, then turned into steep sets of stairs and finished with a VERY STEEP stretch of stairs that was luckily accompanied by a railing you could grab onto to help pull yourself to the top. Since Adam's Peak is a spiritually significant pilgrimage for many Sri Lankan's, there were many who complete the walk to the summit every year. Oh-I forgot to mention, it is cold at the top, so be sure to pack appropriately if you visit.
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| Grabbing some last minute cold weather clothing. Surprisingly cheap! |
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| The crew looking VERY confident....for now. Check out those socks! |
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| Buddha looks relaxed (I think he is laughing at us for what we are about to do) |
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| The gateway to pain |
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| First set of steps not too bad-I even had to strip down to my T-shirt |
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| Getting a little steeper |
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| The experienced and highly skilled mountaineer |
The mix of people walking the trail was nothing short of inspirational. Along with the normal tourists, the locals, walking for reasons other than something cool to do while on holiday in Sri Lanka, usually traveled in family groups. Walking among the devout, you would see everything from young parents carrying their newborn children in their arms to 80 year old women, surrounded, and many times carried up to the summit by the young men in the family. Every local I passed was either hiking in nothing more than flip flops or was completely barefoot and there were kids as young as four climbing the challenging sets of stairs alongside their parents with little to no help.
Seeing what this pilgrimage meant to all of these people gave you extra energy to make it to the top. We did take our fair share of breaks along the way, especially when the legs turned to rubber or the breathing became a little too labored, but we navigated our way to the last store before the top by about 2:45 AM.
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| One of the many stores along the way-stores become more expensive as you get closer to the top |
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| Do I look like I'm enjoying the climb? |
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| Crazy steep stairs |
Proud of ourselves for making it so far in what appeared to be a decent time, we were soon cursing our lack of planning as we sat on bamboo pole seats in the cold and wind for hours waiting until it was close enough to sunrise to begin the last leg of the journey.
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| Trying to stay warm on a little bamboo pole seat! |
We finally made our move to the top at about 5:30 AM. The store keeper said it would only take about five minutes to the top, but we didn't want to take any chances to not see the sunrise, especially after sitting in the freezing cold for so long!
After fighting our way through a few people blocking the stairs at the summit, we found ourselves in the summit temple compound. Shari and Rushika, both Buddhists, found the room with the Buddha's footprint and said prayers after providing a small donation. We then made our way to ring the bell signifying the number of times you've completed the pilgrimage. Mark, Rushika, Shai and I each gave a ring while Ajuntha gave eleven! After ringing the bell, we retired to a staircase away from most of the crowd to await the sunrise. The next set of pictures show Shari and I ringing the bell while taking in some of the most amazing views of the sun cresting the horizon that I have ever seen.
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| Sun beginning to brighten the sky |
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| One ring for Shari |
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| One ring for me. We had to take our shoes off in the temple compound-the ground was cold! |
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| The flags are Buddhist flags |
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| Sun coming up over the lake below |
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| Portion of the temple that houses the footprint |
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| The sky was on fire |
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| Notice the mist on the mountains BELOW us |
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| And there is the sun |
Once the sun came up, we walked over the the back of the temple area to see if we could see the shadow of Adam's Peak on the mist covered valley below. It is an amazing phenomena to see the perfect pyramid shape the shadow makes on the mist while it slowly becomes more pronounced as the sun continues to rise; however, it had not appeared in the last twelve days according to the temple high priest. As we strained to see the shadow, it slowly materialized before our eyes-amazing!
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| Slowly starting to see the pyramid shadow take shape |
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| It becomes more pronounced as the sun continues to rise |
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| Check out the pyramid in the background |
With the sunrise and the Adam's Peak shadow behind us, it was time to begin my least favorite part of the journey. It was my least favorite for many reasons, the first being the punishment my knees were about to take and the second was the gift my Kothu Roti lunch from the day before was giving me as we bounced down the stairs...No matter, there was no shuttle down, so away we went.
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| Getting ready to head down |
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| A bit crowded at the top |
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| Smile everyone, we're going home! |
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| Like a heard of cows |
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| Breathtaking scenes on the way down |
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| The winding path down |
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| Another award winning photo by Shari |
While picking our way through the slow people heading toward the bottom, we passed the lucky few who were charged with bringing supplies up to the various shops along the trail. Since the peak is only navigable by foot, everything, and I mean everything, is brought up by these guys:
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| Just another day at work |
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| Who ordered the home building materials? |
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| This guy actually said "good morning sir" to me with a smile as he humped 100 pounds of drinks up the hill...amazing! |
This method of transportation is the main reason why shops become more expensive the higher up the mountain you travel. If I were these guys, I would be charging a mint to hike supplies up to the shop keepers at the top!
Even though the walk down only took about two hours, it felt like it would never end, especially when my right leg quit working. The last km was torture, but Shari still managed to get some great shots.
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| Yes we were just WAAAAY up there! |
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| Mark and Rushika crossing one of the last bridges on the way down |
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| Namaste |
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| Tea pluckers starting their day |
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| Huge Buddha statue at the bottom...we made it! |
These next two pictures sum up how we were feeling at the bottom:
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| I think my leg cracked in half at km 13 |
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| The 1000 yard stare into nothingness |
Trip back to the estate was nice. Monkeys and glorious sleep!
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| Look at those crazy humans in that blue machine! |
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| Shari is STILL awake! |
Rounding the last few bends toward the estate, we were greeted by some welcoming signage and an amazing lunch on the back lawn organized by our most gracious of hosts, Rishana and Mohan. It was the perfect ending to a perfect trip and I cannot thank Shari's, and now my, wonderful friends enough for allowing us to be a part of such an incredible experience.
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| Almost home! |
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| Look, a tree house! |
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| Having a chat on the back lawn before lunch |
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| Cocktails anyone? |
To see all of the pictures from our Adam's Peak experience, go to my flickr page and click on Adam's Peak:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39526836@N05/sets/.
Until next time...peace!
