And what a long journey it was – seven hours, albeit in a comfy minibus – on less than comfy roads, crawling along. We were so glad to arrive in Dalhousie and to see at last Adam’s Peak which we will climb tonight.
We had booked some rooms at the Slightly Chilled Yellow House – more a way to get a couple of hours pre-climb sleep and a place to store our bags overnight. For a multitude of reasons Ant’s booking wasn’t honoured so we found him a room (or should we say kennel) in a disgusting hovel next door where he was lured by the amazingly intelligent ten year old daughter of the owner – Achinka, after whom the “Achinka Holiday Inn“ was named. She spoke great English, was full of drive and will one day no doubt own the entire valley. In one of our many conversations with her, we discovered that she wishes to become a doctor. She was one of the brightest kids that either of us have ever come across. This didn’t detract from the fact that her room was bloody awful but at £6 per night what can one expect. Achinka introduced us to one of the other local characters, “Mrs Brenda” a local guide, an 80 year old and dressed in the traditional sari, she has done the climb 72 times! She was a charming character and it is meeting people like these that make our travels so interesting.
Dalhousie was a dump, but as night fell with so little light pollution it was an amazing spectacle to see the star filled sky and in the distance, Adam’s Peak draped with the floodlights that illuminate the paths snaking up and around the mountain. It was scary as well as we realised the size of the job ahead. Sitting on Gill’s verandah (remember Ant was in the hovel by this time….) we marvelled at the view as the moon rose and we drank warm white wine out of our ashram tin mugs – remember this is a pilgrimage area – and the teapots came out again when Ant ordered a beer earlier. We have worked this out by now so this wine had been carried opened half way across the country – our wine was completing its own pilgrimage.
Adam’s Peak is 7362 ft, 2242 metres and is sacred to three religions. To Buddhists the human foot shaped hollow on the pinnacle boulder marks one of the personal appearances of the Buddha; the Muslims believe that the depression marks Adam’s punishment for his disobedience, by standing there for an age on one foot; to the Hindu’s, by whom the peak has been venerated for millennia, the footprint is that of the God Shiva – for us it was just an enormous mountain to climb, at 2.5 times the height of Snowdon. It is traditionally climbed at night to arrive in time for sunrise at the peak and so we set of at 1.30 am having gone to bed at 8.30 pm. We set off on foot from Dalhousie which is just one dusty street filled with stalls selling cuddly toys, beanie hats and chocolate – obviously all that the tens of thousands of pilgrims who do this each year really need. For us though the shops that had no appeal, we were too focused on the job in hand.
The climb was over a kilometre vertical and involved 5200 steps over a walking distance of 7 kms. The rough path is lit all the way to the top and we set off with some trepidation. The route passes temples, Buddhist stupas, many tea and roti stalls and rest stops. As it is a pilgrimage the atmosphere was light yet respectful, no music, no alcohol (so we left our “Sprite” behind on this occasion) and no smoking allowed. Many of the pilgrims were barefoot and some carried children, others were ancient, others led blind and disabled people. They appeared completely ill-equipped, we were head to toe expedition gear!!!! Gill could have made it to the South Pole. Despite our equipment it was really hard.
Not only were we tired, increasingly cold, had no idea how to pace ourselves (it is a custom that you do not ask other pilgrims how much further to go) and you couldn’t see the top neither of us had ever encountered so many steps. We progressed, until one famous moment when Gill finally spotted the top – she had already commented that the stars looked bigger as we were getting that much closer to them …. But suddenly at what looked to be an impossible distance, the faint yellow glow of the temple at the top appeared – and it was at this point Gill decided “enough is enough”. And despite having gone ¾ of the way Gill turned round for the 2.5 hour trek back down leaving Ant to conquer the summit alone. She knew that this had been the right decision when she got a text from Ant an hour later confirming he had reached the top, but it had all got even harder, for the last half hour he was in a snake of people winding their way up the final near vertical ladder for 30 minutes chanting to Buddha – perhaps that helped! So alone Ant reached the top at 5am. At the top there is a Buddhist monastery and many Tibetan style prayer flags. It was freezing and it was here that he had a one hour wait for sunrise, huddled up with everyone else, wearing his beanie and avoiding the wind. Eventually the sun started to arrive in the East accompanied by the resident monks chanting in greeting to the sun. The sunrise over the entire East of Sri Lanka was bathed in red and orange hues and it produced the famous spectacle of the shadow of the peak. The sun casts a vast, dark, triangular shadow on a layer of misty cloud some thousands of feet below. Its point lies at first on the distant horizon, and then as the sun rises, the shadow foreshortens until it finally disappears into the mountain itself. The pilgrims all queued to pray at the footprint – Ant didn’t feel the need! With the sun finally in residence, it was time to do it all in reverse and negotiate the 5200 steps down – in some ways harder than going up. But the journey down was eased by the spectacular scenery of the mountains and lakes. Two hours and twenty minutes later Ant was relieved to find Gill in one piece (and vice versa) and looking remarkably well after her 2 hour sleep. By this time we had been up for almost 24hours and with an eight hour hike and a seven hour journey, never had we schlepped so much in one day in our lives.
We had booked some rooms at the Slightly Chilled Yellow House – more a way to get a couple of hours pre-climb sleep and a place to store our bags overnight. For a multitude of reasons Ant’s booking wasn’t honoured so we found him a room (or should we say kennel) in a disgusting hovel next door where he was lured by the amazingly intelligent ten year old daughter of the owner – Achinka, after whom the “Achinka Holiday Inn“ was named. She spoke great English, was full of drive and will one day no doubt own the entire valley. In one of our many conversations with her, we discovered that she wishes to become a doctor. She was one of the brightest kids that either of us have ever come across. This didn’t detract from the fact that her room was bloody awful but at £6 per night what can one expect. Achinka introduced us to one of the other local characters, “Mrs Brenda” a local guide, an 80 year old and dressed in the traditional sari, she has done the climb 72 times! She was a charming character and it is meeting people like these that make our travels so interesting.
Dalhousie was a dump, but as night fell with so little light pollution it was an amazing spectacle to see the star filled sky and in the distance, Adam’s Peak draped with the floodlights that illuminate the paths snaking up and around the mountain. It was scary as well as we realised the size of the job ahead. Sitting on Gill’s verandah (remember Ant was in the hovel by this time….) we marvelled at the view as the moon rose and we drank warm white wine out of our ashram tin mugs – remember this is a pilgrimage area – and the teapots came out again when Ant ordered a beer earlier. We have worked this out by now so this wine had been carried opened half way across the country – our wine was completing its own pilgrimage.
Adam’s Peak is 7362 ft, 2242 metres and is sacred to three religions. To Buddhists the human foot shaped hollow on the pinnacle boulder marks one of the personal appearances of the Buddha; the Muslims believe that the depression marks Adam’s punishment for his disobedience, by standing there for an age on one foot; to the Hindu’s, by whom the peak has been venerated for millennia, the footprint is that of the God Shiva – for us it was just an enormous mountain to climb, at 2.5 times the height of Snowdon. It is traditionally climbed at night to arrive in time for sunrise at the peak and so we set of at 1.30 am having gone to bed at 8.30 pm. We set off on foot from Dalhousie which is just one dusty street filled with stalls selling cuddly toys, beanie hats and chocolate – obviously all that the tens of thousands of pilgrims who do this each year really need. For us though the shops that had no appeal, we were too focused on the job in hand.
The climb was over a kilometre vertical and involved 5200 steps over a walking distance of 7 kms. The rough path is lit all the way to the top and we set off with some trepidation. The route passes temples, Buddhist stupas, many tea and roti stalls and rest stops. As it is a pilgrimage the atmosphere was light yet respectful, no music, no alcohol (so we left our “Sprite” behind on this occasion) and no smoking allowed. Many of the pilgrims were barefoot and some carried children, others were ancient, others led blind and disabled people. They appeared completely ill-equipped, we were head to toe expedition gear!!!! Gill could have made it to the South Pole. Despite our equipment it was really hard.
Not only were we tired, increasingly cold, had no idea how to pace ourselves (it is a custom that you do not ask other pilgrims how much further to go) and you couldn’t see the top neither of us had ever encountered so many steps. We progressed, until one famous moment when Gill finally spotted the top – she had already commented that the stars looked bigger as we were getting that much closer to them …. But suddenly at what looked to be an impossible distance, the faint yellow glow of the temple at the top appeared – and it was at this point Gill decided “enough is enough”. And despite having gone ¾ of the way Gill turned round for the 2.5 hour trek back down leaving Ant to conquer the summit alone. She knew that this had been the right decision when she got a text from Ant an hour later confirming he had reached the top, but it had all got even harder, for the last half hour he was in a snake of people winding their way up the final near vertical ladder for 30 minutes chanting to Buddha – perhaps that helped! So alone Ant reached the top at 5am. At the top there is a Buddhist monastery and many Tibetan style prayer flags. It was freezing and it was here that he had a one hour wait for sunrise, huddled up with everyone else, wearing his beanie and avoiding the wind. Eventually the sun started to arrive in the East accompanied by the resident monks chanting in greeting to the sun. The sunrise over the entire East of Sri Lanka was bathed in red and orange hues and it produced the famous spectacle of the shadow of the peak. The sun casts a vast, dark, triangular shadow on a layer of misty cloud some thousands of feet below. Its point lies at first on the distant horizon, and then as the sun rises, the shadow foreshortens until it finally disappears into the mountain itself. The pilgrims all queued to pray at the footprint – Ant didn’t feel the need! With the sun finally in residence, it was time to do it all in reverse and negotiate the 5200 steps down – in some ways harder than going up. But the journey down was eased by the spectacular scenery of the mountains and lakes. Two hours and twenty minutes later Ant was relieved to find Gill in one piece (and vice versa) and looking remarkably well after her 2 hour sleep. By this time we had been up for almost 24hours and with an eight hour hike and a seven hour journey, never had we schlepped so much in one day in our lives.
