21.09. - Train 🚂 and Bob 🚀 fit together?

Good morning. What a night. Strangely enough, neither of us slept well. I had terrible back pain and couldn't sleep. Luckily, otherwise the blog wouldn't have been created, because Stephan took the opportunity to summarize everything in bullet points. Thanks, my Bautze. We enjoyed the beautiful view one last time before being taken to the train station by our driver at 8:45am after breakfast. Our tickets were already booked in advance and gave us seats in the first class compartment. Around 9:20am, the blue, slightly older train arrived at the station. Without luggage and full of anticipation, we boarded the back, air-conditioned part of the train. As soon as we took our seats, we waved to our driver, who welcomed us again in Nanu Oya, and off we went. I started formulating the bullet points and Stephan looked for a good opportunity to take beautiful photos. He found them in the open doors where many young people stood or sat. I couldn't miss that and also sat in the door, enjoying the beautiful landscape passing by and feeling the wind in my hair. We passed through several tunnels and saw beautiful landscapes such as tea plantations, mountain villages, valleys, and forests. Unfortunately, the weather got worse halfway through the journey and it started raining and getting colder. Time seemed to fly by in Nanu Oya, and we already had to leave the train and were greeted by our driver. The journey continued towards Kandy to our next accommodation. During the drive, our driver showed us a "very famous" lake and an old post office from the British occupation period. After that, we raced down the mountains in zigzag at rally speed. Our driver had a lot of fun doing that and zoomed down the winding roads. Of course, we had to brake often because we were either slowed down by trucks with logs or tuk-tuks. We sang to ourselves: "We're riding with Bob, left curve, right curve, forward, backward, and jump!" because we were getting more and more uneasy. When asked if we wanted a milkshake, we immediately declined unanimously. Luckily, we made a stop at Rabaino Waterfall. To visit it, we had to walk down a small steep road, through a hotel and restaurant. Only then could we descend the stairs to the viewing platform. Our guide asked if we wanted to have lunch first, but we said that we wanted to go to the platform first and maybe eat afterwards. We took beautiful photos and admired the beautiful waterfall. Our guide took a few photos of us with his phone and also tried to take photos with Stephan's camera. It worked quite well, but a little practice is still needed ;-) Luckily, we made the right decision to go to the platform first. In no time at all, the sky darkened and it started raining. We had a snack at the restaurant and then the wild ride continued to Glennoch Tea Factory. A young Sinhalese woman (26) guided us through the factory and told us everything about tea production. She was extremely excited to be able to do this tour with us and shyly asked for a joint photo with me. She giggled like a little girl and had taken a liking to me, which was very cute. When we were back outside, we tried all three main types of tea and then bought a small selection of tea in the neighboring shop. After that, we drove for another hour to our hotel on the outskirts of Kandy. The accommodation was right by the river and we got an upgrade to a lake house, which was completely made of stone. Even the bed was made of masonry. The view was very beautiful and we made ourselves comfortable on the terrace. I was writing my report and Stephan was looking up information about the old royal city in the guidebook. When Stephan wanted to surf the internet, his patience was almost at its limit because the speed of loading pages was comparable to ours 10 years ago. Completely engrossed in my writing, it had already gotten dark and the nice landlady called us for dinner. What is also clever is that everyone always asks for Maam and primarily talks to me. You already know who's in charge. She had set two tables on her terrace and cooked rice, lentils, carrots, chicken, and other delicious things that were either not spicy or only slightly spicy. This time, we weren't alone. Two girls from Belgium were sitting next to us, who were also happy to have company. We talked to them for quite a while and exchanged our first experiences. We all agreed that Sri Lanka is an exciting, great, and eventful country that is definitely worth a visit. We went to bed around 9:30pm and quickly fell asleep.