Hatton - Dalhousie

After discovering a cockroach next to the bed (!) at night, I didn't find the hotel as tidy anymore. And the quite delicious food weighed heavily on my stomach half the night.

The next morning we set off to two nearby waterfalls, the Devon Falls and the St. Clair Falls. Unfortunately, the Devon Falls were not accessible, so we could only look at them from a viewpoint. The viewpoint was located near a Buddhist temple. On the way there, we were repeatedly asked for selfies by friendly and curious locals. When we reached the bottom, we witnessed a brazen attempted theft by a capuchin monkey from a believer. However, since the flowers in her bag were not the expected food, he let go of the loot as soon as the "duty" monk approached him.

After that, we continued to the St. Clair Falls, making a stop at the impressive St. Clair Tea Castle first. The area around Hatton was already full of tea plants, and here we could visit a tea museum, a restaurant with a variety of teas, and a tea specialty store. Unfortunately, the St. Clair Falls were also not accessible, so we could only take a few photos from a relatively far away viewpoint.

Afterwards, we drove to the city center of Hatton. It was very lively. It was Sunday and many women were walking around in beautiful saris (since we saw much fewer women during the week, I suspect they are busy on the tea plantations during the week).

Afterwards, we continued to Dalhousie, about 35 km, at the foot of Sri Pada (Adam's Peak). The last kilometers were incredibly busy. There were many buses, but at that time we didn't see where the people were. Our accommodation was called "Slightly Chilled". We were greeted very kindly and found a nice hotel room with a terrace and a view of the summit, which was still hidden in the clouds when we arrived. However, at night you could see a string of lights leading up to the summit.

Adam's Peak is a distinctive mountain peak at an altitude of 2,240 meters. It is revered by believers of various religions. To be honest, I didn't want to go up at all. But Tommy thought that we couldn't just drive around and eat, which, admittedly, is true. We wanted to start walking at night and when we saw the path to the summit illuminated by the string of lights from below, I felt like I was in the base camp of Mt Everest (Tommy climbed the summit once over 15 years ago, so he had an idea of what to expect). As expected, I slept very poorly that night because, on the one hand, we had to go to sleep at 9 pm already, and on the other hand, I knew that the alarm clock would ring again at 1 am, and that's when things would get serious.