Last night we had an interesting evening, while sat eatting in town loud fireworks and firecrackers started to explode on the street right next to our restaurant. Most of you will know that Nicole is not a fan of fireworks, so it wasn't the most relaxing meal out. Plus in Sri Lanka you get this slight feeling that there Is a lack of health and safety regulations, it looked like a group of youths had decided to scare the pants off the tourists for a laugh. Actually it was a planned event and a religious minster had come to the village and they welcome him by nearly setting the street on fire!!

We headed up Little Adams Peak this morning in the boiling hot heat. Although it is a smaller and easier walk up than other hills, In the heat we boiled alive especially up the stepped section. The walk passes through Tea fields and a small local village, with houses made out of wood and corrugated metal, we assumed this was the home of the Tea Plantation workers. You can look out into Ella Rock, which is a larger and longer walk which we decided against with the heat, as you walk up. Once at the top of Little Adams Peak you look out onto the mountain ranges and tea factories. It was stunning and we also met the German couple at the top and stopped for a recovery chat. There wasn't much shade up there so we didn't stay too long and made our way back down, but we still got burnt. You also have to be careful of the leaches, although in the morning its lovely and hot in the afternoon the rain comes powering down in force and the leaches love it. We stopped a tourist and let him know that he had aquired a new friend while walking around, so we had high socks and long trousers on which didn't help with the heat. But we were leach free!

When we arrived back our hosts brought us out a Woodapple juice. Look one up if you have the time they look like rotten apples and we had seen them in the local stalls. They taste strange at the start but them you notice the syrupy texture and Matt thought he could taste a bit of chocolate. They have a load of health benefits to do with digestion which is a great match for this country with it spicy food and not so clean water. Our host also told us about the coffee beans he grows in the garden. Sri Lanka used to be one of the largest coffee producers in the world. But it has now been replace with Tea over the years. We are so full of knowledge these days!

Surprisingly it didn't rain for long at 2pm today so Matt popped into town to get us some good old fashioned biscuits for lunch. There is so much more to see here in Ella but with the weather things take a lot longer and are alot harder. So sadly we haven't seen everything but we have definetly seen some of it, so we can't complain. It's been nice having a "home" for three days instead of moving all over the place.

I was about to publish the blog when we decided to walk through town to the train station to check the times of our train tomorrow. We made it up there and got our information. However just as we were walking back it started to spit slightly with rain we popped our umbrella up, ignoring how the locals moved under their verandas. It had already rained hard today and it had been beautiful sunshine since, it wasn't going to rain again . We huddled a little closer under the umbrella as the rain came down slightly harder, just to cover our backpack incase it got damp. We obliviously watched, what we thought were, over dramatic locals who ran past us down the road. Then it started. Our poor little English umbrella was unequiped for the storm that attacked us! It pelted it down. We were trying to dodge the traffic and cover our backpack as well as ourselves with the umbrella and it was useless, we were drowned rats by the time we reached our hotel. I can't describe the rain here, the drops are so large they bounce off the road with force and drench your clothes In seconds. Streams of water pour's from gutters onto the street forming lakes of dirty water covering your feet and shoes with mud and sediment. What an experience, all part of the journey hey!