Day 13. Nuwara Eliya, Hatton

 Well things seemed completely different today. For a start we woke up to blue skies, and then the guide told us that we might be able to get out today or tomorrow – and that he’d report back later.

We’d heard that we could get phone signal on the hillside at the hotel’s farm garden, so after breakfast the group of us walked up the hill, following a stream of hotel staff. At the top we got some mobile signal. This was patchy at best – some of my texts went through, others didn’t, and there was still not mobile data. This was frustrating so after a while we gave up and walked around the town.

It was very different from yesterday there, too. The ground was mostly dry and the cleanup was in full swing, with trucks carrying away the litter and debris that had accumulated. There was a long queue for petrol at one station, so either they were running out or other places had already run out. But on the walk back there was a food market that had largely resumed normal business.


Around midday the guide found us and said the road west towards Colombo should reopen this afternoon; some cars and buses have already headed that way in anticipation of that, and erring on the side of caution we can go tomorrow. After lunch we found that we had a mobile signal again, so a tower has been reconnected.

Then things changed again - the guide had determined (or, I think, been instructed by head office) that we were to go today at 3pm. So we rushed to pack and check out, and of course we're back to 'hurry up and wait' as we then had to wait for the bus to turn up, as the driver and assistant had been off checking the roads out. We eventually headed off at 3.30. We quickly discovered why the roads were blocked; all the roads are along hillsides, and all of the hillsides had subsided. There were literally dozens of landslides, sometimes every few hundred metres. At one point we took a side road and had to turn back as the road had collapsed.


The plan was to go west, through Hatton, to the edge of Colombo and then turn south for Galle. However we reached a point, after 6pm, where it was initially unclear whether the bus could manage the road. After considerable debate it was decided that we would turn back to Hatton for the night. The guide reassured us that there was space in a nice hotel that is 'famous in Hatton'. The hotel, the Argylle, turned out to be very nice and we had a pleasant dinner.

It's uncertain what route we're taking tomorrow - the main road is yet to be cleared, but there is believed to be bodies in some of the landslides so that may take some time. So far a couple of hundred people have died in Sri Lanka and more than a hundred thousand have been displaced from their homes. Our inconveniences don't really rate.
Location: Kudaoya Estate, Argyle Rd, හැටන් 22000, Sri Lanka

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