Hiking to Lipton's Seat, Sri Lanka

                                     
                                                      There are so many walks and hikes in Sri Lanka from Adam's Peak to the world's end. On my three week trip around Sri Lanka I only managed to do one. Lipton's Seat. We stayed in the town of Haputale for our walk. I wouldn't call it a hike as such, it's not too tough and a lot of it is fairly flat.

We got up and ready for the first bus of the day. The bus left around 6.30 from the bus terminal. It's a local bus but at this time of the morning there's no need to worry about whether the journey's going to be too hot because it's rather chilly. 

There were already a few people on the bus, a mixture of locals, school children and other tourists heading to Lipton's seat like us. The bus set off on time and made a number of stops on the way. Soon we left the town behind and entered the mountains, going higher and higher. The grey morning was beginning the brighten allowing us to see some of the views. The roads were very narrow and whenever traffic came from the other direction we had to stop to negotiate our way past them.

It took about an half an hour to reach our stop. The bus pulled up outside the tea factory and we got off. The factory is open to the public but we didn't bother visiting. We were stopped and asked whether we wanted to take a tuk tuk up to Lipton's Seat but we declined. Part of me wanted to say yes because I didn't know how tough the walk would be but I stuck with walking and it turned out to be fine.

                                                                                             The walk is a narrow road that winds it's way up the hills. As you make your way up you wonder where the road has disappeared to until you turn a corner and find it in the distance again. As we made our way up we kept guessing where our end destination was. We got it wrong each time because it was hidden behind another set of hills.

We completed the walk in good time. Even with me having to stop quite a lot to have a drink of water (and recover from the walk). We passed through a small village on the way up and met quite a few school children making their way down the road. We were asked a couple of times whether we had any pens. We didn't but this is quite common so if I go back or go to Asia again I will take some pens with me to give to school children incase they ask. I think pens are quite expensive / hard to find but they are so cheap for us, spending a couple of pounds on pens is nothing really but will mean a lot to the school children. 

You will eventually get to a turn off from the main road where there is a small hut. This is the entrance to Lipton's Seat. You have to pay entry. If you take a car or tuk tuk then you have to pay entry for this as well. You then continue up an even narrower road. This last part of the walk lasts around 10 -15 minutes. It's more winding and a little steeper.

We'd managed to beat most of the crowds. There were some people already making there way back down who must have been up extremely early! And of course some cars who'd over taken us on the way up.

In all honesty the views weren't that amazing but this is because it was very cloudy. We'd been advised to get there before 10 am so the sky would be clearer. We got there around 8 am. I think we were just unlucky. This didn't mean there were no views though. We still could see across the hills and the views on our walk were stunning.

We got a picture with the sign and the statue of Lipton himself. We then sat and had a coffee and some snacks from the cafe. I say cafe but it is more of a little hut. They had just started making the food when we arrived so it was perfect timing. You have given plates with lots of food on but you only pay for the snacks you eat. I can't say I was very keen on the coconut pancakes, I think there a local dessert but I don't like coconut and they were very sweet. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the savoury snack. I'm not sure what it actually was but it was a bit like a crispy samosa, it was very crunchy but extremely yummy. I completely suck at giving descriptions of food so you'll just have to take my word that they were good!

                                                             After enjoying our snacks and the view we headed back down. We saw many people on our way back down making their way up. I was very glad we'd got up and gone earlier as it was a lot cooler and quieter. I managed to get very sunburnt on the way down as I hadn't imagined I'd need suncream on, it was still before 9 am after all and we'd left our guest house before 6am. So I had quite a shock when I looked in mirror when we got back to the guest house. I was quite literally a lobster for days. 

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Have you visited Sri Lanka, did you go to Lipton's Seat?

Sophie