Big Rock Kandy Mountain

Oh dear my titles keep getting worse. Anyway, I had my best train ride ever the other day, which is saying something for someone who grew up near the Severn Valley Railway.

It’s three and a half hours up a very long hill from Colombo on the coast to Kandy, in the middle of Sri Lanka. It’s about a quid for the hundred-mile journey in second class. (First class didn’t exist on this train, and third-class looked like it might cramp my style so I paid the extra 40p. Because I’m worth it.)

The window opens pretty wide, so you get to stick your elbow on the sill and watch the countryside without any pesky glass getting in the way. The journey starts with gentle fields and hamlets, but soon starts to climb up, with every small station telling you how high above sea level it is. Then once you get into the hills, it’s a stunning view around every turn: strange-shaped mountains in the distance, weird trees in the foreground, a hundred shades of green everywhere you look.

There are lots of birds wandering around, including squillions of elegant-looking storks and regular flashes of electric blue from the ultra-cool White-Throated Kingfisher. We go past a handsome river, and a guy is sat on a rock in the water washing the hind legs of a slightly bored-looking elephant. (Though, to be fair, have you ever seen an elephant looking fascinated?)

This being hill-country, there are lots of tunnels, and each of them produces a caterwaul of hoots and yelps from the kids on the train; when you go through the longer tunnels the carriage soon fills up with the thick black diesel smoke that’s belching out from the front, since it’s got nowhere to go except back through all the open windows. But everyone just closes their eyes and tries not to breathe and waits for fresh air to return.

Kandy turns out to be lovely and attractive and thoroughly relaxing, but there’s a big part of me that just wants to get straight back on the train and do it all over again.