​When we live fully, time seems to slow down. Monday morning, when we left Nuwara Eliya, which sits at over 6,000 feet above sea level, there was frost on the ground. It feels like ages ago. As dawn broke, we listened to the Muslim call to prayer and drumming from a nearby Buddhist temple.

Fortified by a breakfast of one egg and approximately 20 pieces of toast each, and bundled in all of our clothes, we descended through well maintained tea farms, the rows of camellia like lines on a topographic map. At the Seetha Kovil temple, which plays an important role in the epic Hindu story The Ramayana (where king Ravana held the kidnapped princess Sita, the queen of Rama), we warmed up in the sun and watched an elderly lottery ticket seller stop to pray to Hanuman (the Hindu monkey god who found Sita) and bless his tickets. The temple is a striking deep red and gold, and the ticket seller added his own dash of style with a pink stocking cap, hounds tooth blazer and white sarong. 

The next stop was the Dhowa rock temple, famous for its massive standing Buddha image, carved into a rock face overlooking a quiet mountain stream. The temple dates back over 2,000 years. Sri Lanka is remarkable for its religious diversity and the way in which so many elements of religious devotion collide so colorfully (and peacefully, for now).

 The day’s ride ended with a climb into Ella, a small hill town with a bit of a Lonely Planet backpacker vibe. Famished, we stopped for a lunch of lamprais (aka lump rice), a uniquely Sri Lankan dish in which many different very delicious things are stuffed into a banana leaf and baked. It did not disappoint, but just to make sure it hadn’t been a fluke, we had lamprais again for dinner. Yep, also delicious. 

As evening fell, we walked up to the town park, where a group of Sri Lankans was engaged in a spirited, and very skilled, game of volleyball, the official national sport.

Today we continued our descent out of the mountains and into the southern Sri Lankan low lands. The first 20 kilometers were downhill, one sweeping curve after another, each offering beautiful views down the valley, called the Ella Gap.

Leaving the mountains, the humid heat returned, as did the rich earthy smells of tropical agriculture. Our ride snack today consisted of simple coconut roti, the nutritional engine of the country. Freshly made and eaten with a banana and cashews, it was perfect in its simplicity. 

A rolling 100 kilometer ride through small villages brought us to Udawalawe National Park, a 120 square mile preserve that includes marshes, the Walawe river and its tributaries, forests and grasslands. Most importantly, it is home to a herd of 250 wild Sri Lankan elephants. We hired a jeep (Bike Fridays are not allowed in the park) and spent three hours in awe, watching elephants, crocodiles, water buffalo, axis deer, toque macaque and langur monkeys and a magnificent array of birds. Despite the grace and evident wisdom of the elephants, the bird life stole the show. First, we watched a black neck stork catch and devour a small turtle, which was easily three times the width of the stork’s neck. It took a few tries, but with a couple of full body swallows, the stork got the turtle down in an inspiring display of gluttony. As we were driving along the dirt road, a massive crested hawk eagle swooped down and mauled a white egret, instantly breaking its neck. Successful with the kill, the eagle hopped along, dragging the egret through the brush with its beak, until an approaching elephant scared it into flight, beating its powerful wings and clutching the egret in its talons.

P.S. – I diligently followed my mom’s sage advice to avoid getting trampled by an elephant, however I was caught by surprise by this ornery rhino. Fortunately, it was just a minor impailing. After the incident, he did compliment me on my vintage Second Ascent bike shorts however.