Sri Pada aka Adam's Peak aka Samanalakande

Sunrise, Adam's Peak

Way up to Adam's Peak.

Up early again this morning. 1:45am. We rugged up and headed down the road towards the beginning of the walking path which leads to Adam's Peak. We didn't even make it that far before we were stripping off layers of clothing.

At 2243m, Adam's Peak is hefty. And as we glimpsed it lit up this morning, it looked no less intimidating than it had as we ate dinner last night and watched its peak peep through, above the clouds.

The walk eases you into it with gradual inclines and only short sections of stairs. Before long though the real stuff is well and truly upon you. The second half of the walk is stairs, stairs and more stairs. Steep stairs, small stairs, large stairs, crumbling stairs, rocky stairs, concrete stairs. 5200 of them. Some sections are so steep the stairs seem to bulge out at you. Our rest stops gradually increased in regularity as the stairs got steeper. There were points where we could barely go up 10m before stopping again. And we weren't the only ones. The stairs were scattered with resting tourists trying to catch their breath. We figure the reason the walk up is so quiet is because nobody can catch their breath long enough to utter more than a few words at any one time. Needless to say, your thighs suffer incredibly. But, you do get into some kind of rhythm for some stretches, where your mind seems to disconnect from your legs and simply put one put infront of the other. Luckily there's a handrail when you are close to the top and most tired so your arms can take over from your thighs slightly. We passed many stalls on the way up. Mostly they sold useless plastic toys and fake flowers but some sold water and chocolate which was pretty tempting. We stuck with our pre-packed snacks though, rewarding ourselves with snacks once we reached the top.

Just some of the 5200 stairs.

Tourist!

We made it woooo.

We arrived at the top ahead of schedule and it was freezing. We secured ourselves a good spot for sunrise and re-layered our clothes back on. We took in a cloudy sunrise with many other people, grateful we weren't there the day before for New Years Eve as it was apparently even busier. Drummers drummed and men chanted as the sun slowly began to warm our bones.

Adam's Peak is a sacred place for both Christians and Buddhists. We checked out Buddah's footprint and watched a pilgrims came to pray.

It is customary to ring a bell at the top of Adam's Peak according to the number of times you have climbed it. We left it a bit late though and by the time I went to ring it the rest of the tourists had all descended so I felt a bit like a naughty little kid doing something I wasn't meant to.

Ringing the bell.

Pilgrims ascending Adam's Peak.

We started our descent at about 7am. Coming down is not easy as your knees take the load and your thighs begin shaking uncontrollably. However, we couldn't complain too much as we passed throngs of pilgrims making the climb barefoot, some of which were elderly to say the least. On top of that, there were guys carrying up huge bags of gravel and sand to fix the stairs on the walking track. They must have been paid by the kilo as each had their bag weighed when they reached their destination. 36kg was just one we overheard. There were also people carrying up babies and small children and what we can only assume we're guys training for the army who carried up heavy backpacks. So really, we had it pretty easy in comparison but it sure didn't feel like it at the time.

 

Looking over the clouds at Adam's Peak.

The walk from Dalhousie to Adam's Peak and back again took us a total of 12.5km. We ascended 1012m in two hours and forty five minutes. There were moments when we wondered what the heck we were doing and why as our legs felt as though they could drag us no further. It was absolutely though, a worthwhile experience probably made more so by the challenge of the whole thing.

Once back in Dalhousie we took a shower and enjoyed our included breakfast of fruit, omelette, toast, spreads, tea and some weird rolled up bread with sweet coconut in it. Then it was nap time before a relaxing afternoon finally getting our laundry done (yee ha) and planning the next leg of this epic journey.