We set off on an overnight climb to Adam’s Peak, Sri Lanka’s most sacred mountain. Here’s how we fared.
I was already exhausted by Sri Lanka. So far, we’d had two men barge into our hotel room in Bentota, got stuck in a toilet in Tissa, been pinned to a wall on a train to Galle and battled flying cockroaches on the road to Udawalawe.
When we arrived to our guest house in Dalhousie – the gateway to Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka – all we wanted was somewhere to bed down ahead of our early morning climb. But, oh, what foolish dreams. Instead of being shown our room, we were taken aside and asked to pay for it under the table in exchange for a discount. We politely refused and after much discussion were finally allowed to check in.
We headed to bed early in preparation for the night ahead: climbing 5,500 steps up Adam’s Peak, the most sacred mountain in the country. Clearly, Sri Lanka wasn’t done with me yet.
We left our hotel at 2.30am to make the climb overnight as is customary for tourists and pilgrims, the latter of which there were many. The mountain has been a site of pilgrimage for over 1,000 years and people of all shapes and ages gather on its steps to make the climb in time for sunrise.
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