Kithalella and Ella may sound similar, but they are boars apart

Traveling takes on major issues at times, but this looks like a no-brainer.  Our train car from Kandy to Ella has stewards who set up TV trays in between our seats for rice and curry lunch. Mmmmm.  The 6 hour ride is punctuated by tea plantations, rolling hills, mountain peaks that only 20-year old Germans climb, eyeballing others on oncoming train cars, playing imaginary poker which decades later I continue my winning streak, and more tea plantations.  

We keep track of all the towns and where we are with the map on our lap. When it gets close to our stop, Ella, I speak with the steward and the dialogue goes something like this:

"Not now, eight stops," he says

"But the map says 2 stops."

"No, 7 stops. Hai-Ella. Train. Stop."

"No, I want Ella. Kithalella. Look here on my map. It says the train stops at Kithalella."

"No madam, Hai-Ella better."  

This goes on for a while and then the train stops and the steward says, "ok, get off."

So we hustle and C gets off while the train almost stops and the bags are thrown to us. C looks around and says, "Tuk tuk here?"

The station master says, "no tuk tuk"

"No tuc tuc? Where is the road?"

Station Master says, "no road.  Road up the mountain."

So it's 7:05pm, no road, no tuk tuk, no lights, no people, no cars, nothing. We're in the wrong spot. Bats are flying by, boars and deer are the only neighbors at night. There is a dog that C has been been trying to befriend but it doesn't look like the dog knows how kind and intelligent C is, and Station Master, who just married one month ago and will work in this tiny no-frill train station for five years before he moves on to Ella, leaves at 7:30. "My house this way...1 km." 

"And what happens then?"

"I go home."

So we call our Homestay Mama. Between broken Sinhalese and English, she calls a tuk tuk and says "tuk tuk driver come 20 minutes. Stand on road. Blue tuk tuk." But there is no road and the way to the dirt road is through the thick jungle. With head lamps, two suitcases, a purse, and a backpack, we can't even make it up the muddy first hill and it's pitch black by now. 

Twenty minutes later we hear rustling, and our tuk tuk driver shows up, slings the two suitcases over his shoulder and cuts a path through the plants. Then it's a harrowing tumble down the mountain side for another 20 minutes, up the next hill, transverse another mountain, eventually passing buses and motorcycles until he turns up a steep 45 degree driveway. The disco ball light on the porch is going to be our home for the next three nights.

If I wasn't so arrogantly dead certain that I can read a map, we would have missed this scary situation and would have been having dinner outside on the porch two hours before we do.

Aftermath:  apparently the farmers in KeithElla pooled their funds together and decided to open their own railroad station since there are no roads nor transportation to haul their pumpkins and goods to market.  It took them years to fund this station.  They are gambling on the government to eventually build a road through the jungle to the railroad station, but as of now... we and the wild boars are the only ones using the station at night.