---
type: Video
title: "The Most BEAUTIFUL place in Sri Lanka 🇱🇰"
description: Three tuk-tuks race to the Nine Arch Bridge with the loser paying everyone's bus fares — and the one who offered a bonus for speed gets taken the long way round.
tags: [sri-lanka, ella, nine-arch-bridge, tuk-tuk, colonial, coconut, music]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T15:50:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHfoPiIeL-U
video_id: CHfoPiIeL-U
upload_date: 2022-03-02
duration: 1234
---

# The Most BEAUTIFUL place in Sri Lanka 🇱🇰

The last day in [Ella](/places/ella.md), and Ali's birthday. Three of them race
to the [Nine Arch Bridge](/places/nine-arch-bridge.md) in separate tuk-tuks, the
loser paying everyone's onward bus fares, and the race turns out to teach more
than the bridge does.

*Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles.*

## He corrects himself about Adam's Peak

Worth putting first, because he has said it wrong in three previous videos and
here says so:

**Adam's Peak is not in Ella.** It is about four hours away, on the other side
of the island. **Little Adam's Peak** is the one in Ella. He admits the mistake on
camera, says the naming is genuinely confusing — normally a "little" peak is
within sight of the big one, and these are at opposite ends of the country — and
notes they never climbed either.

## The race, and what it costs

The rule: three men, three tuk-tuks, last one to the bridge pays the bus tickets
to the next town.

- **The fare is quoted at 1,200 rupees.** Harry offers **1,500 for speed**, and
  tips up to **2,000** at the other end.
- **He loses.** Mac's driver takes the direct route, arrives first, and charges
  the least.
- **Harry's own conclusion**: his driver took the long way round *because* of the
  bonus. Paying for speed bought distance.

**That is the lesson, and it complicates the usual advice**: he agreed a price
before setting off, which is the rule, and then attached a bonus to an outcome
the driver controlled. See
[agree the price before it starts](/tips/agree-the-price-before-it-starts.md).
Mac paid least, arrived first, and had the honest driver — and Harry says
afterwards he would have paid that driver double.

Ali comes third and pays the bus fares.

## Breakfast first

A vegan place they walk to isn't open, so they end up somewhere serving smoothie
bowls, coffee and juice.

- **The fruit juice** he rates the best he has had in Sri Lanka: banana,
  pineapple, watermelon and papaya at least.
- **The smoothie bowl** — granola, banana, coconut, date, watermelon, pineapple,
  raspberry, sesame and pumpkin seeds — which he prefers to an açaí bowl for a
  specific reason: **it isn't frozen**, so you eat it rather than spoon at ice.
- **His reason for eating it at all**: travelling full time is unhealthy and there
  is rarely a gym, so a day that starts like this is worth having.

## The bridge

- **Finished in 1921**, so just past its hundredth birthday when he visits.
- **Built by a Ceylonese builder in consultation with British engineers** — per
  the description, P. K. Appuhami — and one of the best surviving examples of
  colonial-era railway building in the country.
- **The trains still run over it**, and they arrive in time for one.
- **A king coconut at the viewpoint: 150 rupees.** He refuses the straw, on
  environmental grounds, and calls Sri Lankan coconut the best he has tasted —
  with the usual note that there is far more liquid in one than it looks.
- **The photo spot is below and away from the crowd**, which is where he ends up.
- **There is a security officer stationed there.**

**And a self-correction he reports rather than argues with**: a commenter pointed
out that when he complains about how many tourists are somewhere, he is one of
them. He agrees.

## The musicians

The end of the video is a group of students on holiday playing and dancing on the
bridge, who the three of them join. Harry's framing is the one he keeps returning
to: the point of a famous tourist site turned out to be sitting on it with locals,
and that is the interaction he actually came for.

## Key moments

- `[01:36]` The Adam's Peak correction.
- `[02:37]` The best juice he has had in the country.
- `[04:14]` Why a smoothie bowl beats an açaí bowl.
- `[04:44]` The race is declared: last one pays the bus fares.
- `[05:18]` 1,200 quoted, 1,500 offered for speed.
- `[07:19]` Realising he is being taken the long way.
- `[10:43]` The result: the cheapest driver was also the fastest and the honest one.
- `[11:13]` 1921, and the Ceylonese builder with British engineers.
- `[12:15]` "You're a tourist too."
- `[13:48]` 150 rupees for a king coconut, and no straw.
- `[16:23]` The musicians.

## Extracted pages

- [Sri Lanka](/countries/sri-lanka.md)
- [Ella](/places/ella.md)
- [Nine Arch Bridge](/places/nine-arch-bridge.md)
- [Mac](/people/mac.md)
- [Ali](/people/ali.md)
- [Agree the price before it starts](/tips/agree-the-price-before-it-starts.md)