---
type: Video
title: "Best Train Ride in the World (Only $5)🇱🇰"
description: The same hill line in first class this time — $5, air conditioning, reserved seats, a film playing, and windows that don't open, which is the one thing that matters on the most scenic railway he has ridden.
tags: [sri-lanka, nuwara-eliya, ella, trains, first-class, tea, prices]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T15:00:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_b8ggPhVvA
video_id: T_b8ggPhVvA
upload_date: 2022-02-26
duration: 1092
---

# Best Train Ride in the World (Only $5)🇱🇰

[Nuwara Eliya](/places/nuwara-eliya.md) to [Ella](/places/ella.md), about four
hours, deliberately in **first class** so the series has both ends of the
comparison — he did third three days earlier. The stretch is the one routinely
called the most scenic rail journey in the world, and Harry, who says trains are
his favourite way to travel, agrees with it.

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

## First class versus third

- **$5 a head in first**, against about $1 in third.
- **What you get**: air conditioning, reserved seats, a great deal of space, tray
  tables, footrests, headphone sockets with a film playing, luggage racks and a
  lavatory. He compares it to being on an aeroplane. The carriage is nearly empty
  while second class is packed.
- **What you lose, and it is the whole thing: the windows don't open.** He flags
  it within seconds of sitting down. The reason to be on this line is to be able
  to lean out of it.

He spends most of the journey in the doorway anyway, which is where the video
lives — and where a sign reads that travelling on the footboard is unsafe. His
verdict, and the third-class rider's, is on
[take the cheapest class](/tips/take-the-cheapest-class.md).

**His price comparison, for scale**: $5 for four hours here, against £30–40 for
the two-to-three-hour trip he used to make between Birmingham and university.

## The journey

- **Tea plantations for most of it**, then a change of crops and palm trees as the
  line drops south.
- **Branches come into the doorway** hard enough that leaning out means watching
  ahead and pulling in.
- **Cloud, then clear weather** — the first good weather of the hill section.
- **He eats food bought on the train**, against his own standing rule about it,
  and says on camera that he is doing it for the video. A vegetable snack, not
  spicy, and he is fine.
- **He repeats the railway history** he gave a few days earlier: built by European
  settlers in the early 19th century for a Colombo–Kandy freight route *(from
  video – unverified)*. His added observation is that a goods line has become a
  thing people fly in to hang out of.

## Arriving in Ella

The tone changes at the platform. He calls it tourist city, very Western, very
much a vibe, and immediately says there is no way they are only staying two days.

- **A tuk-tuk from the station: 300 rupees, about $2.**
- **Nothing is booked**, again — and there are now three of them, which he points
  out at least splits the cost further.
- **He flags a mountain climb ahead**, calling it Adam's Peak, along with
  waterfalls and a bridge. Which climb he actually means is not settled in this
  video.

He has already had a look at the hotel and refuses to show it, saving it for the
next video.

## Key moments

- `[01:34]` First class this time, and why: to show both.
- `[04:17]` The windows don't open.
- `[06:21]` Out of the doorway, over the tea.
- `[07:53]` The sign: travelling on the footboard is unsafe.
- `[08:25]` $5 a head, and the comparison with a British commute.
- `[09:06]` The railway history, restated.
- `[10:09]` Breaking his own rule about eating train food.
- `[11:59]` The other two on how it compares with third class.
- `[13:33]` No accommodation booked, arriving in half an hour.
- `[16:20]` 300 rupees to the hotel.

## Extracted pages

- [Sri Lanka](/countries/sri-lanka.md)
- [Nuwara Eliya](/places/nuwara-eliya.md)
- [Ella](/places/ella.md)
- [Mac](/people/mac.md)
- [Take the cheapest class](/tips/take-the-cheapest-class.md)