The Most BEAUTIFUL place in Sri Lanka 🇱🇰

The last day in Ella, and Ali’s birthday. Three of them race to the Nine Arch Bridge 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. 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
• Ella
• Nine Arch Bridge
• Mac
• Ali
• Agree the price before it starts