Video
We didn't expect an English Town in Sri Lanka! 🇱🇰 Nuwara Eliya
· 27 min · Watch on YouTube
We didn’t expect an English Town in Sri Lanka! 🇱🇰 Nuwara Eliya
Picking up exactly where the train video left off: Harry and Mac are at the wrong station, in the middle of potato and tea terraces, and have to buy their way back to Nuwara Eliya.
He opens the video standing on a live railway line, which he checks first — the station staff tell him it is fine and that the next train is ninety minutes away.
Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles.
The cost of the missed stop
3,500 rupees for the tuk-tuk — about $17 or $18, which he calls an expensive mistake and then immediately stops complaining about, because the drive is through the plantations.
He also runs into the language switch: this is Tamil-speaking country, and the Sinhala greetings he has spent a week learning don’t land. He lists the sequence he has been through — Arabic, Urdu, Spanish, Sinhala, now Tamil — and says he’s struggling with English.
Little England
The town’s whole reputation, and per the description it is colonial in origin: the coolest place in Ceylon, so the British made it their hill retreat, and the names stuck.
What he actually finds:
- A tea plantation with “Edinburgh” on a sign across the middle of it.
- Devon Cottage, a Windsor Hotel, and a pub.
- Bank of Ceylon, which prompts the note that Ceylon is what the country used to be called.
- The Lion Centennial clock tower, which he reads off the plaque as officially opened in 2007.
- Architecture he calls a cousin of British rather than a copy, and his more interesting line: this is how Sri Lankans think England looks, and it isn’t quite what England looks like.
The weather does most of the work. It is around 15–20°C — cold enough that he mentions it repeatedly after a week in the lowlands — heavily overcast, with cloud rolling over the hills. His own observation is that in England he would call this terrible weather and here it looks atmospheric.
Where they stay
A guest house rather than a hotel, booked on the way in through a booking site, and chosen mainly for its wi-fi rating — the same problem as the previous video. It is far larger than two people need: kitchen, washing machine, dining room, several unused bedrooms, and a balcony over the valley. His reasoning is that a guest house gives more space and a kitchen than a hotel room does. See book for the wi-fi when you work on the road.
Nothing was booked until they were in the tuk-tuk.
Eating, and the tourist premium
Lunch at a coffee shop and restaurant in the Western-facing part of town: chicken noodles, mixed noodles, egg fried rice to share and three iced lattes, for 3,850 rupees — just under $20, about $10 a head. He flags it plainly as more expensive than Sri Lanka has been and explains why: touristy area, Western food. The egg fried rice he calls plain; the noodles he rates.
He also tips the chilli flakes in without checking the heat first, on the strength of a week’s practice, and needs the water.
The temple
His first temple visit of the trip — he never got into the ones in Kandy. Small, with a large Buddha above it and smaller painted figures below, a tree growing in the middle of the courtyard, incense, offerings, and people praying. He takes his shoes off, keeps his distance and says why: he doesn’t want to get in the way of what people are actually doing.
The market
A bazaar in the town centre, in the cold: jackets, clothes, shoes, food. Counterfeits again — a branded golf cap at 650 rupees — and socks asked at 350, which he gets to 300. There is also a haberdashery selling nothing but zips, buttons, fabric and tailoring supplies, which he films purely because of how completely it commits to one idea.
He notes that a lot of tourists got off the train with them and that he then sees almost none of them in town.
Key moments
[00:00]Standing on a live railway line, with permission.[02:00]Sinhala doesn’t work here — this is Tamil country.[03:01]3,500 rupees to get back to town.[03:31]“Edinburgh”, on a tea plantation.[05:37]The guest house, and why it was booked.[08:11]Nothing booked until an hour beforehand.[15:22]3,850 rupees for lunch, and why it costs more here.[16:27]15–20°C, and the clouds coming over the hills.[17:28]His first temple of the trip.[19:32]“This is how Sri Lankans think England looks.”[20:05]The clock tower, and the Bank of Ceylon.[21:07]A local’s account of when the weather here is bad: April, May, June.[23:11]Socks, 350 down to 300.