The Kandy to Ella train, honestly

A photograph of someone hanging out of a blue carriage above a tea terrace has probably sold more Sri Lankan holidays than any marketing campaign ever run. The journey deserves the attention. It also involves several hours on a hard seat, and a number of decisions that determine whether you spend them looking at the highlands or at somebody's rucksack.

What the journey actually is

The line was built by the British to move tea down from the highlands to the port at Colombo, and it climbs to over eighteen hundred metres at Pattipola — the highest broad-gauge station in the country. It was engineering of a fairly heroic kind, and almost none of the alignment has changed since.

The full run from Kandy to Ella takes six to seven hours. The section people photograph — the tea terraces, the viaducts, the cloud — is largely the last three, from Nanu Oya onward. Before that you spend a couple of hours climbing through forest and small towns, which is pleasant rather than spectacular.

Seats, classes and the booking problem

There are three classes and they are not simply better and worse versions of each other. First class observation saloon is at the rear with large windows, air conditioning on some services, and — importantly — windows that do not open. Second class reserved has open windows and ceiling fans, and is where most people are happiest. Third class unreserved is a scrum, and also where the atmosphere is.

• •Reserved seats go on sale thirty days before departure and the good services sell out within hours in high season.
• •Sit on the right-hand side travelling from Kandy towards Ella for the better views on the majority of the run.
• •Unreserved third class means standing for several hours in peak months. It is done cheerfully by a lot of people, but do not plan it with luggage.
• •Your vehicle and driver can carry the bags round by road and meet you at the far end, which removes the single biggest practical problem.

About hanging out of the door

The photograph everyone wants involves leaning out of an open doorway while the train is moving. It is not forbidden, the doors genuinely do stay open, and Sri Lankan passengers ride that way routinely. It is also how people are seriously injured on this line most years, usually by a bridge parapet, a tunnel mouth or a signal post that arrives without warning at head height.

We are not going to tell you not to stand in the doorway. We will say that holding on with both hands, keeping your body inside the door frame, and knowing that tunnels come without warning covers most of the actual risk. Ask your guide which stretches have tight clearances.

Nine Arch Bridge, and the crowd problem

The viaduct at Demodara — built in stone and brick during a wartime steel shortage — is twenty minutes on foot from Ella and is the other photograph everyone has seen. By nine in the morning there can be a hundred people on and around it, queueing to be photographed on the track.

Go for the first train of the day. It is quiet, the light comes down the valley rather than flat overhead, and you will have the structure more or less to yourself. This is the same advice as for Sigiriya, Yala and Little Adam's Peak, and it is the single most useful habit a visitor to Sri Lanka can adopt.

So is it worth it?

Yes, with a caveat. If you are expecting a serene private carriage gliding through empty tea gardens, you will be surprised by how many people are having exactly the same idea. If you are prepared for a busy, noisy, sociable train with extraordinary scenery outside it, it is one of the best things you will do in Sri Lanka.

The alternative is worth stating: the same route by road takes about half the time, and the tea estates are just as beautiful from a car you can stop whenever you like. On a short itinerary, or with anyone who does not enjoy trains, that is not a compromise — it is the better option.