The cab trap most Indian visitors walk straight into
The moment an Indian traveller clears Colombo's Bandaranaike airport, a driver is waiting with a sign and a price. It feels efficient. It feels safe. And it costs, on average, four to five times what the same journey costs by train or bus. The cab gets you there. It just gets you there sealed off from everything the hill country actually is.The Kandy-to-Ella train line, running through Nuwara Eliya, Haputale, and the tea estates of the central highlands, is consistently listed among the world's great rail journeys. The stretch from Kandy to Ella takes roughly six to seven hours. A cab covers it in about four. That two-hour difference is the entire argument most travellers use to justify spending an extra three to four thousand rupees. What they lose in exchange: open windows, tea pickers moving through green rows at arm's length, waterfalls that appear and vanish before you can photograph them, and the specific cold that hits the compartment when the train climbs above 1,500 metres.
