Travel and Sri Lanka

A Walk Through a Tunnel Inside a Tunnel

What would be our destination at the end of these tunnels! Let’s go

Sanduni Samarakoon

Published in

World Traveler’s Blog

4 min readJan 1, 2021

It was a fine day in December 2019, before the Coronavirus pandemic hit our country. I had some free time to travel after my A/L exam in August 2019. On this day, I had plans with some of my friends to visit a beautiful waterfall.

It was a wondrous location that made it a thrilling adventure. This filled my memory book with an unforgettable experience. I’ll take you down my memory lane to that wonderful day.

First, we had to reach the Ihalakotte station in the upcountry railway line in Sri Lanka. We decided to travel by train as it was the easiest way and also to enjoy that feeling. We departed from the Kandy station at 10.40 am by the express train to Colombo Fort.

We were at Ihalakotte station at 11.43 am at the exact time, it is scheduled to be. We walked a small distance along the railway line in the same direction until we found the first tunnel. That’s a railway tunnel numbered 5A, which has a story behind it. I’ll share it with you in a few seconds. Till then, hold your horses. The best part is yet to come.

To find the second tunnel, we had to walk a little bit through the railway tunnel. It was pitch-black inside. Here we go! Roughly after about 1–2 minutes of walk through the 5A tunnel: we reached the second tunnel.

It was a cave tunnel on the left-hand side. Isn’t it amazing to find out a tunnel inside a tunnel? The duskiness of the cave tunnel wasn’t second to that of the railway tunnel. This cave tunnel took us to our destination, which was at the other end of it.

“Meeyan Ella”, our scenic destination!

Meeyan Ella is one of the highest waterfalls in Sri Lanka. It forms from the “Galaboda Oya”. The British rulers who were ruling our country at that time called this waterfall “Meen Galla” as it was hard for them to pronounce “Meeyan Ella”.

With the arose of the subject “British rulers”, I’ll tell you the story behind these tunnels and waterfall as I promised you before.

When constructing the upcountry railway line, British rulers, totally changed and re-created the natural “Meeyan Ella” waterfall. They built an indirect railway line at this place instead of constructing it through the Alagalla mountain.

In the rainy season, landslides happened due to the heavy water flow of the waterfall. This ended up by causing a deadly accident to one of the night mail trains at this location in 1897.

Photo by Author- Water flow was low on that day

So, the rulers decided to rebuild the railway line through the “Alagalla mountain” as a railway tunnel. They had to number this tunnel as 5A, which appears as a subcategory because they had already numbered the 6th tunnel.

Photo by Author- At the End of the Cave Tunnel

We had plans to get the train scheduled to arrive at the Ihalakotte station at 3.04 pm. It reaches the Kandy station at 4.04 pm. But, we missed it though we knew the train schedule and all before. We went chasing after the train as idiots, but it was in vain. LOL!

So we had to walk all the 5 km to take a bus to Mawanella town. From there we took a bus to Kandy. You can follow the same path if you wish to visit by a vehicle of yours. Come to Mawanellla town by the Kandy-Colombo road, and 5 km along the Rambukkana road to Ihalakotte station.

Kadugannawa rock tunnel, Dawson tower, Balumgala, Bathalegala, Devanagala, Alagalla, Uthuwankanda, and Saradiel village are few other places located near around this Ihalakotte station.

So you can visit all these places if you plan an upcountry holiday in Sri Lanka, and experience a thrilling hiking adventure as well. These are only a few places near Ihalakotte station. If you visit the upcountry in Sri Lanka, there are so many places to visit.

I have visited some of these places mentioned above, and also a few others. Let’s meet on another article, and I’ll share the excitement of another trip with the fascinating stories behind them.

STAY TUNED!