Ella is a small town situated high in the interior mountains of Sri Lanka. The elevation ranges between 3,000 and 5,000 feet. Because of this location the temperature ranges between 65 and 75 during the day and low 60s at night. There is a cool breeze that blows between the trees and the overall comfort level is quite high.
Our hotel in Ella is located on a working tea plantation called the Greenland Estate. The hotel is a collection of “huts” built into the side of a hill overlooking a beautiful and lush valley.
The follow-on post will show you the beauty of the Greenland Estate, this post is about the hotel – 98 Acres.
To get from the main collection of huts (with reception and dining) the hotel provides tuktuks or golf carts to shuttle you to/from your room.
The hotel is definitely not ADA compliant, however. Hah. Here is the staircase leading up to the dining room from reception. 141 stairs to be exact, no tuktuks to dining so if you’re hungry you’re going to work for it.
Because you’re perched high up on a hill over Ella it winds up just being easier to dine with them. Food quality was high.
The hotel also has a pool perched into the hill near reception nestled among the tea plants.
You can see in this photo just how far away our next closest neighbor was from us. It was extraordinarily peaceful.
Here is a picture of ours from our terrace.
Inside the room was spacious and comfortable.
Don’t let the mosquito netting scare you – because you’re so high up in the mountains mosquitos are quite rare. We didn’t need the netting and didn’t use it or the Deet wipes we brought with us just in case.
Here’s the room looking the other direction.
A very seductive room with a very seductice view from the terrace. This is what sunrise at 98 Acres looks like.
We had planned to just rest at this stop and enjoy the mountains and scenery and wildlife.
Here’s what I did all day.
And here’s what Jeff did all day.
Definitely recharged some batteries in Ella.
If you’re contemplating coming to Sri Lanka we highly recommend the Tea Train and a stay in Ella at 98 Acres. Even the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka agrees – she stayed at 98 Acres with us!
She and her enormous entourage delayed our departure by about 15 minutes as they clogged the road down off the mountain. Finally our Zelig moment!
