Now the island of Serendib lieth under the equinoctial line, its night and day both numbering twelve hours. It measureth eighty leagues long by a breadth of thirty and its width is bounded by a lofty mountain and a deep valley. The mountain is conspicuous from a distance of three days
and it contains many rubies and other minerals, and spice trees of all sorts. I ascended that
mountain and solaced myself with a view of its marvels which are indescribable and afterwards I returned to the King.
(Sixth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor, from The Thousand and One Arabian Nights)
What excites a traveler to take all the pains of travel? What makes him leave the comfort of his home and wander in the wild? What drives his excitement to take risks of his own life? Sometimes it is only a picture that he had seen somewhere and he than dreamt of reaching that place. Sometimes, the unfold history makes him travel thousands of miles and sometimes it is only the danger associated with the place that challenges his adventure soul to get on another journey that may be his last one as well.
My journey of Adam’s peak was inspired with one of its picture that I found while googling on the
web. The picture that I saw showed the pyramid shaped peak during sunrise with the complete trek glowing with bright yellow lights that seemed to be the torches. Another reason for my journey was the historical perspective of it as this is the only mountain which is considered sacred for almost all religious communities, as they consider the imprint on the rock of the summit as the footprint of their religious figures (Muslims believe it’s of Hazrat Adam; Buddhists believe it to be of Lord
Buddha; Hindus, Lord Shiva and so on). But the fact is that this place is being visited by people from ancient times. Nowadays, the peak season or the pilgrimage season is from December till April.
It was an unexpected trip arranged in no time and till the last moment I was not sure of climbing it that night. We left Colombo in the morning, lodged in Maskeliya; a small town near Hatton which is the base camp of Adam’s peak. The normal practice is to hike after midnight (around 2am), to reach the top at sunrise (timings throughout the year are between 6:15am to 6:45am). So we decided to follow the same. We left the hotel around 1:00 AM and reached the starting point in 10 minutes. There was a life out there as it was a full moon night being considered sacred among Buddhists, and also, the next day was the holiday.
We started hiking around 1:45am. The trek had started with relatively small steps passing through short cliffs facilitated with electricity throughout the trek. There were different food stalls, proper washrooms built after certain distances, shaded areas with benches so that people may rest on their ways to summit (people were even sleeping there as well); even rooms were available and a massage centre where you can get foot massage especially after a hectic hike; spring water pipelined so to get you refreshed; somewhere bathing areas were present as well.
It is taboo to talk about how long it takes to climb to the top. When pilgrims meet, they always exchange greetings "karunawai" - "peace". Some groups of pilgrims reduce the monotony of the climb by singing folk songs. Every pilgrim is expected to toll the huge bell at the summit - once for each time they visited. As the deep and solemn peals resonate, the pilgrims become ecstatic.
The trek that was relatively easy at the start, after an hour or so, becomes almost steep. You raise
your head and you will find unending series of stairs going straight into the heavens. Climbing up is not an easy task. It gets truly painful to climb nearly 4800 uneven and totally steep stairs. Our legs were still paining after 3 days.
As it was full moon night (that day being the Poya day), so there was more public. We had seen people with ages ranging from 1 month babies to 80 year olds; some climbed bare-footed just to please their lords. It was not that much cold although the summit is at the height of 7359 feet (2,243
meters). The beauty of the clouds with the moonlight was breath taking. At one point, I thought of walking over the clouds, the stunning sea of clouds was all around me and it was glowing with the moonlit.
The last portion of the trek is really leg and nerve-breaking. We saw people resting at every step. Even our own condition wasn’t good. We have been climbing for the last four hours and at one point, we thought that we could not make it before sunrise as we could see the brightness towards the east.
At last we reached there just before sunrise. There is a Buddhist temple at the summit that has the imprint and where all the Buddhist rituals are performed every morning. The summit was totally covered with the crowd but somehow we got the chance to watch the beautiful sunrise from the edge of the distant cliff. This was even more stunning that the sun was rising from the east, and the moon was setting in west, the half light n dark combination was superb.
One more unique thing about Adam’s peak is that its shadow is a perfect triangle when the sun rises and it remains in the air for sometime. This is something really amazing to watch as none of the mountain has such a perfect triangular shape. The sides of the triangle are well in-line, just like the walls of a prism. A number of people associate this thing with its sanctity.
Unfortunately, the imprint itself was covered with a cloth. So we just saw the depression from the cloth. But we got this opportunity to enter the small temple when their rituals were just started. The offerings were being made to Lord Buddha statue in the presence of a monk and a couple of other people and only we were allowed to get in, being privileged to be a foreigner. We didn’t stay there much as there was a long way down so we started walking again.
Descending was even trickier, we had to exert too much force against gravity. It seemed like our knees and ankles will cramp. In the middle, we had a kind of naans or paratha (whatever your assume it, Sri Lankans call it Paratha anyways) and tea.
Despite of all the hardships it was a great trip. Some lucky people in the world get the chance of sighting the wonderful views from the creation of our Lord Subhanahu wa Taa’ala, and we consider ourselves among those. It is advised to those who are visiting Sri Lanka to go to Adam’s Peak. It’s a once in a life time experience. Certainly!!!!
In the end, I would like to quote the words of Ibn-e-Batuta when he made a visit to this legendry mountain in 14th century.
"We saw it from the sea when we were nine day's journey away, & when we climbed it we saw the clouds below us, shutting out our view of base. On it there are many evergreen trees & flowers of various colours, including a red rose as big as the palm of a hand. There are two tracks on the mountain leading to the Foot, one called the Baba track & the other the Mama track, meaning Adam & Eve. The Mama track is easy & is the route by which the pilgrims return, but anyone who goes by that way is not considered to have made the pilgrimage at all. The Baba track is difficult & stiff climbing. Former generations cut a sort of stairway on the mountain, & are fixed iron stanchions on it, to which they attached chains for climbers to hold on by. There are ten such chains, & the tenth is the "Chain of the Profession of Faith", so called because when one reaches it & looks down to the foot of the hill, he is seized by apprehensions & recites the profession of faith for fear of falling. From the tenth chain to the cave of al-Khidr is seven miles; this cave lies in a spacious place, where there is a spring which is also called by his name; it is full of fish, but no one catches them. Close to this there are two tanks cut in the rock on either side of the path. At the cave of al-Khidr the pilgrims leave their belongings & ascend for two miles to the summit of the mountain where the Foot is. The blessed Footprint, the Foot of our father Adam is on a lofty black rock in a wide plateau. The blessed Foot sank into the rock far enough to leave its impression hollowed out. It is eleven spans long. In the rock where the Foot is. there are nine holes cut out, in which the infidel pilgrims place offerings of gold, rubies & pearls..."