Kandy is considered as one of the main and historically important cities in Sri Lanka. In 1371 King Wickramabahu established his kingdom and named this city as `Senkadagala’ in remembrance of the Brahmin called Senkanda’ who lived in a rock cave in Udawattekele forest. Thereafter all the kings who ruled took appropriate measures to conserve `Udawatte-kele: forest and regarded it as a part of the Royal Palace.

I had never heard about this place until I visit Werapola kanda which is situated in between Wariyapola & Kurunegala. On the way towards Nathagane Mountain in August 2016, Ashan & I saw Werapola Mountain, then paid attention to that as a warm up hike & when on the top of Werapola we noticed a small peak with a pagoda on the top of it in Wariyapola side, from then both of us keen to know about this small peak.

It was December holidays again we decided to have a family trip and we opted to cover part of the East this time. On a Friday I made some calls to two friends at Ampara and Trinco and got 2 hotels booked. This was intended to be a road trip with time to rest in between.

Somawathiya temple (Somawathi Chethiya) is one of the popular places among Buddhist devotees. The right sacred tooth relic of Lord Buddha was kept at Somawathi stupa. It is said there are seven acessory stupa around Somawathi temple. This is our attempt to visit one of them.

Gongala (1357m) is the highest peak of Sabaragamuwa Hills. Gongala is a range and it’s appearance of an ox gives the name Gongala. But the highest point of Gongala range is not Gongala, another point of Gongala. Sabaragamuwa hills are also known as Rakwana hills/ massif

Sri Lankan rail tracks run in different environmental locations of the country where you can have different experiences with rail walk. Rail hike along central part gives maximum beauty of the country and costal rail walk is totally different from it. We thought of doing a rail walk in dry zone mainly rail tracks runs through forests.

Kalpitiya is major tourist attraction where you can enjoy the beach life a lot. This is our experience on camping at Kudawa beach and beach walk to sacred church-St.Annes church at Thalawila.

During the dry month of August I wanted to explore Nathagane complex which was always tempting me while I was passing by Kurunegala.

Sidupiyanila is a catholic seminary where they train students who are at their final stage of being a priest. This place was the home for our first trip as well as for 4 another trips.

As per my experience, Devil’s Staircase road is the most hardest, dangerous and beautiful road in Sri Lanka. I knew about this on 2012 and I was lucky to visit there at the beginning of 2013.

Mutukelina Wewa (lake) is situated in Pathahewaheta, Kandy (near Bellwood). It is really an amazing place. It is situated about 17km away (up to the hills) from Kandy city.

December 11, 12 and 13th were the days and it was a long weekend which was not to be wasted. Our decision was to go on camping in Udawalawe or in Wilpaththu but ultimately a decision was taken to go for Udawalawe.