Nuwaragala the fortress on top of a rock in the deep forest of elephant country was once a dream, nevertheless just like many other dreams this one also came true. After getting guidance from Priyanjan who had been there last year, I got together with my friend Dumidu and decided to give it a try. Though it was raining elsewhere and drizzling on and off at Maha oya we went ahead with our plans.

It was a period of mixed weather and I had been away from temples and Archeology sites for a while so decided to have a small tour around Padiyathalawa and Maha oya region on a weekend. Visiting archeology sites and temples is not an easy task since there are many issues lately that cause significant problems and it’s essential to win the trust of the head priests these days otherwise you would be labeled as a “Nidan hora” and be arrested by the 119 squad. Despite all the barriers I decided continue on my quest so on a Saturday I headed towards Padiyathalawa and took a bus towards Wahawa to start things off.

Some friends came to our home to spend a holiday with us. As they hadn’t gone in a local train we decided to do a short train trip. The easiest trip to do was to take the morning train to Pattipola and to catch a train back home.

I Picked Sri from Embuldeniya sharp at 5.00 am. and came to Godagama junction around 5.30 hoping my friend prince would come there by that time. And he came there at his royal time 6.30 and we moved along high level road and reached Meepe .From there we turned right at clock tower and reached Bope junction after few minutes

Horton Plains is one of my favorite places in Srilanka. So I spoke with some of my friends to go on a trip there and Pasindu, who has prior experience in camping, was the first to jump in and suggest the idea of camping at HP. I put in that we walk the whole journey from Pattipola to HP and back. We gathered all information from “Lakdasun” and www.travelogueslanka.com

We started our journey around at 6.00 in the morning with the fear of torrential rain spoiling the weekend. It took around 1 & 1/2 hours to reach Dodangoda exit from Ja-ela. Mathugama to Agalawaththa, road condition was superb and I was so happy to be the driver….But from Agalawaththa-Baduraliya road was under constructions and was in bad shape. Again the road conditions were ok from Lathpadura to resort. It took close to 1hr to reach kukuleganga from Highway.

The people who’ve been on either along the road or by train must have seen a gorgeous girlie from Kadugannawa towards Aranayake. She’s so unique and iconic; you simply can’t have missed seeing her. I’ve seen many people including myself, craning their necks out of the windows to get a better look at her.

Pollonnaruwa is rich of archeological sites. There are rare places than our popular visits. I got to know about some of these places by a book and it made my visit at these sites. I did this travelling intermittently when I found a free time as well as a friend(s) to travel with me. Therefore I can’t say exact number of days need to cover all these places.

Kataragama CTB bus left Pettah sharp at 12.00 mid night, keeping our hopes alive to be at the entrance as early as possible. It was bit of a burden to reserve the seats in the bus, however it helped us to have a comfortable journey. A sleepless night for me as I had the duty of picking up some guys on the way. We got down at Tissa by 6.30 next morning & the jeep was there with just a couple of minutes delay. After buying the breakfast from a nearby bakery, we managed to reach Palatupana entrance by 7.15 on Saturday morning.

Thangamale forest is a place where I go to very often specially because it is a nice walk and a calm & quiet place. Going there also gives me a chance to travel by train

It was another random weekend coming up and I needed to go somewhere as usual and suddenly out of nowhere the name Thoppigala popped out from one of those deep nerve plexus and incidentally the coming Sunday was 19th May which was the date where the president declared the end of the civil war 4 years back (that is 2009/05/19). It was the ideal occasion to hoist a flag on top of the famous Baron’s cap which was the last stronghold of the rebels in the East. More information on Thoppigala war will be brought up later in this report.

This was one of my dreams and even though I have been to Yala many more times I couldn’t achieve this until this time. This time we planned it well ahead and booked the bungalows for accommodation and got 2 jeeps arranged through our usual safari driver Ruwan Malli (one of Sugathe’s drivers).