This year was the best period for me to do the well-known “Paada Yathra” because I currently reside in Moneragala. Actually even before I thought of walking with the pilgrims this year my friends did ask me to join them and the answer was YES SURE (with a big smile). This was something I wanted to do for some time but free time was the major problem. Thanks to the long discussions in lakdasun and talking hours with people who had experienced this walk first hand, we were ready to walk the distance with the pilgrims and experience something that is worth a million.

This was my first naked eye view of the Kandy perahara. Despite many recommended that watching it in TV is better, I still though to just experience it. According, with the help of a friend in Kandy came to town at about 6.35 and parahara was scheduled to start by 6.50. By the time we arrived the city, all the streets were completely filled with people.

We started around 5.00 am on old new year day and arrived at Dambadeniya around 7.00 am. Our plan was to visit Dambadeniya Raja Maha Viharaya and the kingdom. But it was raining heavily and we gave up the idea andproceeded further and came to Panduwasnuwara around 8.30 am.

I’m crazy about N’Eliya and it’s a habit of mine to go there every year (from 2000). However, I couldn’t arrange anything coz all my friends were tied up with something or the other. By 26 December, I was feeling miserable and my legs were itching for some exercise. So I made up my mind to go on my own. I was initially planning to leave early morning, just walk around the town, park and Gregory Lake and come back in the evening.

I have been living around Moneragala for few months and it seems I’m surrounded by heritage and nature. There is a place called Mayuragiri Raja Maha viharaya 2Km’s close to my quarters which I thought I have visited in 2009 but after seen NG’s post I understood that I have visited the Mayuragiri hermitage but not the temple. So on a peaceful day I decided to walk towards this temple.

As usual, this was another all-of-a-sudden-I-wanted-to-go trip. For some reason or the other, beginning of March, out of nowhere, I felt that I must go to Adam’s peak as soon as possible. I still have no idea how that notion came upon me but I was pretty much obsessed with it.

We had to leave the boat there and walk about 1km up to the Entrance of the Hill which holds the temple and the famous cave complex. The surrounding area was so picturesque and very remote even though it belongs to the Western Province. We reached the entrance to the mountain around 12.30 and immediately began our ascend.

Our first stop for the day was at the “Nilavara – Bottomless Well”. It is a big opening on ground filled with clean water. It is said that the depth of this well is unknown. There had been 2 formal attempts to find out its depth; one by a team from the Jaffna University and the other by a team from an US University, but both teams could not find the bottom of it.

After Yapahuwa trip I was so agitated to go see Dambadeniya too. Even though I’d been there before maybe 15 years ago, I still wanted to go and take some pics and see the place again. So I hastily arranged to go there even though the www.accuweather.com (you can trust this website to give a fairly accurate report, I always use this) website forecast was slightly rainy.

I had a dream to experience the oldest successful human-carrying flight from a very long time. In 2007 I inquired from one of the few providers in Sri Lanka in order to achieve this. At that time per person cost was 15,000/= which was not affordable and thought it is not worthwhile spending that much for a one hour ride. So, I gave up the idea. However in 2011 August there was an offer in a website which is famous for daily offers, for per person cost of 7200/= (60% off from their usual price).

I’d always wanted to go see Yapahuwa as it is a very historical place and that famous Lion’s statue made me want to go there even more. So I hastily arranged the plans to visit Yapahuwa and on 07 May, my friend and I left Fort Station by 6.10 am train which goes to Batticaloa. (You can also take 5.45 pm train to Omanthai)

We were lucky to catch the bus leaving for Kalawana at 5.45 am and reached there by 7.45 and unfortunately the Sinharaja-Kudawa bus has already left and had to wait till 8.30 for the next one. When we went to one of the shops for some provisions he said it would rain the whole week and it made me wanna come back immediately.