The Maligatenna temple, Varana, and the Gal Vihara at Attanagalla were three historic places of Buddhist interest that we visited not long ago.

Not far from Colombo, about two miles from the Tihariya junction turning to the right, we came to Maligatenna rock cave temple, our first destination. We could see a small dagaba, right on top of a high mountain, shining white amidst the green foliage, set against a clear blue sky.

The Temple buildings were beautifully placed at different levels on a rock cliff. We walked up the slight incline to reach the old shrine room. We passed an ancient rock inscription and the Bo tree.

The paintings on its outside walls and the makara thorana in this little building is notable. Inside was a huge seated Buddha statue possibly of later origin. The origin of this Viharaya is believed to date back to the Polonnaruwa period. The Viharaya is said to have gained prominence during the days of Raigam Bandara.

Association of Accounting Technicians of Sri Lanka (AAT Sri Lanka) while being engaged in taking accounting education to grass root levels of the country, experienced a pleasant surprise in extending its humane hands to a worthy cause under the auspices of its first CSR project on the theme “AAT Samaja Mehewara (Social Mission)” through the intervention of social media. It happened as a result of responses by a Facebook group in reply to a suggestion published by the AAT Sri Lanka official Facebook page offering support to rural schools.

There are many mountains situated around the Kurunegala – Dambulla main road and I’m still unable to climb most of them due to the lack of free time and availability. However, I had to visit one of my office friend’s function and I wanted to go there on my motorbike. Since I had enough time to explore the beauties around the road I used that time to explore some mountains over the route and I visited those areas to grab details for future hikes with my friends.

මේ වන විට මුහුණුපොත තුළ ප්‍රබල වශයෙන් ජනප්‍රිය ස්ථානයක් බවට පත්ව ඇති සංචාරක ඉසව්වක් වන බලංගොඩ හුණුගල් පොකුණු පද්ධතිය සොයා පසුගිය දිනක අප ගොඩවැදුණේ හුණුගල් සහ හිරිලඹ පිළිබඳ එම ප්‍රදේශයෙන් තවත් විස්තර සොයාගනු පිණිසය. තවද පාරිසරික වැදගත්කමින් යුතු මෙවැනි ඉසව් නිසි වැඩපිළිවෙළක් යටතේ උචිත ලෙස සමාජගතවීමේ අවශ්‍යතාව වගේම මෙවැනි සුන්දර ඉසව් සංචාරක සන්ධිස්ථාන වශයෙන් නියාමනයන් තුළ පවත්වාගෙන යාමේ වැදගත්කම පිළිබඳවද අපි වැඩිදුරටත් සොයා බැලුවෙමු. 

Manelwatta Temple is a Buddist Temple constructed in Gampaha District, very close to ancient Kelaniya Viharaya. Temple is situated in a 16ha land with a calm and quiet environment amidst it’s close proximity to Colombo. Since most patronages to the Temple being from East Asian countries it looks like a Mahayana Temple from an East Asian Country. This location is very famous for photoshoots due to its iconic architecture. The environment maintained with its lakes and well-kept lawns is very refreshing and is an ideal location to relax in Colombo. I and my wife went to this temple in 2013 to see the nature and the environment over there.

We had a relaxing drive to the southern province as we received an invitation from our friend to visit his village as well as we need to have a drive to Matara via the Southern Expressway. Since my other members didn’t see Andahelena Fall I marked it at the first thing on our trip. I visited Andahelena Falls in May, 2013 while on a Funeral of an office mate’s cousin. However, we were able to visit Madol Duwa, Martin Wickremasinghe House, and the Museum and finally stopped at Dondra Light House which is closed to that friend’s home.

I have visited Anuradhapura sacred sites for about 5 times before and this was my last visit which is done in 2018 with friends. Captured some beautiful sceneries and this was a day trip as we visited another important place for our team.

We had a train journey to Nuwaraeliya for meet a special person of our member. Since Madusanka is there, we thought to visit Ravan Fall which couldn’t see on our previous journey. So, we took Madusanka’s car and driven to Perawela to see the Bomburu Bride as we cannot pass her without visiting and after that we went to Ravan fall and spend sometime over there.

After that we went to Hakgala botanical garden we I have been there for the last time on 2002. Since we had enough time to roaming around Nuwaraeliya we walked along the paths and had a silent exploration about a path to climb Hakgala Mountain. Because Hakgala is a high sensitive forest reserve and as we heard on one can climb this giant mountain due to this restrictions. However we couldn’t find any secret path or even any clue about climbing this mountain but we were able to achieve this mountain range in October 2018 successfully. But at that time I and Malith are only able to do this secret hike and still we didn’t published any details about that hike as we are not able to disclose the methods we followed.

Mount Lavinia Beach in Sri Lanka is a main sea-bathing spot in the island. Here, depending on season, the waves can be swimmable and it’s host to some amazing sunsets. It also recides in a city steeped with history.

The city’s name is built up around the original residence of Sir Thomas Maitland who was the Governor General of Ceylon from 1805-1811. At a welcoming party held in his honor on his arrival in the island he set his eyes upon Lovina, a local mestizo dancer, whose father was the Headman of the troupe. It is said that Sir Thomas was smitten by her beautiful smile and charms and soon found himself obsessed by her and took every measure possible to see her more.

Galle Fort (Sinhala: ගාලු කොටුව Galu Kotuwa; Tamil: காலிக் கோட்டை, romanized: Kālik Kōṭṭai), in the Bay of Galle on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka, was built first in 1588 by the Portuguese, then extensively fortified by the Dutch during the 17th century from 1649 onwards. It is a historical, archaeological and architectural heritage monument, which even after more than 432 years maintains a polished appearance, due to extensive reconstruction work done by Archaeological Department of Sri Lanka.

පවුලක පැතුම් හිස බර දරාගෙන කරුණෙ අයියා වන බුටැවන් මැද්දෙන් කළුවරේම කන්ද බඩගාන්නේ තනිපංගලමේය. කුඩා කල සිටම තමන්ගේ පයට ගෙවුණු රළු ගල් බොරළු පාර කරුණෙ ඔහුට හොඳට හුරුය. කරුණෙ අයියා පමණක් නොව, කොහොනාවල නම් හුදෙකලා ගම්මානයේ වෙසෙන බොහෝ ගැමියන් තමතමන්ගේ කුඩා ගෙවත්තේ ඵලදාව එක්කරගනිමින් දෛනිකව මඩො හෝ කැලෑ කොළ මිටියක් රැගෙන කඳුකර මාවතේ කිලෝමීටර දොළහක දුර පාගමනින් යන මේ වැසියෝ එදා දවසේ ජීවිතය සැලසුම් කරන්නේ තම තමාට එදිනෙදා ලැබෙන මුදල මතය.කෘෂි කර්මාන්තය ප්‍රධාන ජීවන වෘත්තිය කොටගත් කොහොනාවල ගම්මානය පිහිටා ඇත්තේ බදුල්ල දිස්ත්‍රික්කයේ මඩොල්සිම නගරයට කිලෝමීටර දොළහක දුරිනි. ප්‍රධාන නගරයේ සිට මඩොල්සිම තේ වතුයාය හරහා වැටී ඇති දුෂ්කර පටු දිගු කඳුකර මාවතෙහි පා ගමනින් පමණක් ළඟාවිය හැකි මෙම ගම්මානය අතිශය සුන්දර ස්වයංපෝෂිත දිවියක් ගතකරන ගැමියන්ගෙන් සැදුම්ලත් එකකි. අයස්කාන්ත කඳු වලල්ලකින් වටවූ මේ හුදෙකලා ගම්මානය ගැන දන්නෝ අතළොස්සකි.උදාහරණයක් කිවහොත් බදුල්ල ප්‍රදේශයේ ජීවත්වන පුද්ගලයන් පවා මේ හුදෙකලා කුඩා ගම්මානය ගැන දන්නේ නැත.