My objective of this journey was to visit at important historical places in Ibbagamuwa-Madagalla(මඩගල්ල) road. (B62 ) As usual I started the journey in the early morning. We came to Ibbagamuwa around 7.00am and got a bus towards Madagalla. Our first place was Arankale (අරන්කැලේ) ruins and got down in front of Archeology board. From there it was about 3km towards Arankale. Therefore we got a three-wheeler to travel.

Hence beginning of January we thought to travel to Polgahawela and Dedigama for a one day trip to visit few ancient temples and sites.
Starting at about 9.30am on the 7th of January 2013 we drove via Kandy road and turned off at Ambepussa to the Kurunegala Road up to Alawwa. At Walakumbura near the now famous train crossing with accidents you find the turn off road to Waduwawa.

My No 1 is Sacred Sri Pada (done 5 times so far) other is Knuckles Range (2 times so far) and I’ve made my mind to visit these places at least twice a year. When I visited Knuckles(Meemure) last September I felt like giant mountains telling me “Hey Young man Come and see us again “

General attractions of Jaffna Penninsula are already covered adequately by forum members. So I don’t intend to repeat the same things other than exceptions. In fact, I was invited to join the trip as all others, except my wife, were first timers and in need of a guide. We started from Maharagama around 8.30 pm on the first day and reached Jaffna by 6.00 am on the second day. After checking in to our Rest, we immediately proceeded to Nagadeepa to avoid the expected mad rush.

I was waiting to do this trip for a long time and fixed 1st September with my friend although we new meemure was quite dry at that time. Thanks for Lakdasun and Nadegura for your nice trip reports.Those were very useuful. Although Public transport was available we decided to go on my bike as we get the chance to stop where we want and see the beauty of surrounding. We left Colombo ( Battaramulla ) at 5.30 a.m. reached Kandy around 8.30. On the way stopped at kadugannawa for breakfast.

On a peaceful day I arrived at Ampara and took the Maha Oya road towards Piyangala junction and got down near the temple. There were a fleet of steps which took me towards a well-built “Kutiya” with an inscription. At that time there were about 100 visitors howling around forgetting that this was a monastery where monks meditated.

Raigama, according to some historians, was the seventh capital of ancient Lanka, after Anuradhapura (4th century BC – 10th century AD), Polonnaruwa (10th century – mid-13th century), Dambadeniya (1232–72), Yapahuwa (1272–93), Kurunegala (1293–1341) and Gampola (1341–47). It is said to have been the capital for 68 years, until Parakramabahu VI moved to the comforts of Sri Jayawardenepura-Kotte in 1415 (Wikipedia.)

“It was the rainy season after the Buddha preached his first discourse to the five ascetics of Isipatana and due to the rains his preaching tours were cut down and he followed the ancient practice to spend the rainy season “Vas” in one place of residence carrying out his work on the Dhamma.

Jaffna was a place from my childhood – a place that had happy memories of unrestricted travel within the peninsula and meeting loads of friendly people. Language was never a barrier as my limited Tamil with lots of gestures managed to get what I wanted! But that was in early 1970s.

Once reaching Anuradhapura town by road and travel up to Jaffna junction_( Yapane Handiya) its KM199 from that point to Jaffna. At Ranbewa it’s connected to the A9 road extending from Kandy to Jaffna. The road came to prominence during the war
Once reaching Vavuniya the gate way pictured below is the entrance to the North the predominantly Tamil area.

There are days when you plan to go somewhere and end up been at another place, this was one of those days. My main objective was to find Vila Oya Budupatuna but ended up visiting few other places I never intended to do so. My journey starting point was Monaragala, so early morning I took the first bus towards Kotiyagala and got down at 5th milepost junction to inquire about Vila oya budupatuna but unfortunately no one had ever heard about the place, so I had to call my friend Theshantha to get some help because he knows the region better than me

I saw this ad on Anything.lk about 60% reduction (7200/- only from the Actual fee of 18,000/-) on Hot Air Ballooning in Kandalama and as always the adventurous soul in me willingly agreed to explore