Just after passing Kurunegala we turned left to reach Arankele Monastery. The road was not that smooth, but it was ok. There were places where the road was quite damaged due to heavy rains on the previous night. If not for a van or off-road vehicle, it would have been impossible to tackle those obstacles.

We started after dinner, from Maharagama around 10.00 pm and reached Udawalawa Dam by 2.00 am. The barrier was closed. However after checking our credentials, they allowed us to pass through with a warning about the bad road condition. Closing the Dam at 10.00 pm seems to be a formality now.The road condition from Udawalawa to Thanamalwila was really bad. It was under construction and it took nearly 2 hours to pass that stretch. Our 5th member was to join us at Okkampitiya. We reached Buttala by early morning and reached his home for breakfast.

The north-east monsoon was being highly uncooperative. With no consideration whatsoever of our holiday plans, it started battering our planned destinations – the ancient capitals of the North Central – with unusual volumes of rain, forcing us to cancel and rethink our family trip. Hoping for better weather and determined to go somewhere before the holidays ended, we decided to head down south. These are highlights of our three-day trip to yet another fascinating part of beautiful Sri Lanka.

We planned this trip to visited Victoria, Randenigala, Loggal Oya and Sorabora Wewa dams, Mahiyanganaya, Nagadeepa, Muthiyangana, Bogoda and Buduruwagala temples, and Dunhinda, Rawana Ella, Diyaluma, Bambarakanda and Kirindi Ella waterfalls. We started form Kandana at about 4.30 in the morning. The crew was three in a car. I was driving the car. We took about 25lts of water with all other belongings

School holidays! Its trip time once again. We were getting back home to Bandarawela from Colombo….. a trip that we had done many, many, many times before. But, this time my father and mother suggested that we visit all the interesting places along the route so that I could write a Trip Report on the journey

We started our journey at about 5.30 A.M on 3 rd December from Colombo. Our crew consists of 10. (6 adults of between 45-55 and 4 children between 14-23.) Our first stop was at Kuruwita for our breakfast. After the breakfast we drove through Rathnapura, palmadulla and turned right to A 18 road and again turned off At Madampe and went through Rakwana, Sooriyakanda and Kolonna to see the Maduwanwela walawwa. During these days they have been commencing the restoration work of the old building.

A set of monks at Mahamewnawa monastery (Welimada & Buttala) had decided to visit Sripada peak in off-season so as to get worshiped the noble left foot print of Lord Buddha freely, because during the functional season this noble place is busy with thousands of pilgrims from all over the world.
This idea was spread over 16 of us with in one day.

But then, I got unexpectedly lucky! We went to visit friends in the Hemmathagama area with the intention of climbing Rahalgala. It poured with rain and that plan was washed away. In the idle time, our friend’s mother gave us a book she (Kamala Somaweera) had just published – මාලගිරා සංදේශය (Malagira Sandeshaya), thankfully written in 21st century literary Sinhala! We have not quite managed all the places the Malagirava travelled to, but since we hardly ever visit every place named in a guide book, I decided to do a ‘work-in-progress’ trip report.

The very idea of being able to visit Delft was so exiting since it has been relatively inaccessible for a long time. We were all excited in spite of being forewarned about having to forego the usual creature comforts that we were all accustmed to when on holiday. The varied sites all within this island also stirred our curiosity.
Eight of us, together with our van driver and a guide from Jaffna, visited Delft Island in September 2010.

Originally inhabited by the aboriginals commonly known as Yukkas. A monastery is believed have been built here first but subsequently known to have been used by a order of recluse monks who practiced a austere life style. No mention of this order of monks has been found since 12th century at Ritigala or else where and probably the monastery also has been abandoned since then. Ritigala was rediscovered by the then government surveyor James Mantell in 1872. Ritigala had been used as a base for battle by Pandukabhaya the founder of Anuradhapura city.

Our first travel location of the journey was not so far from Amitirigala. It was the tomb of the King Seethawaka Rajasinghe, located 2km before Talduwa.
At Talduwa itself, we met our second travel location of the day. It was the Berendi kovil. To reach there we had to travel nearly 100m along a narrow road, starting from Talduwa. The kovil was identified as the only evidence of rock buildings remaining in Kotte era.

My mother was going to Jaffna for work. As it was my school holidays my father and I also decided to joined her. It was going to be my very first visit to the Jaffna Peninsula. My parents said that it was not going to be a site seeing visit but, only a visit for me to see what the Peninsula looks like.