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 a sudden decision taken before two days and we left Gampaha around 5.00am and came to Southern highway via Kottawa. From Pinnaduwa outlet we came to Udugama and reached Kanneliya Mount Resort around 08.30 am. After a quick breakfast we walked towards the park entrance, which is only 300 meters away. Vishan, our guide was waiting for us.

According to Folklore During the war between Ravana and Rama, both Rama and Lakshman were hit by powerful arrows to fall unconscious and to bring them back to life Hanuman was instructed to fetch lifesaving herbs from Himalayas. Hanuman went to the Himalayas, rooted part of the hill and brought it as he was not able to identify the lifesaving herbs. Parts from the hill fell on five places in Sri Lanka, Rumasala, Dolukanda in Hiripitiya, Ritigala, Thalladi in Mannar and Kachchativu in the north.

I was on the foot board the whole journey, highly excited, enjoying it to the max. We passed many things and stations along the way. But one thing in particular got embedded in my mind. That was “Great Western Station”. The entering onto the Station area was grand and I can still remember that day. I’ve been viewing that picture every now and then and couple years back came to know about the GW Mountain which is surprisingly the 6th highest in SL.

I see this mountain from faraway almost every day but had not got a chance to climb it until one day my father said “Get ready, tomorrow we are going to Piduruthalagala”

Although I had been to Ella Rock Point many, many, many times before, it is this time that I decided to write about it.

So here I’m again with the continuation of my fairy tale from breath-taking Meemure and hope you’ve read it and enjoyed it as much as I did (Jaunting off to the Most Beautiful Village on Earth – Meemure). I left you guys at Hunnasgiriya after our morning snack of sponge cake, banana and what keeps me going Coffee… We had to wait at Hunnasgiriya for a Mahiyanganaya bus longer than I liked due to 25 April being a Poya day.

This journey we did some times back, most of the members of the crew are members of “Dumbara Mithuro” Environmental and Cultural Society. The society is devoted for the conservation activities in the Knuckles mountain range. On the other hand expedition in the knuckles forest is another prime objective of the society.

කඹුරුපිටියෙන් උදේ 7ට පමණ ගමන් ආරම්භ කර අනෙක් සාමාජිකයින් 5 දෙනා සමග අකුරැස්ස, උඩුගම හරහා නෙලුව බලා ගමන් ගත් අතර මංජු සහ ජයනෙත්ති පිලියන්දලින් ගමන් ආරම්භ කර දක්ෂිණ අධීවේගී මාර්ගයේ වැලිපැන්න පිවිසුමෙන් පැමිණ පැලවත්ත හරහා නෙලුවට පැමිණ අප හා එක්විය. නෙලුවෙන් අවශ්ය ආහාර ද්රාව්ය හා අනෙකුත් භාණ්ඩ මිලදී ගැනීමෙන් පසු අප පලමුවෙන්ම නෙලුව ලංකගම මාර්ගයේ නෙලුවේ සිට 7km ක් පමණ දුරින් පිහිටි කොස්මුල්ල දුවිලි ඇල්ල නැරඹීම සඳහා ගියෙමු.

Yahangala prompted me to go through few Ravana documentaries and important places related to the legend; though I’m not a blind believer I think he was one of the greatest kings in Sri Lanka. While going through some articles I came across a site called chariot path which urged me to pay a visit someday because of the unusual location of it.

““Once upon a time, there was this fella who happened to come across this remarkable word and it stuck very deep in his mind. Everyone who’d either been there or heard about spoke very highly of her and this fella kept dreaming about it all the time. He didn’t have the means or the resources to visit her then and dream was the only option he was left with which he was very good at. On top of everything, Meemure wasn’t ready to welcome him just yet.