We had to travel few kilometers towards Tanamalwila and another few on a sub route to reach Budhuruwagala, where a series of giant statues carved embossing partly on a huge rock. The main was a statue of Lord Budhdha in “Abaya Mudra” said to be 43ft in height. Statues of “Avalokitheshwara” & “Manju Sri” Bodhi-Sathwa(s) and Goddess “Thara” had been identified among the rest. As per the view of archeologists, all the statues were belonged to Mahayana tradition in 8th century.

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.

Just to get away from our hectic work pattern, me and a few of my colleagues try to utilize every opportunity that comes by, by going out of the city. Every time, we try to select a place that fulfills our passion of being close to nature, which not only gives us plenty of fresh breath but also goes easy on the wallet. So it was Sinharaja this time.

Although it was a 3 day trip arranged by ‘Lakdasun’, for me it was much more than that as we were invited to stay at ‘Back of Beyond – DEHI GAHA ELA’ in Dambulla, a couple of days more by Uncle Yohan.
I had seen photographs of this place and I knew it was going to be a fantastic holiday. I was so excited about it.

We started form the Galle at about 5.00 in the morning. The crew was eight in a hired high roof Dolphin van.
The first stop of us was a beautiful waterfall called Ethamala ella situated near by Morawaka town.
You have to turn right 1km before the town and have to travel along NilElla estate about 1.5km. Our next stop at Hathmale ella near by Pallegama city.

First night we were planning to stay in Kandy at Deepals bungalow and since it was perahara season getting out of Colombo were deficit with lots of traffic heading towards Kandy and we ook a quick decision to proceed via Jaela/minuwangoda/Giriulla/Kurunagala/Katugasthota/Kandy, drive was superb with very little traffic (route slightly longer than Colombo kandy main road 20Km longer) Good road network, you wont feel the drive.

Thusitha asked me to park the vehicle at a suitable place for the brake-fast, having observing my eyes were locating the face (dial) of the wrist watch. We were going on a trip with Thusith’s family; since it was the August vacation for kids. In the next moment we were under a tree near the construction site of proposed Zoo at Pinnawala. At that point; we had almost reached the first travel location of the journey, the elephant orphanage at Pinnawala.

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.

We started at Peradeniya at 5.00 am and reached the trail head, which was about 9 km from the Visitor Centre at Horton Plains towards Ohiya, at 11.00 am. I know six hours to do a distance that was just a little over 100 km was totally unacceptable considering the facts our hired van was so… good, the driver was so… cool, road was so… private, and what was more, we all wanted to get to the trail head as early as possible.

I started the journey from Colombo at mid night and arrived at Trincomalee at 6.30am in the following morning. At 8.00am there was a bus to Pulmoddai and I got in to that bus. After three hours I got down at Pulmoddai town. On the way I saw three great bridges that were newly constructed (Irrakkandi, Kuchchaveli and Yaan oya). I was unable to photograph those because the bus was fully crowded.

We decided to go in search of a waterfall called “Theli falls” which is 3-4m in hight and which is formed by the Gurugoda oya. To reach to this waterfall one needs to travel on Nelundeniya- Galapitamada route and get down from “Thuntota” where you will have to travel about 4Km on a track which leads you in to an islolated rubber estate. At one point you will come across a huge rock on the left of the road(see the photograph), right after you pass the rock you will find the path towards the Waterfall! Since this was the dry season Gurugoda oya was sought of dried off.

My parents told me that we were going to spend three nights camping in Kumana. I had never been there before but had seen a lot of pictures of Kumana taken by my father who had been there several times during the past few months.
This was also going to be my first camping trip in a National Park.