It has been almost a year since visiting Mannar and I was tempting to go there again, especially in the middle of the migration season. I have called Mr. Laurance, the owner of Four Tees Guest Inn, many times since the season begun, but couldn’t go there due to some concerns. This time I was very determined to go there and ask my friends to join me from about month a go.

Our journey started from around 4.30 p.m in and we proceeded directly to our destination Kalupana around 10.30p.m. Following day early morning we came to Kalupahana Junction and took a left turn towards the Bamabarakanda(Between 172 -173 km ). After proceeding about 4.5 km we had the 1st sight of the Bambarakanda fall at a distance.

Last week end I had opportunity to spend two days in tiny jungle hamlet in foot of the Knuckles Mountain Range. Here is that memorable story. We leave Kandy at 11.00 a.m. in the morning and reached our destination after four hour journey and our crew was 08.

How picturesque can a temple be? Without any special decorations, without twinkling multi-colored lights or spot lights which can be seen from miles away…? How many temples can be compared to the scenic beauty or the uniqueness of “Kothdoowa Raja Maha Viharaya”?

Year and Month February 2012 Number of Days One day trip Crew 2 ( 40-50 YEARS) Accommodation N/A Transport SUV/Jeep and motor boat from Fisheries harbour Activities Dolphin/Whale watching Weather From Hikkaduwa upto galle it was raining but eased up after that. By the time we started the weather was normal and the sun came […]

We started around 4.30 am from Kolonnawa, had our Breakfast closer to Deraniyagala. We had bought all our requirements on the previous day so we did not have any problems in the morning. We were at the Dik elikanda Primary School junction by 9.am; We got down from there and asked our Driver to meet us at Nallathanni following morning. We were at the Trail head by 10am..

The place is “රන්මසු උයන” (Ranmasu Uyana) This had been built in the 10th century according “වෙස්සගිරිය” (vessagiriya) inscription of Mahinda IV this is the place where Prince Saliya (son of King Dutugmunu) met Asokamala. This was their royal baths with separate chambers for the royals.

With that we remembered that there was a news article in Defence.lk that SL Navy has started Whale & Dolphin watching cruises in Galle and Trincomalee recently. I have been to Trincomalee in 2003 during the peace talks and went to Muttur by ferry (named Seruwila 2). It was about one hour journey across the harbor and there were many things to visit. So we decided to get this arranged

Visiting ritigala has been on the cards for a long time now and the closest I got was a planned trip last August but had to cancel it at the last moment due to unavoidable circumstances. Yapahuwa too has been lingering in my mind for some time but never materialized. Due to the above reasons my initial idea was to do a 2 day trip but for that too work commitments got in the way and on the ‘thaipongal’ weekend on Saturday I hastily decided to do a one day trip the next day(Sunday) to visit the above places which I’ve never been to.

Hiyare Forest reserve is located just 18 km (about half an hour’s drive) Galle town. The 55 acre reservoir was built in 1911 to supply water to the Galle city and was only decommissioned in 2002. In 2003 the reservoir and 600 acres of the surrounding low country tropical rainforest was turned over to the Municipal Council of Galle.

We chose Madu-Mannar as the destination for our year-end office trip after reading a number of trip reports on Lakdasun. We started form the suburbs of Colombo at about 12.30 in the night/morning as we had only two days to explore all interesting places that had been discussed in those reports. The crew was forty and we travelled in a 55-seater Ashok Leyland bus. As we started early, we reached Medawachchiya Rest House by 5.30 am and refreshed ourselves with a cup of tea. (Prior arrangements made to have tea so early!)

We had to go to Kandy for a “bana” and an “arms giving” and since the”bana” was on Saturday night I made a plan and went on Friday night and reached Kandy at 11.45 pm and stayed at my Sister in law’s place in Katugastota . The following day I started alone at 5.30 am as my wife and daughter was more keen on shopping at the city centre and went via Theldeniya and Digana and arrived at Deanston at around 7 am.