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”?

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

We started our journey on 11th December around 5.00pm from Colombo. First day our destination was Laxapana Circuit Bungalow and we reached there by 11.00 pm with several stops in between; several security checkups were there since we were entering in to a high security zone and War was at peak during that time.

It was a short Backpacking session [Travelled alone]. Left Colombo on the 23rd Dec [Friday] night and reached Pattipola on the 24th Dec at 04:30 hrs. Slept at the Pattipola train station till dawn and commenced my walk to Thotupola Kanda, 3rd highest peak in Sri Lanka, via Horton Plains at 07:10 hrs. Reached the summit and got back to the Pattipola Station by 11:46 hrs [18Kms by foot]. After a short break I started my railway trek to Ohiya from Pattipola at 12:00 hrs [06 Kms by foot]. Was able to arrive at the Ohiya station by 13:50 hrs and on my way I have walked through 04 railway tunnels including the 3rd longest Tunnel in Sri Lanka [Tunnel No.18]. Got to Badulla by train from Ohiya by 18:30 hrs [train was delayed a bit] and got into the train from Badulla on the same day and got back to Colombo by 06:00 hrs on the 25th Dec 2011

On the Friday eve, after office we started our journey from Battaramulla, typically very punctually, 2 hours behind our schedule. We stayed at a private place in Kandy on that night. Next day we wanted to leave Kandy as early as possible and again as usual we were way behind our schedule. After having breakfast from a friend’s place in Rattota, we headed towards Riverston. Our first stop was at the small yet scenic “Bambarakiri Ella” falls. It is just a few hundred meters walk from the main road to the water fall.

We organized this trip during our university vacation. We started our journey from Kandy to Matale by morning 7:10 train and arrived Matale at 8:30 a.m. All the crew members gathered at Matale town. After buying some necessary food items at Matale we hired a van to go to Riversturn. On the way to Riversturn we visited Bambarakiri Ella which was located about 1-2 km from Rattota. It was a short and easy path about 100m to the falls from the main road.

Leaving park office we drove along the Yala main road to paranaganthota (a.k.a Parana Thotupola) where we crossed Menik River and entered Block 2. Our camp site was “Nuga Sevana”, one of the newer camp sites established on the bank of the river. It was only a couple hundred meters away from Paranaganthota (පරන ගං තොට).

The first hike of the day was to Lanka Ella falls. While at first we were contemplating skipping this, Mrs. Mayakaduwa strongly recommended that we do this hike and it’s a decision that we did not regret. The hike at first began through a pine forest and this was the trickiest part since the ground was very slippery.

We started at 5 am and reached Sinharaja via Mathugama/ Kalawana (Kudawa Entrance) at 7am. Unfortunately we had to park the vehicle 1 km before the ticket office at the regional forest office as a bridge was under construction.The climb to the park entrance was steep and by 7.30 we were inside with the tracker Somapala( 045 7210845)