My No 1 is Sacred Sri Pada (done 5 times so far) other is Knuckles Range (2 times so far) and I’ve made my mind to visit these places at least twice a year. When I visited Knuckles(Meemure) last September I felt like giant mountains telling me “Hey Young man Come and see us again “

I have heard and seen some stunning images of a waterfall in a rural village in Uva long ago and I was tempted to visit this waterfall which is the 3rd highest in Uva and winning the 7th place considering all other waterfalls in Sri Lanka. So again it was a gamble with overcast conditions. First day I decided to spend the night at a friend’s place close to Madulsima.

We met 2 wild elephants on the road from Yala junction to Yala entrance. Van driver was so scared and we had to speak him through to reach the entrance. We reached the entrance by 6a.m. then our jeep came. Mr. Rupasinghe ( 0718424056- we highly recommend him .awesome person with 28 years of experience) in his old Land Rover. Jeep’s running condition is superb comparing to Indian jeeps which chases the animals away due to their sounds of the engines!!!

This whole idea of a “night climb” was in my mind for a while and was wondering where to try it out first. After evaluating the trails I have done already finally it was decided that I should try it on Bambarakanda first. The intention was purely based on excitement and the urge to try something different without following the same course as usual.

On a peaceful day I arrived at Ampara and took the Maha Oya road towards Piyangala junction and got down near the temple. There were a fleet of steps which took me towards a well-built “Kutiya” with an inscription. At that time there were about 100 visitors howling around forgetting that this was a monastery where monks meditated.

Raxagala is the second highest peak of Dolosbage range and having different names. Locals called it Kinihira (කිනිහිර), Paththini amma kanda (පත්තිනි අම්මා කන්ද), Wangedi molgas gala (වන්ගෙඩි මොල්ගස් ගල )1: 50000Map shows it as Stentry box east. The idea of climbing this unusual shaped mountain came into my mind when I climbed Kabaragala-higest peak of Dolosbage range.When I searched it, I found a nice article in Sri lankan travellers. It gave me a good guidance.

“It was the rainy season after the Buddha preached his first discourse to the five ascetics of Isipatana and due to the rains his preaching tours were cut down and he followed the ancient practice to spend the rainy season “Vas” in one place of residence carrying out his work on the Dhamma.

On top of the Manigala we could see Doovili Ella far away towards the Kalupahana range. That day we all decided to visit this somehow. Eventually we could visit all other water falls in the poem and hiked Manigala peak 3 times after that, but we couldn’t go to Doovili Ella, because it is difficult to reach that. There were only a very few who have done this hike and it was difficult for us to gather some information as well

On a gloomy day I took a bus towards Bibile and from there onwards I took another bus towards Alawaththagoda on Lunugala Rd. After getting down from Alawaththagoda and inquiring about Alawaththagoda falls few people directed me further towards Arawakumbura for 1.5km’s after passing a huge bridge I came across a second bridge and continued upstream until I reached a beautiful waterfall called Alawaththagoda Naya Kadura Ella.

Jaffna was a place from my childhood – a place that had happy memories of unrestricted travel within the peninsula and meeting loads of friendly people. Language was never a barrier as my limited Tamil with lots of gestures managed to get what I wanted! But that was in early 1970s.

Since the monsoons begun my journeys around Uva-Wellassa has been hampered. So I finally decided to gamble with the weather and loiter around a bit. There was a long list of archaeologically important places around Buttala and Wellawaya which I have been planning to visit. And since it’s raining and less chances of mountain climbing or forest trekking the set up was ideal for some temple visits but I had to face some unique problems in doing so.

So after work on a Friday we took the bus to Kandy from Pettah and reached the city of Kandy late night around 23:00 hrs. However the Tuk-tuk drivers who were there at the bus station were quite supportive and they dropped us at our guesthouse. The reason why we decided to take a night out at a guesthouse in Kandy is to save the day time of Saturday without having to travel all the way from Colombo to Knuckles on Saturday which will consume atleast half of the day.