The day I saw this expedition on Lakdasun (by Dhammika), I really wanted to do this. But, after reading trip report, I was scared. After doing some research and watching the documentary from ITN (Wenasa), I decided to take the risk, but I don’t want to go alone. I wanted at-least 5 mates, I was sure that Kasun Janaka will join. I have several trips with him. Another mate was Kasun Priyashantha.

So, we start our journey without having our breakfast. First up all we should walk from the top of the tea estate behind the railway station. It is about 250m from ths retail shop. Then we have to downward from the area to the forest. The forest (Hela) is fulfill with trees and rocks. We have to go down by catching the branches. Sometimes you might get fallen due to the ground instability.

Mahaweli River exploration is one of my dream trips. Mahaweli River flows from Hortain plains and ends at Trincomale. If someone wants to go along the river (by boat or foot) it is possible only from Mahiyangana (මහියoගණය) to Trincomale. From Central hills to Mahiyangana, the river is guarded by major reservoirs.
During dry season (especially August and September) it has low water level.
My friend Siraj suggested me to walk along the River from Manampitiya as he has noticed the river with low water level when he visited to Thummodara (තුම්මෝදර).

After hectic 3 months of studies and few “ordinary relaxing trips with family” I finally had little precious time to do some explorations. But as most us well aware that next difficult thing in planning a hike is finding partners. As I was free only on week days I decided to hike all alone. Then I needed to find a suitable place to hike as a lone trekker. I remembered Adara Kanda and contacted Ashan ayya, and got to know that the trail is well cleared and can do by myself.

The long weekend at the end of July was long awaited as it’s the only long weekend for 2015 until Christmas. We planned a train trip to up-country with cousins, an annual event during August school holidays. However for the 31st the train was fully booked so we had to reserve the train for the 30th – which gave us a bonus day to enjoy the cool climes.

Becoming an archaeologist had always been my dream and together with my like-minded friend Minol Peiris we contacted Dr. Nimal Perera of the Department of Archaeology to get our hands dirty on an archaeological dig. Dr. Perera encouraged us and said that he is currently heading the excavations of the Demala Maha Seya in Polonnaruwa and invited us to join.

“Who’s been to the Dalada Maligawa or Tooth Temple?”

I know it’s one of the silliest of questions I could’ve asked you but I had to ask it to enter my fairy tale. I’m sure most of the Sri Lankans regardless of their religion have visited this magical place on earth where the Left Canine Tooth Relic of Lord Buddha that was retrieved from the sandalwood funeral pyre of Kushinagar is kept. This is also visited by many foreigners and as the statistics reveal it is the second place visited mostly after the Elephant Orphanage at Pinnawala. At an estimate about 80-90% of all the tourists pay a visit to Dalada Maligawa.

“Ok now how many of you have been fortunate enough to see the Tooth Relic Dagoba?”

Two years back I worked at Inginiyagala hospital and one day I came across a retired DWC officer who is well known because of the newspaper articles he wrote about Gal oya national park. Somehow we became friends and one day he mentioned about a special cave close to Mulgama where Vedda paintings could be found.

Rathnapura-Wewalwaththa-Balangoda road is 43km in distance and you can enjoy 13+ waterfalls in one day. This is my experience of waterfall hunting along this road. Enjoy it.
You can view following waterfalls along this road (order from Rathnapura to Balangoda)

Yakkuragala was an isolated mountain with height situated in Dambulla area in between Dambulla-Matale (A9) and Dambulla-Bakamuna (බකමූණ) roads. As it has no archeology or historical importance, no body tries to climb it. Locals only visit there to pluck “Gal Siyambala”. Later I knew they also miss their return pathway once they reach the mountain.

Villagers believe “Yak Ura’s” (‍යක් ඌරා)-Devil Pig’s footsteps can be seen on the mountain. Therefore it is called Yakkuragala. But actual Yakkuragala is situated closer to the main Mountain.

Konduru hela is a prominent peak in the east which could be seen easily from Arugam bay to Akkareipattu. Some people even mistake this as Thoppigala. It is located at one of the most isolated and unexplored area called Komari (Panama proposed) forest reserve. I had been eyeing on this peak for a while and during my previous visit I met a local guy called Ran banda who promised to help me if needed.

We got up and started packing our things and got ready. While Nava mama ran the hut keeping an eye out for the jaggery pot (remember it was kept boiling throughout the night) which was somewhat got thicker, Tony and I went out to wash. While we were washing, Samarasekara arrived as promised and went ahead to take down some of the toddy pots from the Kithul trees in the vicinity. We witnessed a beautiful butterfly as we were washing, who had come to put up a welcome show for the day.

Back at the hut, Samarasekara had taken a huge pot of fresh Kithul sap from one of the trees and was in the process of mixing it with the jaggery pot. While he was at it, we started making our morning coffee and breakfast of instant noodles. There was still plenty of the jaggery given to us the previous evening left so we savored it with our 3 in 1 coffee even though it had its share of sugar. Remember pure Kithul jaggery is good for anyone even for diabetic patients as it has no harmful sugary contents. Afterwards we ate our noodles with hot chilies plucked from a nearby plant. Well it was all set for us to get going and Samarasekara agreed to show us the path to a certain distance so that we’d have no trouble getting to our target.