So along the road to the castle we went happily. (Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera, however, the previous month I had bought my new phone, Trusted Nokia X6 and it has a 5 MP camera which I had to be content with. However, the pics came nicely, so much better than I anticipated, however I again want to visit the place more leisurely with my digital camera)

This was my first naked eye view of the Kandy perahara. Despite many recommended that watching it in TV is better, I still though to just experience it. According, with the help of a friend in Kandy came to town at about 6.35 and parahara was scheduled to start by 6.50. By the time we arrived the city, all the streets were completely filled with people.

I’m crazy about N’Eliya and it’s a habit of mine to go there every year (from 2000). However, I couldn’t arrange anything coz all my friends were tied up with something or the other. By 26 December, I was feeling miserable and my legs were itching for some exercise. So I made up my mind to go on my own. I was initially planning to leave early morning, just walk around the town, park and Gregory Lake and come back in the evening.

As usual, this was another all-of-a-sudden-I-wanted-to-go trip. For some reason or the other, beginning of March, out of nowhere, I felt that I must go to Adam’s peak as soon as possible. I still have no idea how that notion came upon me but I was pretty much obsessed with it.

We had to leave the boat there and walk about 1km up to the Entrance of the Hill which holds the temple and the famous cave complex. The surrounding area was so picturesque and very remote even though it belongs to the Western Province. We reached the entrance to the mountain around 12.30 and immediately began our ascend.

After Yapahuwa trip I was so agitated to go see Dambadeniya too. Even though I’d been there before maybe 15 years ago, I still wanted to go and take some pics and see the place again. So I hastily arranged to go there even though the www.accuweather.com (you can trust this website to give a fairly accurate report, I always use this) website forecast was slightly rainy.

We were lucky to catch the bus leaving for Kalawana at 5.45 am and reached there by 7.45 and unfortunately the Sinharaja-Kudawa bus has already left and had to wait till 8.30 for the next one. When we went to one of the shops for some provisions he said it would rain the whole week and it made me wanna come back immediately.

We left delgoda at 5.30am and was experiencing rain for the next 1 ½ hours till we reached our first attraction of the day at Ampagala, Bulathkohupitiya being Suramba/Punahela ella. After waiting for about 10 minutes till the rain subsided we decided to get a closer look at the falls

Since it was a four day long weekend only Monday was a working day and Tuesday a Poya day, we both decided to travel to Galaha Kandy Nilambe Meditation Center to spend the time in recluse and out of reach of the hectic life in Colombo, without Telephones, Radio, Television and Electricity and all that.

The first thing that captivates you when you reach the top of the hillock where the center is located, is the tranquility and beauty of the place. The Hiyare Reservoir, a manmade reservoir once built to supply water to the city of Galle, is now a calm blue oasis surrounded by the green green Hiyare Rainforest – which is an extension of the Kottawa Khombala Forest Reserve.

The main target of this one day trip was to see the Dooli Ella which is situated near to the Neluwa town. There is a very beautiful trail though the Sinharaja Forest reserve up to Deniyaya from Dooli ella through the Lankagama and Pitadeniya. Travelling along the A17 high way between Deniyaya and Rakwana was a very interesting one.

The drive to Waulpane was quite effortless. But the last 1KM or so was bit difficult. After stopping the van at end of the road (still you need to walk about 600m to the caves ) which was an very interesting journey. You need to find a giud to got to this otherwise if your not familiar with the place it’ll be difficult (negotiable the amount before you hire a guide) normally Rs.300-500