My kids school vacation is almost end and I was busy with my new job unable to take them for this holiday but luckily I was able to get some off days on the long weekend of Binara poya. After reading so many beautiful trip reports from Lakdasun I was forced by myself to take my kids out of our routine destinations (Nuwara Eliya or a Down south hotel) to show them the beauty of mother Lanka and to make them love with the nature.

This was a very well planned trip as our friend Lasantha’s home town is Welimada. We decided to pay a visit to his place and visit many other places. This came as a blessing having toiled night and day at office for nearly 2 months. So Roshan, Buddhi and I got into “Podimenike” leaving for Badulla at 5.55 am from Fort on 07 July. Lasantha was to meet us at Welimada.

The journey started from different locations by my friends. Kandy Bus stand was the meeting point. I started from Ambalangoda at midnight and reached kandy at 6.00 in the morning. The others were there on time. We took padiyapalalla bus. The bus arrived in padiyapalalla at 8.00 am. There was a small town to buy our foods and other basic needs. We took Mandaram nuwara bus from there at 8.45 am.

We Started from Colombo fort 6th Friday 8.00Pm train(night mail).There were 10 persons with our team. We reach Ohiya railway station around 4.30Am 7th Saturday and had breakfast from the shop beside the railway station. Around 6.00 we came to the hotel. At about 7.00 in the morning we have started out Hike from the hotel.

From the beginning of this year I had planned to do a hike along the Bambaraknda – Ohiya track. August was my target month and I was thinking of doing this on my own even if my friends would not join me (I thought they might not be interested in a long hike). But surprisingly they all agreed to join me and were quite interesting in this hike.

Thankfully the rain had stopped and only then I knew they had a bird park too. Being a great fan of birds, I wanted to buy tickets for both and they gave a special package for both. The person at the ticket counter advised us to first visit the water world and then go to the bird park. So taking his advice we went inside the water world.

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.