After a long silence due to the busy work life; I decided to break the silence by sharing a different and a very rare experience with you all. This is not my experience, it’s my father’s. Thought of share that with our generation. Here onwards I’m writing his story.
Those days he was teaching at Batugedara Maha Vidyala, Rathnapura and was staying at a house nearby the school. As a practice they used to listen to morning news on SLBC at 6.00AM every day.

Hike for Humanity project is an innovative and inspirational project interlinking the concept of hiking and humanity. That is to help underprivileged school students on the annual hike of Old Cadets Association (OCA). To begin with the project the #HikeForHumanity Concept was familiarized on the social media as well as in Zahira College Mawanella.

It’s been during one of those adventures Tony came up with the notion to explore things in and around Gampaha, the Siyane Korale. He’s closed to the area and knows most of it like the back of his hand. To make things interesting he’s also come across a paper article about some mysterious caves located close to Asgiriya, Gampaha. Probably you will hear more about them one day, fingers crossed.

It’s very unusual of me to visit the peak wilderness twice within one year but 2013 was a special one. Suddenly out of nowhere the idea popped out and I called my better half and agreed her to join me this time and as usual few lakdasun members answered my calls. I was so happy because Kasun and Sri were joining us, so we won’t feel lonely with their company. I have been through both Rathnapura and Hatton trails but I have not ascended from Rathnapura and after almost 5 years the trail was said to be totally different than the one I knew previously.

I’ve seen mist before but lemme tell you that I’ve never seen something like this. The world around us was nothing but grey white and the odd black shadows of all kinds of trees were barely visible. We were practically crawling at a snail’s speed and it was no better than feeling your way in the dark. However we were intrigued by what we saw.

Eventually Tony had to get a torch and lower the shutter and aim at the edge of the road so that we wouldn’t fall into a drain. However lowering the glass made our hair stand on its ends and froze our exposed skin.

Kukuluwa Temple is situated on top of Nirieli Kanda නිරිඇලි කන්ද (1500feet) in Rathnapura District at Ayagama (අයගම) area. There are three pathways to reach this temple; two of them are foot pathways. Even along other road also needs a good four wheel vehicle to reach the temple. Climbing to this temple is a nice experience and it reminds me the Kuruwita trail of Sri Pada. There for I decided to share my experience with others.

It’s such an amazing sight to watch them and one would never get tired of watching, no matter how many times they come across, this wonderful creature. It’s even more wonderful when you get to see them in their natural habitat such as the wild life parks and forests. Lately, I was itching to go see as many of them as possible and when Sheham came up with the idea of visiting Maduru Oya I kept jumping up and down till I was exhausted.

After a long journey we were finally almost on top. We reached an opening about 100ft below the summit where it gave a 180-degree panoramic view. This is where you can get the best view more than even the summit coz the summit point is covered to a certain extent by trees. We rested our tortured legs and had our energy bars and drinks giving us a boost for the rest of the day. I took hundreds of pics and managed to get Tony to do a short documentary too.

Waterfalls of southern border of Sinharaja rain forest and Neluwa can be classified as follows Waterfalls in Neluwa (4) – Thapolena Ella 1, Thapolena Ella 2, Neluwa/Kosmulla Duwili Ella, Thambalagama Duwili Falls, Waterfalls in Warukandeniya (3) – Aliboda Falls, Ratawal dola Ella (? Beraliyadola Ella), Beraliya Galanda Ella, Waterfalls in Lankagama (6) – Classic five waterfalls and Hathbinna Ella, Waterfalls in Pitadeniya (3)-Malmora Ella, Pathan Oya Ella/Wathugala Ella and Kakuna Ella.

We reached the Pahiyangala Temple around 6.30am and it was a fine morning with lots of cloud cover and sun fighting to pierce through them to lighten the world. We climbed the steps to the cave complex. Though there were only about 100 or so steps to climb, it was still a bit hard to swallow in the morning and we were panting by the time we arrived at the mouth of the place.

It had the typical ancient look about it but when I looked around, I was aghast. There were so many writings along the rocky wall. Now don’t get excited coz they’re nothing to do with the ancient value of the place but the stupid works by the idiotic tourists (no doubt locals). What a waste! It was so frustrating to see how much they have wretched this place. Having boiled our blood in the morning wasn’t going to help our cause so I tried to keep my cool and see around for some interesting captures. Covered in a hall like complex lies a giant Buddha Statue. It was so huge and looking very serene and all my worries and uneasiness vanished into thin air. To make it better, there was this small monk clearing the dead flowers on the stand in front and I took a nice pic of him standing in front of Lord Buddha.

It was a longtime dream of mine to tackle the devil staircase. But because most of the travels went by 4×4’s on this road I was a bit skeptical how my vehicle, which is a 2wd(RWD) would perform. So on our way back from Horton planes we decided to travel via this road. Luckily there weren’t many landslides which could have made our journey more difficult. But the mist did block our view of the beautiful sceneries.

රාත්රිටය පිලියන්දල ගත කලෙමු. පසු දින උදයේ ලබුනෝරුව බලා පිටත් විය. එදින දිවා ආහාරය ඉබ්බන්කටුව ජලාශය අසලදී ගත් අප ලබුනෝරුවට ළඟවනවිට සවස් වී තිබුනි. රිටිගල කඳු පාමුල පිහිටි ලබුනෝරුව ආරණ්ය සේනාසනය ඉතා නිස්කලංක ස්ථානයක් වන අතර ඊට මද දුරක් ඈතින් පිහිටා ඇති මූරියන්කඩවල වැව රිටිගල කන්දත් සමග දර්ශනීය දසුනක් මවාපායි