I & four of my friends went to Sri Pad via Udamaliboda trail on 13th of last December. Sri Pada season was started on 1st of December and we wonted go there before it gets crowded. On 12th we travelled to Anghettipola where one of my friends live which is 6 Km away from Daraniyagale. We stayed there whole day and also visited to Saman devalaya at Daraniyagala which is a tradition followed by the Sri Pada pilgrims. Next day we took a bus to Udamaliboda around 6.30 p.m. from Moda palama which is 1 km away from the place we stayed towards Daraniyagala. Udamaliboda bus starts from Daraniyagala. (I have to say that Daraniyagala CTB depot runs one of the best bus services in Sri Lanka).

Moda Palama

Scenes @ Moda Palama

Scenes @ Moda Palama

Driving in this route is not easy. Roads are full of pot holes and you will always have to reverse your vehicle if you meet another one going other direction.

On the way to Udamaliboda	On the way to Udamaliboda
On the way to Udamaliboda	On the way to Udamaliboda

On the way to Udamaliboda

After around 1 hour the bus reached its destination which is Udamaliboda. From there we started to walk to Pandeniya where the Sri Pada trail starts. Locals were very friendly and provided us information about the trail.

Got down from Udamaliboda started our walk to Pandeniya

On the way to Pandeniya	On the way to Pandeniya
Reaching Dikallakanda	On the way to Pandeniya
Locals were drying cloves. It was their clove harvesting season	On the way to Pandeniya

This is located few meters away from the board which showed the distances

The trail starts from the Pandeniya River which is at the end of the Pandeniya village. We hand our breakfast there and rested for a while and entered the jungle around 12 noon which was bit later than we expected. From here there will be no human settlements until we reach the Kuruwita trail. The distance to the Kuruwita road from the Pandeniya River is 5 km.

The board which showed the distances

Pandeniya River - We had a nice time here and it was one of the main reasons for our delay.

Entering the forest

From the start we were attacked by leaches and we hand to tuck our trouser ends into the socks and we used Siddhalepa and Dumkola to repel them. The trail was not cleared for this season so we had to be careful to keep on the trail because sign of the trail was merely visible in some place. Sometime the trails where water has flown down in the rainy season looked more like the trail we have to follow than the actual trail. Unlike the other trails (Kuruwita, Earthna) jungle was much ticker and we could not clearly see the sky through it most of the times.

In the jungle

Removing leaches

Despite the attacks of the leaches we were reaching for the Seetha gangula which was the next river we supposed to meet. Between Pandeniya river and Seetha gangula there are three small streams. On the way we saw plenty elephant dropping which were new. By the time we reached the Seetha gangula it was 6.50 p.m. which was very dark and we had only two pocket torches because we didn’t planned to travel at night. We still had to cross the river and walk some distance (We didn’t know how much exactly) through the jungle to reach Kuruwita road. What scared us most was we didn’t see the trail continuing in the other side of the river. After around half an hour of search we found it. We didn’t see it because it was located around 50m upstream.

One of the streams we found in the jungle.

Elephant droppings

In the jungle

Another stream

It’s getting dark now

After finding the trail we discussed whether we are going to follow it in the night. Our concerns were lack of light (Only two pocket torches with few batteries and walking with directional lights very risky because our brains try to follow the path of the light instead of actual path), the last parts of the trail was narrow and dangerous to travel in the dark, animals (because venomous ones are also there). Finally we decided to stay on a rock in the river which was little bit closer to one bank even though we were totally unprepared for that. It was not a good place to stay but in the jungle there was no clearing and both sides were somewhat steep. The next thing scared us was rain. The rivers and streams in this area grow bigger quickly when it rains and if it happens we have no place to stay in the jungle and continuing the trail was too dangerous. And there were signs of rain. Sky was cloudy and there was lightening in distance. We had only one thing to do. That was making a “baraya” to Saman deviyo. We did that immediately. After half an hour the sky got cleared with out any clouds and we were surprise to see “devath eli” also. It was the miracle we were expecting and we got it. And from there we had a nice night on that rock until the morning. For the safe side one of us was always keeping eye one the river bank which is closer to us see if animals are coming and another one kept an eye on the water level of the river.

The only photo we took during the night. It’s the clear sky with the Orion

In the morning we lit a fire using some matches brought by one of our group with tree branches stuck between the rocks of the river (These were the only things that were dry enough to lit a fire) to get some warmth. After getting a nice bath we heated some water in the empty cans of energy drink which we were carrying to wash our leach attacked feet. We had nothing to eat in the morning except for few bard of Mars chocolate and small amount of “Chathu Madura”.

Our small fire

The rock on which we spent the night

Seetha gangula

After having them we started our journey again. Just after climbing the steep area from the river bank we found a flat area where elephants had almost ploughed the land. They have been there to eat Bamboo trees. After that some point of the trail was dangerous and we thanked ourselves for not continuing the journey in the last night. Finally after around 1 and half hours of walk we reached the Kuruwita road.

Reaching the Kuruwita trail	A strange bug
Climbing up	Beauty of the nature

The deserted “Ambalama” which know to be constructed by Gajaman Nona

I don’t know where exactly this road joins the Kuruwita road. But we had to travel few hours to reach the junction where Erathna road and Kuruwita road joins together. There we found the first shop in our entire journey and they had food there too.

The junction where two trails meet

The first shop we found in our entire journey

They had “Roti” which was “Divya Bhojana” for us

Some of these birds followed us to the “Maluwa”

Scene from the last shop before the “Maluwa”

Ahala Kanuwa

Around 3.00 .p.m. we were able to reach Sri Pada Padmaya and whole area was covered by fog which we were expecting.

Fog was covering the entire area but it was so peaceful.

There were only handful of pilgrims there and after the worshipping we started to climb down through the Nallathanniya road. We reach Nallathanniya around 7.30 pm. We took a room and stayed there in the night and took the first bus to Colombo from Nallathanniya. It was a once in a lifetime journey for us.

View of Saptha Kannaya