Yasmin and Estife were some of my friends and they requested me to take them on a day trip where there is a dangerous bathing place and they wanted to swim over there and check the reality of it. So, I thought about Mannakathi falls which is suitable for a day trip and where it has a larger natural pool which is known as dangerous to swim as some villagers told me that the depth of it is about 50 feet in the center.

Boasting about adventure sporting, Kitulagala is a town located in West of the road from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya. It’s a town located in amid tickly forest hills. It has been once a filming place for the David Lean’s 1957 Oscar-winning epic “Bridge on the River Kwai” on the banks of Kelani River. Most visitors for the adventure sporting are from Colombo. The Kitulgala’s main attraction is White water rafting where you can ride the tides of Kelani River. Other than that it’s popular for sports like confidence jump, Stream Sliding, Waterfall abseiling, Jungle trekking. Bird watching and cave exploration and last but not least river trips and expeditions.

I did my first visit to Mannakethi Falls in 2012 and later I have visited it for only 1 time up to 2016. But in 2016, I had to visit it for more than 12 times and mainly with my HSBC staff members. However, I took only one hike to publish this post as this shows the wooden staircase which is not available now.

Once you go to the top of Mannakethi Falls, just have to walk upward of the stream. There are many natural adventure activities in this place as sliding, jumping, and swimming too. But always be careful when walking on the slippery rocks and beware about flash floods during rainy days.

Kithulgala is a popular travel destination situated at Colombo-Hatton road. It is famous among genera public as people come here for a bath at rapid Kelani River. And it is the only place in Sri Lanka where white water rafting is practiced.
Apart from all these Kithulgala has another value due to some waterfalls situated around. This is my attempt to cover waterfalls and some common travel destinations around Kithulgala.

From Yatiyantota town turn to Amanawela road and proceed about 10-15km to the Olu fall. On the way to Olu ella you could find Kithul ella, We oya ella and some other small falls. When we came to Olu fall we started to climb it up to the final drop point. It is not easy to cross the speediest water stream but we reached there and had a bath from that milk type water.

Water is life .Value of it cannot be measured in rupees or dollars. Not only for our basic needs but also for our pleasure, Leisure it’s the most commonly used thing. And for me if there is no water source it’s not a trip. I’d like to swim in swiftly flowing rivers and am desperate to dip in natural pools filled with Crystal clear water. When I jump in to water I forget everything other than dipping and swimming.

After experiencing continuous rain for more than a month it was time for another waterfall hunt. The moment arrived when the rains ceased and on the 2nd of December my cousin joined me on the chase. We left delgoda at about 4am, by about 6am we were passing Peradeniya heading towards Nawalpitiya.

We started our journey form Maharagama at around 6.00am, The Hatton bus from Maharagama. unfortunately there was a flat tyre so we had to go to Awissawella and get a Kitulgala bus (Awissawella-Kitulgala) the crew was three; we arrived at Kitulgala at 9.15 a.m. despite all the obstacles. With the Kitulgala bridge there is a road called Malwatte road, we got in to a three-wheeler from kitulgala and went to Malwatte which is few kilometers away from the town, after we reached Malwatte we continued in the same three-wheeler as close as we can get to the path to Mannaketi falls which is trough a tea estate, the distance to the waterfall is about1.5 km from the tarred road.