We spent 3 days at Buttala & leave from there around 7.30 a.m. First we went to see “Galabedda Pokuna” & came to Lahugala.

I hope you liked the new version of report which I’ve introduced which sort of told you the story of our wildlife, especially the plight of them in Wilpattu thanks to a Government Minister who’d taken the law into his hands destroying many acres of precious lands belonging to the buffer zone of Wilpattu by giving it to his supporters. It’s just pathetic the way things happen even though the Ministry of Environment is under the President himself. We also saw how they started building Mini Hydro Power Plants at Handagiriya destroying many more cascades very recently. It’s just so saddening to see the people who’ve been elected to safeguard these things help destroy them for monetary benefits. I hope they will soon see the erroneous ways they’ve been handling our natural resources and get back on track to protect them. However the million dollar question is, “Will it be too late?”.

So, just like that journey, I’m going to plunge straight into business and leave the fairy tale stuff aside. I’m sure the story of the wildlife in Kumana, the farthest away from Colombo, is much more interesting than my vivid imagination. However, just a bit of foreplay wouldn’t be too much to bear I suppose. Well, the newest of our crazes has become the wildlife, probably due to the less appealing states of my beloved waterfalls. Thankfully Hasi too shares the same taste and ever since Wilpattu, we’ve started to manic chase of our wildlife.

Though I have been to Kumana twice and visited many interesting locations I did miss out on Bambaragasthalawa site. So with my wife I took off towards Kumana on a late afternoon. Our first stop was at Panama Lake. We took the road which led towards Wedagama Lake. At the border of Panama lake there was a road to the left and that ended at Panama RMV which is in ruins. The monk who was residing there was not available at that moment so we walked around a bit and returned to the lake which is famous for its bird and Croc life.

This was our second visit to Kumana National Park. From the first visit back in 2012, I fell in love with the magnificent and unspoiled wilderness of Kumana. It truly deviates from overcrowded Yala NP and has an amazing calm and relaxing environment. We had to plan well in advance based on the experiences from our first visit (Will also upload that trip on a later day). All the bookings for camp sites and jeeps were made at least a month earlier.

Kumana was on the list for too long. So we thought of giving it a shot this time. Though the dry season is not at its peak yet, Kumana was extremely hot when we visited. The sightings were not the greatest, but we had enough sightings and more importantly had a great time especially at the awesome Gal Amuna campsite.

සිංහල ජනතාව අතර “කතරගම දෙවියන්” යන නමින් ද හින්දු ජනතාව අතර “මුරුගන්”, “ස්කන්ධ” යන නමින් ප්රචලිත කතරගම දෙවියන් පිළිබඳ ජනප්රවාද රාශියක් තිබේ. කතරගම දෙවියන්ගේ උපත පිළිබඳව විවිධ මතිමතාන්තර තිබේ. ඉන් එක් මතයක් වන්නේ ඊශ්වර හෙවත් ශිවගේත් පාර්වතියගේත් පුතකු ලෙස ස්කන්ධ කුමරු උපත ලද බවයි.

Degal hela (Diggalahela) is also known as Rock of Siyambalanduwa. This isolated monadnock was first seen while climbing Govinda hela last year, since then it was a dream for me. Though I found a guide to show me the way the weather was always turning from bad to worse when ever I plan to do so. On a Saturday early morning I met Ajith from 2nd mile post at Siyambalanduwa and proceeded towards Helamulla ancient temple which lies at the base of the mountain where I was introduced to Sena who promised to take us uphill. The weather god’s made sure that a bit of drizzle would make it bit more challenging to us. We curved along the mountain climbing boulders and reached a slope which was not much difficult to tackle and at last we were almost at the top after a one and a half hour hike. The summit has two rocks hence Degal hela(450m).

We booked the campsite early and arranged everything for 3 nights. Drive up to kumana was soo long and tiring. We left Gampaha around 11.30 in the night. Stopped several times and reached Arugambay around 8.30 am. Spent around 2 hours in the beach and went to Panama to meet our jeep guy, Sena. He is the only Sinhala guy operating in the area.

කැබලිත්ත සියඹලාව දේවාලය හාස්කම් වලින් පිරුණු ස්ථානයක් ලෙස බොහෝ දෙනාගේ පිළිගැනීමයි. පුරාවෘත්තයන්ට හා ජනප්රවවාදයට අනුව ඉන්දියාවේ සිට පැමිණි ස්කන්ධ කුමාර හෙවත්, කතරගම දෙවියන් ලංකාවේ නතර වීමට තීරණය කල බැවින්, එතුමන් පැම්ණි රන් ඔරුව ගල් කල බවත්, එම ස්ථානය රන් ඔරුගල නමින් හඳුන්වන බවත් සඳහන් වේ.

පිළියන්දලින් රාත්රී 11 ට පමන පිටත්වූ අප උදෑසන 9 පමණ වන විට පොතුවිල් මුහුදු මහා විහාරයට ලඟා වුනෙමු. කුමන පිවිසුමට ලඟාවන විට දහවල් 12 පමණ විය. එතැනින් දිවා ආහාරය ගත් අප අපේ පළමු දින නවාතැන වූ කුඹුක්කන් ඔය හෙරලිගස් ආර බලා පිටත් වුනෙමු. කුමන පිවිසුමෙන් ඇතුල්වූ අප බාගුර පිටිය, කුමන විල්ලුව, මඩමතොට පසු කරමින් 23 පමණ දුර ගෙවා හෙරලිගස් ආරට ලඟා වුනෙමු.

This year was the best period for me to do the well-known “Paada Yathra” because I currently reside in Moneragala. Actually even before I thought of walking with the pilgrims this year my friends did ask me to join them and the answer was YES SURE (with a big smile). This was something I wanted to do for some time but free time was the major problem. Thanks to the long discussions in lakdasun and talking hours with people who had experienced this walk first hand, we were ready to walk the distance with the pilgrims and experience something that is worth a million.

In 2010 couple of Lakdasun members lead by Priyanjan participated in Pada Yatra. As usual the resulting discussions in the forum provided every little bit of information one would need regarding the cultural event as well as the walk. In 2011 Priyanjan planned his North to South excursion along the full Pada Yatra route all the way from Jaffna. I couldn’t have got a better opprtunity to do this walk than joining Priyanjan at Okanda to do the last stretch!