Peace in the country means that we can explore it at will and that was what took us to Mannar. Out of bounds until recently, exploring Mannar was an unforgettable experience as the area is steeped in both history and culture. After a lovely lunch at Four Tees, the first day had us exploring Mannar. The Fort and some birding at the Vankalai Sanctuary was all what we could manage

This has been a dream of mine for a so long ever since I saw an ad by SL Navy on a newspaper and had been hoping against hope to go there. Trip reports by Lakdasun subscribers have been greatly helpful especially finding the hotel, Four Tees Inn, which was a wonderful place and met all my expectations.

It has been almost a year since visiting Mannar and I was tempting to go there again, especially in the middle of the migration season. I have called Mr. Laurance, the owner of Four Tees Guest Inn, many times since the season begun, but couldn’t go there due to some concerns. This time I was very determined to go there and ask my friends to join me from about month a go.

We chose Madu-Mannar as the destination for our year-end office trip after reading a number of trip reports on Lakdasun. We started form the suburbs of Colombo at about 12.30 in the night/morning as we had only two days to explore all interesting places that had been discussed in those reports. The crew was forty and we travelled in a 55-seater Ashok Leyland bus. As we started early, we reached Medawachchiya Rest House by 5.30 am and refreshed ourselves with a cup of tea. (Prior arrangements made to have tea so early!)

Our first stop was at Kurunegala for our breakfast. After the breakfast we drove through Dambulla,Nelumkulama and turned left to Anuradhapura air force camp road through Wilachchiya road to Nellikulama. Nellikulama was a modern temple but its concept was little different from our traditional temple.

According to the “Birds of Sri Lanka” by Prof. Sarath Kotagama, Mannar is one of the main entry points for migrant birds to the main land of Sri Lanka. The area facilitates lot of water holes which are rich of food for these birds. So only few of those birds that are not satisfied with those facilities only come inland, so Mannar is rich with bird life on migrant season mainly from September to May. Few of my friends who had been to Mannar recently had seen lot of bird life there. So we decide that it’s time to pay a visit to Mannar.

We had planned to visit Mannar via Pomparippu, Wilpattu and Silavaturai as we were passionate to pass through the jungle, though we were not convinced about the road condition. We wished advice from the police station, army base and the bus stand at Puttalam, if the road is in good condition. We were discouraged from their answers as we had a 2WD van and which also a hired vehicle. Hence we decided to visit Mannar via Medawachchiya. On the way we visited Madhu Church.

We started in the morning around six thirty and headed towards Negombo. We traveled in a 4×4 Hilux pickup and had all what was needed such as several cans of water food items and other necessary supplements. From Paliyagoda we traveled along the A3 highway. At Wenappuwa we had our breakfast and we went to the Chilaw rest house for a cup of tea. By 10.30 am we were at Puttalam. As it was a poya day the roads were peaceful and we made it to Puttalam sooner than we thought.

We started our journey around 12.30 AM and continuously drove up to Puttalam it was 2.45AM when we arrived Puttalam. From Puttalam there were 2 roads to go to Talei Mannar. Short one goes through Willpattu but it need a 4×4 vehicle and the other one through Madawachiya and joins A14 road. We chose the long drive as the Road through Willpattu opens at 4.30AM and it is a Hazardous journey. We came to know later when we arrived at Mannar the road through Willpattu was flooded.