Pada Yathra is an annual walk of devotees from Jaffna to Katharagama to worship God Kataragama. Majority of devotees walk from Okanda through Kumana and Yala National Parks. This is my experience of a volunteer medical camp to help devotees at Yala NP.

Kataragama Pada Yatra is an amazing experience for nature lovers. This is my updates of Pada Yatra of last year.

Kataragama CTB bus left Pettah sharp at 12.00 mid night, keeping our hopes alive to be at the entrance as early as possible. It was bit of a burden to reserve the seats in the bus, however it helped us to have a comfortable journey. A sleepless night for me as I had the duty of picking up some guys on the way. We got down at Tissa by 6.30 next morning & the jeep was there with just a couple of minutes delay. After buying the breakfast from a nearby bakery, we managed to reach Palatupana entrance by 7.15 on Saturday morning.

This was one of my dreams and even though I have been to Yala many more times I couldn’t achieve this until this time. This time we planned it well ahead and booked the bungalows for accommodation and got 2 jeeps arranged through our usual safari driver Ruwan Malli (one of Sugathe’s drivers).

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!

At around 7.30 – 8.00 am we stopped at a small roadside hut at “Ranna” for breakfast. (We had newly made hoppers & bananas, pancake and poll-roti and plain tea) Then we proceed to Tissa market to purchase the vegetables as all other provisions were purchased from Colombo. (We got fresh village vegetables from tissa) At around 11.00 am we came to Palatupana Office (Yala Entrance) and took about 30mts to get our permit confirmed and they provide us with a Tracker (Dimuthu)