Yala National Park

The sun was not yet up when we climbed onto the bench mounted in the back of a Toyota safari vehicle. A half hour later we were at the entrance to Yala park along with about 20 other similarly loaded vehicles whose occupants were hoping to see elephants and leopards. Sri Lanka recognizes the assets they have with their abundance of wildlife, and to their credit they have set aside large wildlife refuge areas and elephant migrations routes throughout the island.

Yala is one such park that allows people in, though most of the park is not open to traffic, and you are not permitted to get out of your vehicle while in the park.


The park is located on the ocean and is a mix of dense shrubs, grassy plains, rocky outcroppings and many small lakes and ponds.

Once inside the park our driver/tracker took us on a side road and were soon greeted by a bull elephant who appeared out of the thick brush, checked us out, then meandered on his way. I would have never thought an elephant could hide, but if our driver had not pointed him out, I would have driven right by him. We were not disappointed by the abundance of wildlife, including water buffalo, deer, including some stags with very large antlers, monkeys, monitor lizards, wild pigs, wild dogs and crocodiles. The elusive leopard however remained out of sight that day.


We also spotted shore birds and raptors of all kinds.

There were also many Peacocks about. We caught this one strutting his stuff.

At lunch many of the vehicles congregated on the beach where we were allowed off the rig to stretch our legs. There is a sobering memorial here dedicated to the victims of the Tsunami who lost their lives at this once posh resort. All that was left after the water had receded was this concrete foundation and bits of building scattered about the area. Everything else was washed out to sea.

During most of our Safari, we had the roads to ourselves, but after lunch all the rigs had stopped to see a small herd of elephants. The big beasts seemed used to the idea of people gawking at them as they passed calmly by.

Over the pass

After a very pleasant overnight stay at a old mansion that had recently been converted to a hotel we climbed on the beast again and headed for the southeast coast. The mansion had an interesting history because the prominent family that still owns it used to entertain famous people here. We can now say we walked the same floors as Mahatma Gandhi and Gregory Peck.

From Kandy we climbed up endless switchbacks, to the town of Nuwara-Eliya which has an elevation of 1980 meters (6,500 ft.). Part way up we stopped to buy some more lemon munchie biscuits at this little store perched on concrete stilts. The view from the extended slab looking out over the hills was fantastic. This area is tea country, where the hills are terraced with tea plantations, right up to the top of some incredibly steep mountains. The women who pick the leaves throw them into a bag that was slung on their backs. I could not help but think of the cotton pickers before modern harvesters were introduced.

Our next stop was at the edge of the hill country where we were awakened every morning at 5:30 by the call to prayer blaring from loudspeakers at the mosque across the street. This area has a large Muslim population who originally settled here to escape the Portuguese domination of the coastal areas.

The next day found us back in the rice paddies of the flat plains where we had made arrangements for a jeep safari into the Yala wildlife refuge.