The morning of the 4th was cloudy in Tangalle. About noon I left on a bus headed inland north to the town of Embilipitiya through green countryside first on the main coast highway and then on pleasant narrow roads with relatively little traffic. The trip took about an hour and a half under darkening skies, with a heavy rainstorm as the bus neared Embilipitiya. The rain, however, stopped before the bus reached Embilipitiya. I had come to Embilipitiya to visit Uda Walawe National Park, about 15 miles distant. With such rainy weather, however, I decided not to go into the park that afternoon, but wait until the morning. I checked into a hotel and arranged a jeep for the next morning. There's not much to do in Embilipitiya, at about 250 feet elevation, and so after lunch I headed to an internet cafe. There was some more rain in the late afternoon, but a light rain.
My jeep picked me up the next morning at 5:30 and we headed toward the park north of town. The jeep rental was 3850 rupees, almost $30, so I was disappointed I couldn't share it with someone else. The park, with Sri Lanka's biggest concentration of elephants, is situated around a large reservoir. On the way to the park entrance, while driving on the long, low earthen dam that creates the reservoir, we spotted our first elephant, a lone male. He had somehow gotten himself on the narrow strip of land between the reservoir and the wire fence on the dam and was happily munching grass. Beyond the reservoir appeared the mountains of central Sri Lanka.
We arrived at the entrance soon after 6 and spent about three hours in the park. The entrance fee was another 3700 rupees, about $29 (locals pay about 50 cents), so it was an expensive safari. I didn't see very many other jeeps, maybe five to ten. The morning was cloudy and cool and there were lots of puddles on the muddy roads in the park. The landscape is mostly low scrub, with some trees, but all very green now after the rains.
We spotted another lone male elephant near the entrance. Only about 10% of Asian elephants have tusks and neither of the two males we had seen had them. He walked away from us and then turned as if to charge, but only momentarily. My guide, picked up at the entrance, yelled at him. He turned away and used his trunk to scoop us some dirt and spray it onto this back, for insect relief, I think. Shortly thereafter, we spotted a mother and baby elephant and a little later a group of six in the bushes. The high density of elephants and the low scrub makes it fairly easy to spot the elephants. I saw about 30 all together in the three hours I was in the park.
After watching the six elephants eating grass and branches of vegetation, we drove on and spotted a group of about 15 elephants, including females, juveniles and babies, and watched them for quite a while. Two one month old babies were in the group and stayed huddled under their mothers. This group was especially fun to watch, as there were so many of them, plus the two little babies. Elephants are noisy eaters. An adult eats something like 450 pounds of vegetation every day.
We headed further north into the park and spotted another five or so elephants together. A little later we came to a large pond with about 50 water buffalo submerged in the water. At the far end of the pond swam a lone crocodile, not bothering with the water buffalo, at least for the moment. All the water buffalo were adults, so maybe they were too big for the small crocodile.
Besides elephants, I also saw lots of birds. One egret was perched upon the back of a water buffalo submerged in the pond. There were also lots of storks, including the colorful painted storks. And there were more peacocks and peahens than I have ever seen anywhere. They were all over. Our jeep approached one peacock standing in the center of the muddy road. It didn't flee at our approach, but about 20 feet in front of us decided to display his feathers. He gave us the full visual effect to five to ten minutes, turning around several times and every once in a while shaking his feathers, which I suppose drives the peahens wild. The only thing is that there seemed to be no peahens around, only our jeep. The long display was wonderful to see up close. When he finally closed up his brilliant tail feathers and we drove past him, he let the jeep get within about five feet of him, which is very unusual in my experience with peacocks in the wild.
We drove along and came across three big water buffalo wallowing in a tiny, muddy pond. Later I caught a brief glimpse of a mongoose skittering through the bushes. Then we again came across the group of 15 elephants and again watched them for a long time. One of the great things about Uda Walawe is that you were watching animals almost all the time. Usually in game parks in India you spend most of your time searching for the animals. Two of the juvenile males occasionally tussled with each other, using their trunks to entangled and push each other. That was interesting to see. The elephants moved into and out of the bushes they were eating, so there were always some to see, and sometimes you could see all 15.
At one point I heard a repeated thumping noise and wondered what it was. The guide stood up and many of the elephants huddled together over the babies. Apparently a jackal was nearby, which the guide saw. The thumping was an elephant trying to scare it away. Later, with our jeep parked, a female came out of the bushes and passed within five feet of the jeep seemingly without any concern. Her baby (not one of the one month old ones) was following her but elected to skirt the jeep by quite a bit more before cuddling up to his or her mother.
I was sorry to have to leave the park after three hours. On the way back to town we encountered a heavy deluge of rain. I had transferred from the open back of the jeep into the cab just before it hit. Unfortunately, that let me observe that the jeep did not have operating windshield wipers. The driver said his child had broken them, and he apparently didn't find it worthwhile to repair them. The rain stopped before we reached Embilitiya and in fact in town the streets were dry.
Upon my arrival at the hotel a wedding procession was making its way to the banquet room, with three or four young men in fantastically embroidered white costumes and hats. Another onlooker told me it was a Kandyan wedding. The young men paused at the doorway of the banqueting hall and didn't enter until after being sung to by several young women in purple dresses.
I ate breakfast and then took a bus about noon southeast to Hambantota on the coast, a trip of about an hour and a half under cloudy skies and some rain. Approaching Hambantota, the hometown of Sri Lanka's megalomaniac president, we drove through a seeming maze of mostly empty four lane highways passing a big brand new conference center and a big new administrative center on the way into town. Signs pointed to a big brand new airport and there is also a new port. Hambantota itself didn't look like much, and upon arrival I almost immediately left on a bus headed northeast inland to Tissamaharama, an hour's journey. The scenery was now much less densely vegetated, with some thorn bushes, though still green. I had passed beyond the dense jungle of Sri Lanka's southwest coast to its drier southeast coast.
From Tissamaharama I took a bus a bit more than ten miles north to the even smaller town of Kataragama. While on the way, the bus was boarded by a graying, middle aged woman with a pink tee shirt that read "Yes I'm a Bitch But Not Your Bitch." I have seen some amusing tee shirts in this part of the world. I remember a ragged fisherman in Kerala with a tee shirt proclaiming "Life is a Disease - Love is the Symptom - Death is the Cure." Another guy somewhere in India wore a tee shirt with a line drawing of a hirsute Jeff Bridges and the legend "The Dude Abides." My favorite, though, was a guy somewhere in India with a tee shirt stating "Whoever Doesn't Lie to Women Has No Regard for their Feelings." I wonder if those folks had any idea what their tee shirts read.
I arrived in Kataragama about 3:30 and got a room in the very nice rest house for Bank of Ceylon employees. The sun was just coming out, at last. About 4:30 I ventured out and it began to rain, but quickly stopped. I walked through the quiet little town toward the Sacred Precinct, an area sacred to Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims alike, across the river. On the way I walked under big, leafy rain trees and paused to look at the fruit stands that sold big platters of colorful fruit to be taken to the temples in the Sacred Precinct. Five or six big hornbills with yellow beaks flew directly overhead. Three or four of them alighted on electrical wires and a lamppost, so I got a very good look at them. Several more were hopping or flying through nearby trees, or just sitting in them.
I crossed the bridge over the river into the Sacred Precinct and first encountered a closed Hindu temple and a Muslim shrine with a couple of small mosques and a couple of graves of holy men. A friendly guy in a skull cap and neck brace showed me around, pointing to three palm trees, now thirteen years old, growing from, he said, a single coconut.
I walked down a wide sandy path, passing cows and about 50 langurs sitting together, to the Maha Devale, the main temple of the area. Inside the wall of the compound are three little temples, the main one, on the right, to Kataragama, whom Buddhists consider a guardian of the Buddha while Hindus consider him to be the son of Shiva and brother of Ganesh, known in India as Skanda or Murugan or Subramanian or Kartikiya and probably several other names. The main temple and the one next to it, honoring Ganesh, were closed. The only open one, honoring Buddha, was very simply decorated. I wandered around the sandy compound area, with two big leafy trees in the back with langurs in them. I had arrived there about 5:30 as the compound began to fill up with pilgrims, most clad all in white, carrying platters of fruit for the 6:30 puja.
By 6:30, just as it was getting dark, there were six of us foreigners and maybe a couple of hundred Sri Lankans gathered out in front of the Kataragama Temple. The doors were now open and a woman told me to go inside and I followed her. People, mostly in white and several with platters of fruit, crowded into the colorful little temple. A puja about 45 minutes long began. I stuck through until just before the end, though it was very hot and humid inside the crowded little temple. A drummer and a guy with a foot long oboe-like instrument played away while an obese priest all in white with a white cap officiated. A red carpet was rolled out, offerings under colorful fabric brought in, and then the carpet removed. A couple of very intense bell ringing sessions came and, thankfully, went. I finally left to join the bigger crowd outside in what felt like marvelously cool air, and the ceremony apparently ended just as I left. The curtain hiding the inner sanctum was never lifted. More people started filing in with more platters of fruit. I had been hoping to see the frenzied kavadi or peacock dance (Kataragama is usually pictured riding a peacock), but it didn't happen.
As people were filing in and out with platters of fruit, a man gave me a small sweet banana from his platter. Another gave me a banana and a piece of watermelon. A third gave me a big dollop of sweetened rice on a sort of plate of leaves, plus a slice of an apple. I was hungry and appreciative, and even ate the whole sticky rice concoction as I walked around.
In front of the three temple are two stones behind low metal enclosures. Worshipers prayed in front of them while holding coconuts above their heads and then smashed the coconuts against the stones. They very forcefully hurled the coconuts against the stones, as it is considered inauspicious if the coconut does not break. Some of the coconuts (their husks already removed), were lit on fire during the prayer. When the fire burned itself out, the coconut was then hurled against the rock. The area around the rocks was full of broken coconuts and emitted an unpleasant smell, perhaps of fermenting coconuts.
In the dark I walked with others to a lit up white dagoba (stupa) a ten minute or so walk away, and then came back, reaching my hotel about 8:30. I was tired, had a quick dinner from the hotel's buffet, and went to bed soon after 9, sleeping for about ten hours.
My jeep picked me up the next morning at 5:30 and we headed toward the park north of town. The jeep rental was 3850 rupees, almost $30, so I was disappointed I couldn't share it with someone else. The park, with Sri Lanka's biggest concentration of elephants, is situated around a large reservoir. On the way to the park entrance, while driving on the long, low earthen dam that creates the reservoir, we spotted our first elephant, a lone male. He had somehow gotten himself on the narrow strip of land between the reservoir and the wire fence on the dam and was happily munching grass. Beyond the reservoir appeared the mountains of central Sri Lanka.
We arrived at the entrance soon after 6 and spent about three hours in the park. The entrance fee was another 3700 rupees, about $29 (locals pay about 50 cents), so it was an expensive safari. I didn't see very many other jeeps, maybe five to ten. The morning was cloudy and cool and there were lots of puddles on the muddy roads in the park. The landscape is mostly low scrub, with some trees, but all very green now after the rains.
We spotted another lone male elephant near the entrance. Only about 10% of Asian elephants have tusks and neither of the two males we had seen had them. He walked away from us and then turned as if to charge, but only momentarily. My guide, picked up at the entrance, yelled at him. He turned away and used his trunk to scoop us some dirt and spray it onto this back, for insect relief, I think. Shortly thereafter, we spotted a mother and baby elephant and a little later a group of six in the bushes. The high density of elephants and the low scrub makes it fairly easy to spot the elephants. I saw about 30 all together in the three hours I was in the park.
After watching the six elephants eating grass and branches of vegetation, we drove on and spotted a group of about 15 elephants, including females, juveniles and babies, and watched them for quite a while. Two one month old babies were in the group and stayed huddled under their mothers. This group was especially fun to watch, as there were so many of them, plus the two little babies. Elephants are noisy eaters. An adult eats something like 450 pounds of vegetation every day.
We headed further north into the park and spotted another five or so elephants together. A little later we came to a large pond with about 50 water buffalo submerged in the water. At the far end of the pond swam a lone crocodile, not bothering with the water buffalo, at least for the moment. All the water buffalo were adults, so maybe they were too big for the small crocodile.
Besides elephants, I also saw lots of birds. One egret was perched upon the back of a water buffalo submerged in the pond. There were also lots of storks, including the colorful painted storks. And there were more peacocks and peahens than I have ever seen anywhere. They were all over. Our jeep approached one peacock standing in the center of the muddy road. It didn't flee at our approach, but about 20 feet in front of us decided to display his feathers. He gave us the full visual effect to five to ten minutes, turning around several times and every once in a while shaking his feathers, which I suppose drives the peahens wild. The only thing is that there seemed to be no peahens around, only our jeep. The long display was wonderful to see up close. When he finally closed up his brilliant tail feathers and we drove past him, he let the jeep get within about five feet of him, which is very unusual in my experience with peacocks in the wild.
We drove along and came across three big water buffalo wallowing in a tiny, muddy pond. Later I caught a brief glimpse of a mongoose skittering through the bushes. Then we again came across the group of 15 elephants and again watched them for a long time. One of the great things about Uda Walawe is that you were watching animals almost all the time. Usually in game parks in India you spend most of your time searching for the animals. Two of the juvenile males occasionally tussled with each other, using their trunks to entangled and push each other. That was interesting to see. The elephants moved into and out of the bushes they were eating, so there were always some to see, and sometimes you could see all 15.
At one point I heard a repeated thumping noise and wondered what it was. The guide stood up and many of the elephants huddled together over the babies. Apparently a jackal was nearby, which the guide saw. The thumping was an elephant trying to scare it away. Later, with our jeep parked, a female came out of the bushes and passed within five feet of the jeep seemingly without any concern. Her baby (not one of the one month old ones) was following her but elected to skirt the jeep by quite a bit more before cuddling up to his or her mother.
I was sorry to have to leave the park after three hours. On the way back to town we encountered a heavy deluge of rain. I had transferred from the open back of the jeep into the cab just before it hit. Unfortunately, that let me observe that the jeep did not have operating windshield wipers. The driver said his child had broken them, and he apparently didn't find it worthwhile to repair them. The rain stopped before we reached Embilitiya and in fact in town the streets were dry.
Upon my arrival at the hotel a wedding procession was making its way to the banquet room, with three or four young men in fantastically embroidered white costumes and hats. Another onlooker told me it was a Kandyan wedding. The young men paused at the doorway of the banqueting hall and didn't enter until after being sung to by several young women in purple dresses.
I ate breakfast and then took a bus about noon southeast to Hambantota on the coast, a trip of about an hour and a half under cloudy skies and some rain. Approaching Hambantota, the hometown of Sri Lanka's megalomaniac president, we drove through a seeming maze of mostly empty four lane highways passing a big brand new conference center and a big new administrative center on the way into town. Signs pointed to a big brand new airport and there is also a new port. Hambantota itself didn't look like much, and upon arrival I almost immediately left on a bus headed northeast inland to Tissamaharama, an hour's journey. The scenery was now much less densely vegetated, with some thorn bushes, though still green. I had passed beyond the dense jungle of Sri Lanka's southwest coast to its drier southeast coast.
From Tissamaharama I took a bus a bit more than ten miles north to the even smaller town of Kataragama. While on the way, the bus was boarded by a graying, middle aged woman with a pink tee shirt that read "Yes I'm a Bitch But Not Your Bitch." I have seen some amusing tee shirts in this part of the world. I remember a ragged fisherman in Kerala with a tee shirt proclaiming "Life is a Disease - Love is the Symptom - Death is the Cure." Another guy somewhere in India wore a tee shirt with a line drawing of a hirsute Jeff Bridges and the legend "The Dude Abides." My favorite, though, was a guy somewhere in India with a tee shirt stating "Whoever Doesn't Lie to Women Has No Regard for their Feelings." I wonder if those folks had any idea what their tee shirts read.
I arrived in Kataragama about 3:30 and got a room in the very nice rest house for Bank of Ceylon employees. The sun was just coming out, at last. About 4:30 I ventured out and it began to rain, but quickly stopped. I walked through the quiet little town toward the Sacred Precinct, an area sacred to Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims alike, across the river. On the way I walked under big, leafy rain trees and paused to look at the fruit stands that sold big platters of colorful fruit to be taken to the temples in the Sacred Precinct. Five or six big hornbills with yellow beaks flew directly overhead. Three or four of them alighted on electrical wires and a lamppost, so I got a very good look at them. Several more were hopping or flying through nearby trees, or just sitting in them.
I crossed the bridge over the river into the Sacred Precinct and first encountered a closed Hindu temple and a Muslim shrine with a couple of small mosques and a couple of graves of holy men. A friendly guy in a skull cap and neck brace showed me around, pointing to three palm trees, now thirteen years old, growing from, he said, a single coconut.
I walked down a wide sandy path, passing cows and about 50 langurs sitting together, to the Maha Devale, the main temple of the area. Inside the wall of the compound are three little temples, the main one, on the right, to Kataragama, whom Buddhists consider a guardian of the Buddha while Hindus consider him to be the son of Shiva and brother of Ganesh, known in India as Skanda or Murugan or Subramanian or Kartikiya and probably several other names. The main temple and the one next to it, honoring Ganesh, were closed. The only open one, honoring Buddha, was very simply decorated. I wandered around the sandy compound area, with two big leafy trees in the back with langurs in them. I had arrived there about 5:30 as the compound began to fill up with pilgrims, most clad all in white, carrying platters of fruit for the 6:30 puja.
By 6:30, just as it was getting dark, there were six of us foreigners and maybe a couple of hundred Sri Lankans gathered out in front of the Kataragama Temple. The doors were now open and a woman told me to go inside and I followed her. People, mostly in white and several with platters of fruit, crowded into the colorful little temple. A puja about 45 minutes long began. I stuck through until just before the end, though it was very hot and humid inside the crowded little temple. A drummer and a guy with a foot long oboe-like instrument played away while an obese priest all in white with a white cap officiated. A red carpet was rolled out, offerings under colorful fabric brought in, and then the carpet removed. A couple of very intense bell ringing sessions came and, thankfully, went. I finally left to join the bigger crowd outside in what felt like marvelously cool air, and the ceremony apparently ended just as I left. The curtain hiding the inner sanctum was never lifted. More people started filing in with more platters of fruit. I had been hoping to see the frenzied kavadi or peacock dance (Kataragama is usually pictured riding a peacock), but it didn't happen.
As people were filing in and out with platters of fruit, a man gave me a small sweet banana from his platter. Another gave me a banana and a piece of watermelon. A third gave me a big dollop of sweetened rice on a sort of plate of leaves, plus a slice of an apple. I was hungry and appreciative, and even ate the whole sticky rice concoction as I walked around.
In front of the three temple are two stones behind low metal enclosures. Worshipers prayed in front of them while holding coconuts above their heads and then smashed the coconuts against the stones. They very forcefully hurled the coconuts against the stones, as it is considered inauspicious if the coconut does not break. Some of the coconuts (their husks already removed), were lit on fire during the prayer. When the fire burned itself out, the coconut was then hurled against the rock. The area around the rocks was full of broken coconuts and emitted an unpleasant smell, perhaps of fermenting coconuts.
In the dark I walked with others to a lit up white dagoba (stupa) a ten minute or so walk away, and then came back, reaching my hotel about 8:30. I was tired, had a quick dinner from the hotel's buffet, and went to bed soon after 9, sleeping for about ten hours.
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