About 8 on the morning of the 6th I walked again to Kataragama's Sacred Precinct, passing the rows of stalls selling platters of fruit for pilgrims. Again, lots of langur monkeys were in the trees and on the ground on the way to the main shrine and I watched them for a while. A few of them seemed to enjoy watching me. The Maha Devale, the main shrine, was quiet. I walked on to the big white dagoba (stupa) beyond, where there were more pilgrims, including a group of monks in orange robes. Walking back, I again encountered lots of langurs, between 50 and 100 of them. I've never seen so many together.
I got back to my hotel about 10:30 and left Kataragama by bus about an hour later, getting off only about 12 miles south at Tissamaharama. I checked into a hotel, talked with some of the other tourists there, and then had lunch. One woman had just spent six weeks at an ayurvedic resort. Ayurveda is the traditional medicine of India and ayurvedic resorts are numerous in southern India and Sri Lanka. It was interesting to hear her describe her treatment, mostly oily massages and the ingestion of particularly oils. I guess she skipped the enemas and induced vomiting. She was positive about the experience, though said it was hard sleeping with your hair full of oil.
About 4:30 on that sunny afternoon I started off on a walk, heading first to the restored and whitewashed 2nd century B.C. Tissamaharama Dagoba on the edge of town, next to rice paddies. I also visited a lower, unpainted brick one nearby. For some reason about 50 crows were gathered together on the ground near the first dagoba. They would all mass together on the ground for a few moments and then hop away. I wonder what was going on.
From the dagobas I walked past rice paddies, with a few ibises and egrets eating in them, to the big tank north of town. It also is thought to have been constructed in the 3rd or 2nd century B.C. Several men were bathing in an irrigation canal coming from the tank. I walked along the low earthen dam on the south side, shaded by big Indian rain trees with far spreading branches. These are particularly beautiful shade trees that I have seen several places in Sri Lanka, but can't remember seeing in India. From the road on the dam there were good views of the hills to the north and back to the big white dagoba. It was now about sunset and I saw a few flocks of birds, egrets and ibises, flying across the lake. I reached the western end about 6:30, just before dark, and noticed bats flying out of the big rain trees on the tank's western shore. I watched them until it was too dark to see them. There were thousands of them.
At 5 the next morning a Scottish guy and I left by jeep for a day's sightseeing in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka's most popular park, famous for its relative abundance of leopards, 60 to 70 of them. The day in the park cost us each 8500 rupees, about $65, for the jeep, entrance fee, and food. The park entrance is about 15 miles from town, near the coast. We were in the park before 6 on a clear morning. From the entrance we headed generally northeast near the curve of the coastline, following a maze of dirt tracks through the low, scrub vegetation, with some trees and rock outcrops. It is a scenic place.
We first spotted wild pigs, and then saw some spotted deer. There were lots of birds, too. Particularly interesting were the bright blue and green little bee eaters that tended to fly right in front of our jeep. Early on we saw leopard tracks in the thick dust of the road. The drivers communicate with each other with cell phones, and when our driver was alerted about a possible leopard sighting, he sped along the bumpy tracks to get to the location. Eventually, there were about 15 jeeps gathered there, but no leopard, or at least not one visible.
We also saw lots of crocodiles and some water buffalo. In one big pond there must have been 30 crocodiles. I enjoyed just bumping along the trails, enjoying the scenery and spotting animals and birds. We saw three different mongooses (mongeese?) over the day, two of them very close and seemingly not too disturbed by our presence. In the past the mongooses I have seen have quickly run into the brush and disappeared. These mongooses had dark fur, with possibly a few spots, not the reddish brown fur of the mongooses I saw in India.
The jeeps with people on only morning safaris (the majority) left about 9. About 11 we had our first sighting of a leopard, though only a couple of fleeting glimpses. I first saw it moving into the brush. A bit later I saw it moving through the brush, not very close to us. I trained my binoculars on him and got a good view, though only for a few seconds, as he reached a little gap in the brush and then disappeared.
We drove around some more and got a good close up view of an elephant eating by the side of the road on our way to our lunch spot, near a river, where we arrived about 12:30. The area was shady with a breeze and langurs eating fruit in a tree. We spent about two hours there before starting off again. We soon came across several elephants eating noisily in the bushes. Two babies were among them. The elephants didn't seem too concerned by us. In fact, at one point three or four big ones huddled together right next to our jeep. I noticed they had dirt on their backs.
We drove to a pretty little beach with a rock outcrop on the shore a little further away. The sun was still out but dark clouds were massed further along the coast, to the southwest. From there we hurried to the site of another leopard sighting. Two of them were napping in trees, but far away. You could really only see them with binoculars. One was difficult to spot in the gloom of the tree. The other, in a different tree, was a bit easier to spot, but you could only see his backside as he slept on a big branch. Perhaps more interesting were the tactics of the 20 or so jeep drivers, most from afternoon safaris, as they jockeyed for position to give their customers pretty unsatisfactory views of a leopard. While all that was going on, I noticed a big rabbit emerge from the bushes and appear briefly to watch all the commotion.
We left the scrum of jeeps and came across and a mother and baby elephant. Heading back to the entrance in the late afternoon we passed wild pigs, spotted deer, and lots of birds, and we had our best sighting of a leopard. He was in bushes by the side of the road and soon emerged onto the road itself. There was another jeep in front of us, however, and the leopard was walking in front of that jeep, so mostly we got a view of its backside. They are very graceful animals. I took several photos and had my camera ready for a photo when he turned his head back, but our clueless driver started his motor at that instant and I missed the photo. The leopard disappeared into the brush.
A bit later we came across a jeep stopped by a five or six foot long python lying across the road. It lay in a straight line, with no curves in its body. We watched for a while and it didn't move. Perhaps it was getting some last late afternoon warmth from the road before nightfall. Eventually, the lead jeep nosed up to it and the snake wiggled across the road and into the brush. We saw another, shorter, python on the road just beyond the park entrance. We left the park at 6 and got back to town after dark. After a long day, I was in bed soon after 9.
The next morning I started a walk about 7:30. The sun was out, but there was a breeze as I walked out of town and past rice paddies to another ancient dagoba, the Yatala Dagoba, surrounded by a low wall with sculpted brick elephant heads and a lotus filled moat along the wall. Water drops sat on many of the lotus pads, sometimes in arcs. Next to the dagoba ground was being broken for the foundation of a new temple building and breakfast for the big crew of volunteer workers was being served nearby. I was invited over and given a cup of sweet black tea, plus a plate of "milk rice," made of rice and coconut milk, with a spicy vegetable topping.
After talking with the friendly people there while I ate my breakfast, I walked to a nearby ancient monastery of which nothing remains but several dozen uneven stone pillars. A wedding party was in the ruins for photographs. The bride wore an elaborate traditional dress, plus lots of jewelry and make-up. Her maid of honor and two little flower girls wore purple dresses. The men all wore western suits and ties, which looked uncomfortable in the morning sun. The groom was all is white, while his best man and two little flower boys, as they were described to me, wore black. I got to talking with the best man and took some photos of the kids while the bride and groom were being photographed. The groom then called me over to be in a group photo.
I walked past the ruined monastery to another dagoba and then turned back, passing a school on the way opposite the construction site. A lot more people, including some of the white uniformed kids from the school, were at the construction site now.
I walked to the southwest end of the lake and sat under the big rain trees where I had watched the bats the night before. A fishermen in a little outrigger canoe was on the lake, among the vegetation. When he got to shore I spotted lots of fish on the bottom of his boat. I then walked over to the big rain trees on the tank's western side, many of them submerged by the shallow water at the edge of the tank. Several big trees were filled with bats, many of them screeching. A few flew short distances before finding a new place to hang from the trees. I watched for quite a while. There were thousands of bats. I walked a bit further north, but by now it was nearing 11, so I walked back to the hotel, where I spent the early afternoon except for a lunch break.
About 4:30 I set out on another walk, past the Tissamaharama Dagoba and the rice paddies to the tank's southeastern corner and then along the dam to the southwestern corner. It was about 5:30 by the time I got there. I walked to the area with all the bats in the trees. Hundreds of egrets and ibises had already alighted near the tops of some of the more distant rain trees. Towards sunset the sky filled with birds, mostly egrets and ibises, coming to roost for the night in the trees. They came in flocks and swirled through the sky around the trees before alighting in the trees for the night. Occasionally a group, after alighting, would take off again and then alight again. Soon three or four big rain trees out on the lake were dotted with white egrets and ibises. I had seen black cormorants all together in a different tree.
As the birds were arriving, there were only a few bats in the air, but then as it was getting dark and most of the birds had found a place for the night, at first hundreds and then thousands of bats filled the air, taking off from the rain trees where they had spent the day and heading off to search for fruit. They all seemed headed south, at least initially. I craned my neck and watched them till it got dark. A half moon and two bright stars, perhaps planets, appeared. By about ten minutes to 7, after 20 minutes or so of masses of bats in the air, only the last few were taking off, and I headed back to my hotel in the dark.
The sun was out when I woke up the next morning, but there was a light rain falling by the time I left Tissamaharama by bus at 9:30. I was heading only about 40 miles to the north, to the town of Wellawaya, but it took me two and a half hours to get there on two very full and slow buses, first an hour's ride to Tanamalwila, and then on to Wellawaya. The route I traveled is considered the dry zone, but it was green and humid. The sun came out on the way. Nearing Wellawaya the terrain became a little hilly. Wellawaya, at 600 feet elevation, sits at the foot of the mountains. They rise up just north of it.
I checked into a small hotel in a rural area about a half mile south of the bus station and had a big lunch before taking a bike from the hotel about 2 and heading south to see the sights. The sky had again clouded up, with ominous black clouds clustered against the mountains to the northwest, but I decided to risk getting rained on. The bike was a rickety old thing, with bad breaks and a too low seat that shifted back and forth, but it worked out all right and I enjoyed biking through the countryside, with lots of greetings directed my way by the local folks.
I pedaled south down the not too busy main highway about two and a half miles and then took a road to the west that soon became a dirt road on the way to Buduruwagala. Greenery was everywhere, the sky was cloudy and threatening rain, and the air very humid. It certainly didn't seem like the dry zone. Buduruwagala, nestled in the hills, is an archeological site with seven giant figures, believed to date from the 10th century, carved in low relief onto a rock face.
The central figure, more than 50 feet high, is Buddha. To the left are three figures maybe half as tall. The central one, retaining much of its white painted plaster and a red halo, is believed to be the boddhisattva Avalokitesvara, with an unidentified figure to the left and a bare breasted Tara to the right. These figures are somewhat unsual because they are prominent in Mahayana Buddhism, but not the Theravada Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka.
To the right of Buddha is another cluster of three figures. The central figure is Maitreya, the future Buddha. On the left is a figure believed to be Vishnu while on the right is a figure, believed to be the Tibetan boddhisattva Vajrapani, holding a thunderbolt symbol important in Tantric Buddhism and again quite unusual in Sri Lanka.
The area is secluded with a grove of trees in front and jungle all around. Only two other people were there when I arrived and soon left. Two other local people stopped by while I was there. I spent about an hour there. The sky was dark and thunder rumbled in the distance, but it did not rain.
I biked back to the junction with the main highway, where I spent a few minutes in a museum, and then biked south along the highway another two and a half miles or so and then east on a bumpy road another two and a half miles or so before reaching the Handapanagala Tank. I got there about 4:30 under dark skies, but still no rain. I spent about an hour there, biking first up onto the embankment and then parking my bike and walking on the little path atop the embankment, with the water to the north and beyond hills and more dark clouds. A few small fishing boats were out on the water. Reaching the eastern end of the embankment, I then climbed the rock hill just beyond, ascending about 150 views for some good views out over the water to the north and over the plains to the south. The sky was still very cloudy. Wild elephants are said to come to the tank to drink at times, particularlly in the late afternoon, but I saw none. I did see some not too old elephant dung.
I walked down and back to my bike and it took me about 45 minutes to pedal back to my hotel. The way back was a little uphill and because of the approaching nightfall and the threat of rain I didn't make any stops except to buy some water. A few raindrops began to fall, but it didn't really rain. My shirt, however, was soaked through with sweat by the time I got back. I drank about a liter and a half of water. Dinner was a big rice and curry Sri Lankan meal, with chicken, pumpkin, beans, dhal, beets, and a sort of salad. The food was delicious and even though I ate none of the beets, which I don't like, and dhal, which I am tired of, I couldn't finish all of the other dishes. I went to bed under a fast moving fan while sleeping under a mosquito net, but knowing the next night I would be in the cool hills.
I got back to my hotel about 10:30 and left Kataragama by bus about an hour later, getting off only about 12 miles south at Tissamaharama. I checked into a hotel, talked with some of the other tourists there, and then had lunch. One woman had just spent six weeks at an ayurvedic resort. Ayurveda is the traditional medicine of India and ayurvedic resorts are numerous in southern India and Sri Lanka. It was interesting to hear her describe her treatment, mostly oily massages and the ingestion of particularly oils. I guess she skipped the enemas and induced vomiting. She was positive about the experience, though said it was hard sleeping with your hair full of oil.
About 4:30 on that sunny afternoon I started off on a walk, heading first to the restored and whitewashed 2nd century B.C. Tissamaharama Dagoba on the edge of town, next to rice paddies. I also visited a lower, unpainted brick one nearby. For some reason about 50 crows were gathered together on the ground near the first dagoba. They would all mass together on the ground for a few moments and then hop away. I wonder what was going on.
From the dagobas I walked past rice paddies, with a few ibises and egrets eating in them, to the big tank north of town. It also is thought to have been constructed in the 3rd or 2nd century B.C. Several men were bathing in an irrigation canal coming from the tank. I walked along the low earthen dam on the south side, shaded by big Indian rain trees with far spreading branches. These are particularly beautiful shade trees that I have seen several places in Sri Lanka, but can't remember seeing in India. From the road on the dam there were good views of the hills to the north and back to the big white dagoba. It was now about sunset and I saw a few flocks of birds, egrets and ibises, flying across the lake. I reached the western end about 6:30, just before dark, and noticed bats flying out of the big rain trees on the tank's western shore. I watched them until it was too dark to see them. There were thousands of them.
At 5 the next morning a Scottish guy and I left by jeep for a day's sightseeing in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka's most popular park, famous for its relative abundance of leopards, 60 to 70 of them. The day in the park cost us each 8500 rupees, about $65, for the jeep, entrance fee, and food. The park entrance is about 15 miles from town, near the coast. We were in the park before 6 on a clear morning. From the entrance we headed generally northeast near the curve of the coastline, following a maze of dirt tracks through the low, scrub vegetation, with some trees and rock outcrops. It is a scenic place.
We first spotted wild pigs, and then saw some spotted deer. There were lots of birds, too. Particularly interesting were the bright blue and green little bee eaters that tended to fly right in front of our jeep. Early on we saw leopard tracks in the thick dust of the road. The drivers communicate with each other with cell phones, and when our driver was alerted about a possible leopard sighting, he sped along the bumpy tracks to get to the location. Eventually, there were about 15 jeeps gathered there, but no leopard, or at least not one visible.
We also saw lots of crocodiles and some water buffalo. In one big pond there must have been 30 crocodiles. I enjoyed just bumping along the trails, enjoying the scenery and spotting animals and birds. We saw three different mongooses (mongeese?) over the day, two of them very close and seemingly not too disturbed by our presence. In the past the mongooses I have seen have quickly run into the brush and disappeared. These mongooses had dark fur, with possibly a few spots, not the reddish brown fur of the mongooses I saw in India.
The jeeps with people on only morning safaris (the majority) left about 9. About 11 we had our first sighting of a leopard, though only a couple of fleeting glimpses. I first saw it moving into the brush. A bit later I saw it moving through the brush, not very close to us. I trained my binoculars on him and got a good view, though only for a few seconds, as he reached a little gap in the brush and then disappeared.
We drove around some more and got a good close up view of an elephant eating by the side of the road on our way to our lunch spot, near a river, where we arrived about 12:30. The area was shady with a breeze and langurs eating fruit in a tree. We spent about two hours there before starting off again. We soon came across several elephants eating noisily in the bushes. Two babies were among them. The elephants didn't seem too concerned by us. In fact, at one point three or four big ones huddled together right next to our jeep. I noticed they had dirt on their backs.
We drove to a pretty little beach with a rock outcrop on the shore a little further away. The sun was still out but dark clouds were massed further along the coast, to the southwest. From there we hurried to the site of another leopard sighting. Two of them were napping in trees, but far away. You could really only see them with binoculars. One was difficult to spot in the gloom of the tree. The other, in a different tree, was a bit easier to spot, but you could only see his backside as he slept on a big branch. Perhaps more interesting were the tactics of the 20 or so jeep drivers, most from afternoon safaris, as they jockeyed for position to give their customers pretty unsatisfactory views of a leopard. While all that was going on, I noticed a big rabbit emerge from the bushes and appear briefly to watch all the commotion.
We left the scrum of jeeps and came across and a mother and baby elephant. Heading back to the entrance in the late afternoon we passed wild pigs, spotted deer, and lots of birds, and we had our best sighting of a leopard. He was in bushes by the side of the road and soon emerged onto the road itself. There was another jeep in front of us, however, and the leopard was walking in front of that jeep, so mostly we got a view of its backside. They are very graceful animals. I took several photos and had my camera ready for a photo when he turned his head back, but our clueless driver started his motor at that instant and I missed the photo. The leopard disappeared into the brush.
A bit later we came across a jeep stopped by a five or six foot long python lying across the road. It lay in a straight line, with no curves in its body. We watched for a while and it didn't move. Perhaps it was getting some last late afternoon warmth from the road before nightfall. Eventually, the lead jeep nosed up to it and the snake wiggled across the road and into the brush. We saw another, shorter, python on the road just beyond the park entrance. We left the park at 6 and got back to town after dark. After a long day, I was in bed soon after 9.
The next morning I started a walk about 7:30. The sun was out, but there was a breeze as I walked out of town and past rice paddies to another ancient dagoba, the Yatala Dagoba, surrounded by a low wall with sculpted brick elephant heads and a lotus filled moat along the wall. Water drops sat on many of the lotus pads, sometimes in arcs. Next to the dagoba ground was being broken for the foundation of a new temple building and breakfast for the big crew of volunteer workers was being served nearby. I was invited over and given a cup of sweet black tea, plus a plate of "milk rice," made of rice and coconut milk, with a spicy vegetable topping.
After talking with the friendly people there while I ate my breakfast, I walked to a nearby ancient monastery of which nothing remains but several dozen uneven stone pillars. A wedding party was in the ruins for photographs. The bride wore an elaborate traditional dress, plus lots of jewelry and make-up. Her maid of honor and two little flower girls wore purple dresses. The men all wore western suits and ties, which looked uncomfortable in the morning sun. The groom was all is white, while his best man and two little flower boys, as they were described to me, wore black. I got to talking with the best man and took some photos of the kids while the bride and groom were being photographed. The groom then called me over to be in a group photo.
I walked past the ruined monastery to another dagoba and then turned back, passing a school on the way opposite the construction site. A lot more people, including some of the white uniformed kids from the school, were at the construction site now.
I walked to the southwest end of the lake and sat under the big rain trees where I had watched the bats the night before. A fishermen in a little outrigger canoe was on the lake, among the vegetation. When he got to shore I spotted lots of fish on the bottom of his boat. I then walked over to the big rain trees on the tank's western side, many of them submerged by the shallow water at the edge of the tank. Several big trees were filled with bats, many of them screeching. A few flew short distances before finding a new place to hang from the trees. I watched for quite a while. There were thousands of bats. I walked a bit further north, but by now it was nearing 11, so I walked back to the hotel, where I spent the early afternoon except for a lunch break.
About 4:30 I set out on another walk, past the Tissamaharama Dagoba and the rice paddies to the tank's southeastern corner and then along the dam to the southwestern corner. It was about 5:30 by the time I got there. I walked to the area with all the bats in the trees. Hundreds of egrets and ibises had already alighted near the tops of some of the more distant rain trees. Towards sunset the sky filled with birds, mostly egrets and ibises, coming to roost for the night in the trees. They came in flocks and swirled through the sky around the trees before alighting in the trees for the night. Occasionally a group, after alighting, would take off again and then alight again. Soon three or four big rain trees out on the lake were dotted with white egrets and ibises. I had seen black cormorants all together in a different tree.
As the birds were arriving, there were only a few bats in the air, but then as it was getting dark and most of the birds had found a place for the night, at first hundreds and then thousands of bats filled the air, taking off from the rain trees where they had spent the day and heading off to search for fruit. They all seemed headed south, at least initially. I craned my neck and watched them till it got dark. A half moon and two bright stars, perhaps planets, appeared. By about ten minutes to 7, after 20 minutes or so of masses of bats in the air, only the last few were taking off, and I headed back to my hotel in the dark.
The sun was out when I woke up the next morning, but there was a light rain falling by the time I left Tissamaharama by bus at 9:30. I was heading only about 40 miles to the north, to the town of Wellawaya, but it took me two and a half hours to get there on two very full and slow buses, first an hour's ride to Tanamalwila, and then on to Wellawaya. The route I traveled is considered the dry zone, but it was green and humid. The sun came out on the way. Nearing Wellawaya the terrain became a little hilly. Wellawaya, at 600 feet elevation, sits at the foot of the mountains. They rise up just north of it.
I checked into a small hotel in a rural area about a half mile south of the bus station and had a big lunch before taking a bike from the hotel about 2 and heading south to see the sights. The sky had again clouded up, with ominous black clouds clustered against the mountains to the northwest, but I decided to risk getting rained on. The bike was a rickety old thing, with bad breaks and a too low seat that shifted back and forth, but it worked out all right and I enjoyed biking through the countryside, with lots of greetings directed my way by the local folks.
I pedaled south down the not too busy main highway about two and a half miles and then took a road to the west that soon became a dirt road on the way to Buduruwagala. Greenery was everywhere, the sky was cloudy and threatening rain, and the air very humid. It certainly didn't seem like the dry zone. Buduruwagala, nestled in the hills, is an archeological site with seven giant figures, believed to date from the 10th century, carved in low relief onto a rock face.
The central figure, more than 50 feet high, is Buddha. To the left are three figures maybe half as tall. The central one, retaining much of its white painted plaster and a red halo, is believed to be the boddhisattva Avalokitesvara, with an unidentified figure to the left and a bare breasted Tara to the right. These figures are somewhat unsual because they are prominent in Mahayana Buddhism, but not the Theravada Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka.
To the right of Buddha is another cluster of three figures. The central figure is Maitreya, the future Buddha. On the left is a figure believed to be Vishnu while on the right is a figure, believed to be the Tibetan boddhisattva Vajrapani, holding a thunderbolt symbol important in Tantric Buddhism and again quite unusual in Sri Lanka.
The area is secluded with a grove of trees in front and jungle all around. Only two other people were there when I arrived and soon left. Two other local people stopped by while I was there. I spent about an hour there. The sky was dark and thunder rumbled in the distance, but it did not rain.
I biked back to the junction with the main highway, where I spent a few minutes in a museum, and then biked south along the highway another two and a half miles or so and then east on a bumpy road another two and a half miles or so before reaching the Handapanagala Tank. I got there about 4:30 under dark skies, but still no rain. I spent about an hour there, biking first up onto the embankment and then parking my bike and walking on the little path atop the embankment, with the water to the north and beyond hills and more dark clouds. A few small fishing boats were out on the water. Reaching the eastern end of the embankment, I then climbed the rock hill just beyond, ascending about 150 views for some good views out over the water to the north and over the plains to the south. The sky was still very cloudy. Wild elephants are said to come to the tank to drink at times, particularlly in the late afternoon, but I saw none. I did see some not too old elephant dung.
I walked down and back to my bike and it took me about 45 minutes to pedal back to my hotel. The way back was a little uphill and because of the approaching nightfall and the threat of rain I didn't make any stops except to buy some water. A few raindrops began to fall, but it didn't really rain. My shirt, however, was soaked through with sweat by the time I got back. I drank about a liter and a half of water. Dinner was a big rice and curry Sri Lankan meal, with chicken, pumpkin, beans, dhal, beets, and a sort of salad. The food was delicious and even though I ate none of the beets, which I don't like, and dhal, which I am tired of, I couldn't finish all of the other dishes. I went to bed under a fast moving fan while sleeping under a mosquito net, but knowing the next night I would be in the cool hills.
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