SRI LANKA: YALA NATIONAL PARK

The third national park we visited in Sri Lanka was Yala National Park, the most visited national park in the country. Covering 378 square miles, the area was designated a national park in 1938.

Bob went on an early morning drive while I slept in, but I joined him and Sanjay for the afternoon drive and a drive the following morning.

It was nice to have this instructive diagram at the entrance, and I'm glad I didn't bring my trumpet along on this trip. If I can't play it in Yala, what's the point of packing it?

I love this logo:

The first thing Sanjay pointed out to us was this weird rock in the mud:

SRI LANKA: UDAWALAWE NATIONAL PARK

There are 26 national parks in Sri Lanka, a country the size of Virginia. During our 8 days in the country, we visited 4 of the parks. We started with Minneriya National Park, and our second park was Udawalawe National Park, established in 1972 and covering 119 square miles. 

You never know what you are gong to find on the road into a national park in Sri Lanka--maybe an enormous, ponderous land monitor :

. . . or maybe a Buddhist shrine:

. . . or maybe a sign with a name you can't pronounce. (We learned that it's pronounced "Ooo-duh-vah-lah-vay"):

We climbed into a safari vehicle waiting for us in the parking lot and headed into the park, wehre we spent the next five hours rocking and bouncing along uneven dirt roads, which is really not my thing. However, we had all kinds of sightings, including 15 more elephants, which is my thing.

One of the first things we noticed once we were inside the park was not the elephants, however, but wide swaths of cleared ground. Sanjay told us that lantana, a ground cover common in California and other warm climates but not in Sri Lanka, had been introduced in the country and was invading many of the parks and other areas, choking out much of the native vegetation:

SRI LANKA: RAVANA FALLS AND THE UDAWALAWE ELEPHANT TRANSIT HOME

RAVANA FALLS:

After leaving our hilltop hotel in Ella, we headed down to lower (and hotter) elevations. Our first stop was at 85-foot-tall Ravana Falls just outside of Ella. We were visiting during the dry season, so they were somewhat reduced from their peak but still quite impressive:

Two tourists were swimming in the pool at the base of the main falls, even though a sign warned "Avoid Bathing" and "Do Not Climb The Rock":

Looking back towards the main road from the falls:

A tourist shopping spot occupies a wide spot in the road near the falls parking area. Note the Pepsi billboard on the right. I think Pepsi is running ahead of Coke in Sri Lanka:

SRI LANKA: FROM KANDY TO ELLA--HOTELS, A POST OFFICE, A FARMERS MARKET, AND A HINDU TEMPLE

All of the hotels we stayed in were Sri Lankan hotels--not American chains. Lanka Trackers (our guide Sanjay's company) selected them for us, and we had a very positive experience in all of them. None of them were typical urban tourist hotels. They were each set back from the road and had an "ecotourism" feel.

For example, we stayed in the four-star Hotel Tree of Life about 9 miles from Kandy. The price included dinner and breakfast, and we had a completely detached "cottage" for our room (on the left below). Our cottage was a few minutes walk from the main building where we checked in and ate our meals, and it was a lovely walk:

Our large room backed up to the forest that surrounds the grounds. The pictures below are the views through the back door and then from the balcony:

The check-in/restaurant building doesn't look that glamorous . . . 

. . . but I loved the decor:

SRI LANKA: ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS IN PERADENIYA

On Day 6 of our Sri Lanka Adventure, we had planned a trip to the Royal Botanical Gardens, a stop suggested by our guide. I was excited, but Bob was actually not all that thrilled about it. Let's just say it greatly exceeded both of our expectations.

Before we left our hotel, and being in a "botanical mood," we did take notice of a tree that especially caught our attention because of its awesome name:

It's unlike any tree I've ever seen, with flowers and fruits popping out of the trunk:

It is very unique, and the flowers are so beautiful:

So, on to the botanical garden. Located in Peradeniya, a suburb of Kandy, it covers147 acres and has over 4,000 species of plants. We've been to some incredible gardens around the world, such as Kirstenbosch Garden in South Africa,  Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, the gardens in Versailles, the Los Angeles Arboretum, the Huntington Library, and others. We rank this garden right up there with the best of them.

One of the things the Royal Gardens is known for is its collection of over 300 orchid species. We followed Sanjay's advice and went to the orchid house first.  WOW. Nothing more can be said.

SRI LANKA, KANDY: CULTURAL DANCERS AND THE TEMPLE OF THE TOOTH

Kandy, located in about the exact center of Sri Lanka, is one of the larger cities in the country. It is situated in the hills where most of the country's famous tea is grown. The city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in part because it was the last capital of the Sinhala kings, who ruled until the British occupation in 1815.

Our guide Sanjay dropped us off at Kandy Lake, a man-made lake built in 1807 in the center of the city. It has a circumference of about two miles, and we strolled around about half of it.

There is a nice sidewalk along the lake shore:

We enjoyed the beautiful scenery, and we noted trees with a bountiful crop of jackfruit:

But even more than jackfruit, the trees were full of nesting black-crowned night herons:

There were hundreds of nests, each with a pair of birds sitting in it:

SRI LANKA: THE GOLDEN TEMPLE AND THE CAVE TEMPLES OF DAMBULLA

It wasn't until I started writing this post that I realized that the next two sites we visited were related to each other.

First, we drove past this big, upside-down bell-shaped stupa, and I asked to stop. For some reason, Bob wasn't interested, so Sanjay pulled over and let me run across the street to take a few photos.  

I'm not sure how I feel about this figure over the entrance. It looks like an animal (maybe a lion?) with either a very long tongue or one throwing up:

I entered the complex through this gate. When the main writing is English, you know it is a tourist site:

The structures are very new, especially by Sri Lankan standards. They were built in 2000 with mostly Japanese donations.

Behind the stupa is an enormous Buddha sitting cross-legged on what looks like the fun house at an amusement park entrance: