Elephants, alligators at Yala National Park

We are winding our way to the Yala National Park through beautiful lush scenery and small villages with homes, large and small, maintained beautifully and otherwise. 

Tuk tuks abound. Very few people own cars, only the wealthy. But instead some have a tuk tuk for aatheir own family use and sometimes to use as a taxi. 

We arrive in Ella. A quaint cute as a button tourist town full of cafes and quirky shops. It was very touristy but after Bandarawela a pleasant change. 

And THE best thing of the trip was a fresh out of the oven Rotti (Murtabak) in a bakery. Spicy potato curry was the first spicy thing I’ve had. My faith has been restored. I am drooling. Obviously the home meals we have are quite tempered as with the exception of a couple of dishes most have been bordering on bland. Hotel food has been much the same. Really disappointing. 

Horoscopes are used in Indian to assess suitability of marriage partners. The same here. A SriLankan horoscope comes in the form of a scroll from the Olla leaf. People place great trust in what horoscopes say.  

The topography is very pretty but nothing better than any other hilly countries. Coming from NZ with the best scenery and most diverse in the world it is not exciting.  The colours don’t change but the vegetation does. 

We stop a couple of times for a look at the view. The first very ordinary but the second to see a beautiful waterfall at Rawana. 



Despite this being a developing country we are able to flush toilet paper here with no problem. Similarly the water is fine for washing teeth with and I’ve even made a few coffees with it. Quite surprising. It’s amazing the dumb stuff you think of when you are sitting on a bus. 

We get a chance to ask some questions to start to learn how Sri Lanka ticks. 

I asked Ananda about the electoral system.   At the moment they are in an unusual situation where the president fled the country the Prime Minster became President and the opposition leader became Prime Minister. I think. It became confusing.   President, Prime Minister, ruling and opposition parties are elected by the public. The Governor of each provincial council is appointed by parliament. 

There are 2 main political parties but one more (JVP) coming on to the scene. In total there are 22 political parties. All levels of governance are thought to be corrupt. 

Social security doesn’t exist here. Private provident funds exist for workers in certain employment but some has been clawed back by the government. 

National health public system is very poor with long waiting lists. Private medical facilities exist but not everyone can afford it. Ambulances are free. 

Phone 119 for police, 1990 for an ambulance,    For fire each area has a different council. Numbers do not appear to be well known. Hope we don’t have an emergency. 

We arrive in Yala our destination for the night and go to our rather lovely hotel sitting on the edge of the artificial lake. 

A light lunch was enjoyed picnic style next to the lake with a lovely local family and then we had an hour to kill before our next adventure, a jeep safari into the National Park. 





I had to wait for my bag, which was forgotten in the bus and with mot much time to have a swim I decided to settle for a cold shower. Never have I ever been disappointed in having a hot shower. Sadly water temperature ranged from hot to piping hot without even having to add hot. That just shows the power of the sun today. At least it is not humid but a stifling 33degrees with an ever so feint breeze. 

Interesting that here, unlike most developing countries, there are not hundreds of utility lines strung together like in some countries. There are a few but nothing like what I have seen other places. Nor do they gas pipelines above ground!  Probably because most people use bottled gas. 

Arriving at our destination the Yala National park we pile into tourist jeeps. It seems weird to be going spotting in the heat of the day when animals are sleeping. We were lucky enough to see a few elephants including baby ones, crocodiles from a distance, wild boar, a few monkeys and birds. 













We went to where there was a leopard in a tree. The call went out and suddenly all the 4wd’s turned and raced to see the leopard. Even with binoculars I couldn’t see anything other than a shadow when it came down from the tree.

The 4wd trip was the highlight of that dead end adventure. It was good to be “off road” again even tho it was on a road of sorts. 

The next adventure was getting a small charge from an elephant protecting its young. That was fun and the third time I’ve been in a truck that has been charged. The second time was pretty spectacular and terrifying for those sitting in the back. I caused the charge by accidentally taking a flash photo at night. The big boy got spooked and took of after us at close range. Luckily our driver managed to move quickly and we left him behind. 



Pork curry, spicy beans, grilled pork, fried fish and a yum pork curry with a good bit of flavour and spice was dinner. Buffet style which I hate but it was ok. 

Sadly one of our group had an accident walking in the hotel grounds and did some serious damage to her leg requiring medical attention. Hopefully she is ok. 

Dessert included some sort of aromatic spice rovani type thing which was yummy and I took some home for supper, not that I was awake long enough to eat it. 

My room was diabolically hot and the air con was not only no more than a fan but directed the cool air to only one part of the room. Only solution was to push my bed to the side of the room where I at least got a bit of cool air. Worked a treat as long as I lay across the bed right under the air con path. 

Once I got that sorted it was literally lights out. Good night. 

Democratic Socialist Republic of

Sri Lanka