It took 4 years to return to Yala after the memorable Tsunami trip, but this time, just six short months after that, I found myself heading jungle-wards once more. This time, with the family - assorted cousins down on SL for the sister's wedding, Aunts, Uncles, Grandmas, etc. Two vehicles needed. Some of us piled into the van for hire, some into Uncle Tissa's Pajero.
We were supposed to start at 4am, but in typical fashion, left the house only at 4:30. After stopping at Silver Ray for a breather and refreshments (we had made good time) we had to go thru the Great Roast Paan saga. This consisted of stopping at every eatery and bake house looking joint looking for Roast Paan for Gamunu Maami to have his Haal massa Seeni Sambol with. I think we were well past Pelmadulla when we finally found some. Anyhoo, we had planned to get to Uda Walawe by lunch and see the feeding of the Baby Elephants at the Elephant Transit home at noon, but we got there so early that we just barely missed the morning feeding at 9am! So we toured the area, checked the Lock Gates at the Dam, checked out the temple (still under construction) had some snacks and generally chilled until the next feeding time at noon. I got a couple of good pictures of an Indian Roller (Coracias benghalensis indicus) perched on a fencepost. The Uda Walawe elephant transit home is an interesting place. It has this museum with some gorgeous pictures of wildlife on the walls and a mini cinema that shows documentaries every so often. Plus of course, the obligatory elephant stuff to see, including the huge elephant skull. Of course, the highlight is the feeding of the elephants. Its interesting to see how the elephants are trained to come get the milk. Oddly there was a baby wild boar wandering around the feeding enclosure, apparently with something wrong with it coz it didn't walk straight, and kept staggering around like it was drunk. Some of the older elephants didn't like it and kept chasing it around the enclosure. From there, we headed to the Uda Walawe Safari Village for lunch, which was pre ordered. Odd thing was, we couldn't eat the ordered packets there, coz while the cost of the packets was 250 each, staying there to eat it would raise it to 800 per head! We took the packets and left! I'm not sure how it was managed but we stopped at a house of a road side fruit seller on the road besides the electric fence and eat there. Setting out from there, everybody, full of lunch, and drowsing the heat (a/c in the van was intermittent, at best) promptly went to sleep. I only woke up in Tissamaharama where we were stopped for fuel. From here we headed straight for the Yala Village hotel.
We were a bit unlucky, in that the extremely dry weather had dried up most of the lake and the closure of the park for long periods had meant that the hotel was in a somewhat shabby state, but hopefully, the influx of tourism from the park reopening will mean the hotel can come back up to its full glory once the funds start coming in. The Yala Village is really quite an interesting concept. The guests are pretty much IN the jungle. The rooms are detached cabins on stilts away from the main reception and dining area, and guests are advised not to wander the grounds alone, specially at night due to wildlife. Sound advise, since the water collecting from the air conditioning unit in our room pools in the play underneath the room and wild boar come there to soak. This family of wild boar roam the hotel grounds freely and were having a drink at the hotel pond when we arrived, causing some excitement among the cousins. There is also an elephant that wanders the gounds, a huge male. We caught sight of it as we came back from Safaring, and it had apparently gone past the Grandmas' room while they were on the balcony! Its not reputed to be friendly. If we needed any further hints that we were in the jungle, we got it when my dad went to take a shower and found it occupied by a pencil thin snake about two and a half feet long. All the while my mum kept calling the reception with a constant stream of complaints (burnt out bulbs, missing towels, snakes etc) I'm sure they were glad to see the back of us when we left, business or no business :) The catering dept, however, kept a high standard of excellence right through our stay. So much so that I overate and ultimately couldn't have the last breakfast due to being sick and suffering a loss of appetite after eating so much! I also got some strange health issues whenever I got into an A/C environment, like the room or even the vehicle. Specifically, I couldn't breathe. Wierd sorta thing. Like being too full of food and no room to breathe.
Anyway, Safari was set for 5:30am, and everyone was set on time, we had hired a safari jeep and split the crowd between that and the pajero. This was a bad time of year for safari. It was incredibly dry and dusty, all the watering holes had dried into tiny slivers of water and patches of mud, and animals and birds just weren't there. Quite a contrast to six months ago. Doubly annoying was the fact that we were trailing the pajero in an open safari jeep, and the tracker was in the pajero, and Uncle Tissa was hammering around Yala like he was on some sorta rally. Kinda hard to take pics when you just zoom around without stopping. However, I did manage to take a few shots, including an enormous concentration of crocs at one of the few large waterholes left. There was one huge croc in particular, sitting around with its jaws gaping open with blood stained teeth. There was also a stranded buffalo and a calf in an island surrounded by crocs. Could have done some nice National Geographic style shooting if we stayed. Only managed the pic on the below. As it was a croc launched an unsuccessful attack on a flock of Pelicans while we watched. After poppsing out of the park for lunch at the hotel, we headed back in for round two, scoring some points over correctly identifing a bird near the crocs as a Lesser Adjutant, while Uncle Tissa got it wrong. Boo ya! Victory dance! The days highlight however, came as the sun was going down and we were preparing to leave the park. News of a leopard sighting caused us to rush to Pidurangala where we saw a leopard, extremely far off, almost out of sight, but I was able to finally spot it with the aid of the trusty 55-250mm. The leopard was pretty close to the coast, Which was sorta puzzling. I'd have expected them to be more in the heavily wooded interior. Anyway, with the leopard moving into hiding and a long line of vehicles forming, we cleared the area to resume the hunt, and .... promptly spotted another leopard on the other side of Pidurangala. This one was my sighting, as in, I saw it first, and got the jeep to stop. It was sitting on the peak of the rock, sillouetted against the sky, and obligingly got up and moved around. It too was at least a kilometer away, but thanks to the 12mpx and 250mm, I got some really jazzy shots. Not the quality to print and publish, but certainly good enough for us to see. Finally it moved to a position that left just the head showing and we decided to move. The driver put the vehicle in gear, started moving the vehicle .... and a bear popped out from behind some shrubbery at the lower part of the Pidurangala rock. I almost forgot to keep quiet in my excitement (First to spot it again :) ) and stopped the jeep. I got a series of shots, but another jeep rushing up scared it into moving back into the shrubbery. The parents in Uncle Tissa's jeep missed this one, coz they had already left after seeing the second leopard. We raced a round the park for a little longer in a futile attempt to see something else, but nothing came of it. However, after dropping off the tracker at the Park office, while heading back the last km to the hotel, my cousin spotted another leopard, this one about 10 meters away from the edge of the road. It was way too dark for photography, but I did manage a grainy image that needs a helluva lot of boosting, but manages to show the cat. There was also that Elephant I mentioned above wandering around the grounds of the hotel when we got back. It managed to scare the bejeezuz out of the van driver. This was a really massive male.
This was the end of the Safari portion. Praying that another tsunami wouldn't sweep us away, we headed off back to Colombo via the Galle Road next morning (after a sizable breakfast, which once again, I couldn't eat properly due to being sick). Again the Air conditioning on the van was acting very intermittently, so we fell asleep for most of that journey. Lunch break was at Weligama, at Barberyn Beach Hotel. Quite a fast run to get there for lunch! After wasting considerable time there, we hit the road again, heading to Barberyn Reef Hotel, Beruwala for tea, and a bit of splashing in the ocean. From here on, we just puttered on homewards, arriving after 7pm and worn out with all the traveling.
Wrap up : Family is fun to travel with, but not safari with. Didn't stop enough for pics, too much noise, and no interest in the uncommon. I much prefer safari adventures with Nilu, Ruwan and crowd, even if they do stop for too long for my tastes. Its a lot better than not stopping and rally racing around Yala! Yala Village Hotel needs quite a bit of work, tho I expect they will find it easier to operate now that tourism is coming back to the area and bringing in the revenue. They are quite actively promoting the place, even online. It definitely has huge amounts of potential if done right. Good enough that I would go and stay there again, and see if they have made progress. I'll give it 4 stars from 5, mostly on its excellent catering, and the fact that most of what needs fixing are minor niggles, which I'm sure will be attended to. Pictures I'll put up later. :)
