Yala Jungle Adventure!

After a quiet evening,  no alcohol served anyway due to the fact that it was the anniversary of the death of some bloke called Buddha, we woke fairly early and had a breakfast on the edge of the garden overlooking the sea whilst watching the turtles.

Day 1

After breakfast we packed up and got a tuk-tuk to the Matara bus station and got on a Bus to Kataragama (Or so we thought), it transpired that is wasn’t going directly there but to a village about 15Km away via every village in the area, so journey took around 3 ½ hours.

It’s at this point I found myself going all Jeremy Clarkson as Sri Lankan Bus drivers are a bit special, I think by the age of 20 they must have gone deaf and developed extremely large callouses  on their horn hands as it appears that 75% of the time they just sound their horn at anything else on the road.  The drivers also like to try and overtake anything whether it’s possible or not to do so, breaking at the last minute and pulling back in.

Apart from that the journeys are not too bad as all buses seem to have a sound system banging out Sri Lankan/Bangra music all the way, interspersed with the odd busker and people selling food and lottery tickets.  Also locals are very friendly helping us schlep our luggage on and off board and finding out where we are from and going to.

After another short bus ride and a quick tuk-tuk we arrived at our accommodation for the next 3 nights, Gem River Eco Lodge

Shelley taking over on this bit as evidently I write more ‘flowery’?...We arrived early evening in the rain so haven’t had a chance to explore yet but so far so good but will report back later!. .Its an Echo lodge and from what we’ve managed to see it looks absolutely stunning, tropical and what we imagined!!. We were greeted with tea and Sri Lankan dates. Both of us (Glenn and Shelley) are afraid to ask if they do beer!. We are here for 3 blissful nights so one of us had better grow some soon and ask if they do!

Internet however is bad, we made our way  near the office to try and pick it up and was traumatized by massive moths head butting us from all directions. We were told that they only live 15 mins and then their wings fall off and they die. I can’t vouch for this however as we only lasted about 5 mins before we took off for the sanctuary of our own veranda!. So, this blog will be posted late as neither of us want to go back there to post this!

Back to Glenn…In the evening the lodge cooked us our evening meal and it was served in a eating area/bamboo thatched lodge, built out of tree trunks and other Jungle hardware. All the food here is vegetarian however with all the different spices and exotic vegetables and fruits it was absolutely delicious (apart from the guava juice – which tasted like sweaty socks!)  Desert was Buffalo Curd and Honey, which was gorgeous, it tasted a bit like Sour Cream/Crème Caramel with the sweetness of the honey.

Then it was back to our lodge for an early night! Leopard spotting at 5AM, wish us luck!.

Day 2 Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My!

A long one today, its raining outside!

Best nights sleep ever!, clean sheets, no mozzies, decent pillows. Glenn actually sang along to the Alarm call at 4:30 AM which was a first!.

We met our driver/tracker for the day, the Eco Lodge told us that whilst he didn’t speak much English, he was a great tracker and very respectful of the wildlife and environment, a real Echo Warrior so we were in good hands!. So in the jeep we jumped and off we set to the jungle. With a short stop to pick up breakfast which consisted of Hoppa’s which are pancake type things made of rice flour and coconut. The locals spread them with chilli and roll them, the foreigners roll them with jam and banana. We had both, chilli won!

We wasn’t holding out too much hope for the Safari given our last adventure in India consisted of lots of monkeys, deer you would see in Richmond Park and supposedly a Tiger paw print!. Oh and about a dozen leeches each attached to our socks!. But hey ho, it would be a day out…

As we entered the park we saw wild boar, (not bad) Peacocks (like pigeons here) Richmond Park Deer and a mongoose. Then lots and lots and lots of birds!, Glenn will give you the load down on what these were but very exotic!. Off we went to look for Elephant and finally we found one before parking up by a lake to eat our Hoppa’s whilst watching the crocodile and other wildlife.

 After breakfast we found some monkeys, I was just about to take a pic when another jeep went by and mumbled something to our guy then off we went at break neck speed, a black bear had been spotted! Only about 12 in the whole park and very rarely seen! The land rover turned into a catapult and we landed there in time to see a beautiful black bear snuffling for Potatoes!. It came very VERY close to the 4x4 at times which you will see from the pics and the shaky lens!. Our driver was ACE at maneuvering us into the right position so the bear would come out right next to us. Weirdly though as we approached the scene he decided to reverse first to show us some mushrooms growing, weird?.

After the bear we headed for lunch on a beach, by this time our 4x4 had broken down a couple of times so our guy took the opportunity to do some running repairs on it whilst we chilled out eating noodles, Daal Curry and fruit. Lunch stop also gave him a chance to pick up a supply of ‘Sri Lanken chewing gum’ (we decided not to partake!) which he chewed on when he didn’t have a cig in his mouth, (I was growing fond of him!). 

Then it was off for the afternoon adventure, more mushroom spotting, lots more elephants, no leopards L. Then, we rounded a corner and there in front of us was the most AMAZING thing! a tree covered with Mushrooms!!! The tracker nodded at me apologetically then jumped out of the van in a flash, basket in hand and filled it to the brim whilst Glenn and I posted look out. I don’t know what these mushrooms were but he was very VERY pleased with himself, Magic!

Our eco friendly, slow driving, smoking, chewing, mushroom thieving tracker helped to make the trip for us!. We headed back to the lodge exhausted after a look at a jungle temple with a panoramic view of the park (amazing) and was greeted by the owner where we confirmed our Eco Warrior tracker lived up the lodges expectations!. AND I finally asked if they had beer!.

….there is only one place in the entire area that does beer which is a 5 star hotel a tuk-tuk drive away. Another night of abstinence Glennis!.

In the evening we had another lovely meal at the lodge, really interesting pest control as the flies & moths flying round the lights were being picked off by bats flying through the eating area over our heads.  The only downer was that the owner informed us of the tragic events in Paris, which was strange being do far away from it and not in touch with  the news up until that point. 

Day 3 – Sore Arse’s

After another peaceful night listening to the noises of the forest we had breakfast of Chilli Hoppa’s and then took up the offer to borrow a couple of bicycles and go  for a ride to the lake.

It was very pleasant passing by the local village seeing the kids jumping in and out of the river and washing. , then we got to the lake and rode alongside it, taking the views of paddy fields and all the various birdlife, which included more peacocks, Weaver birds and Storks.  However Shelley and I had to keep switching bikes as one had a razor blade for a saddle, meaning that as I type I am now sat on a large cushion!! 

When we got back to the lodge we chilled out a bit before going out in the evening.

Kataragama is Sri Lanka’s main Relegious town, boasting a sacred city that contained temples for Buddist’s, Hindu’s and Muslim’s all in the same location (which is how it should be).  This being the case we thought we should take in a bit of the local culture so we took a Tuk-Tuk to the bus station and tried to find our way there for the 6.30 offerings to the gods.  After about ½ an our of being pointed in all different directions by the helpful locals we eventually found the site.  For me the whole area reminded me of Margate pleasure beach as the Temple are very garishly decorated with fairy lights and neon’s.  At 6.15 they opened the doors to the main temple and let the local’s enter with their offerings, which was basically large and ornate bowl’s of fruit and the people just kept coming, I hope for their sake Shiva likes fruit!!!  It would appear the best occupation in Kataragama would be a fruit seller as this ceremony takes place every day.  The main purpose for this ceremony is to give the followers protection and they generally come and do this before a Marriage, change of job or house move, etc.

We then headed home to the lodge for one last home cooked vegetarian meal, another good night’s sleep before an early start in the morning to get the bus to Ella which is a tea growing area in the mountains.