4 sri lankan game reserves for 4 authentic safaris

Posted on May 6, 2024 by Rama Arya

What’s a visit to Sri Lanka without a safari in its iconic game reserves? Blessed with a rich heritage and oodles of natural beauty, the tropical island’s game reserves offer a peek into its third charm: a teeming wildlife. But which one should you go to? Here is a rundown of Sri Lanka’s four most famous ones, and what to expect from each, in no specific order. For not all game reserves are ever the same. 🙂

1. Udawalawe National Park

If elephants are what you are seeking, and that too in plenty, then head straight to the Udawalawe National Park. With a head count of around 500 and herds of 50-or-so roaming the grasslands, sighting of the wild Asian elephant is guaranteed in all its glory, all year round. In fact, be prepared to have multiple close encounters with the gigantic mammals who will oftentimes come right up to your safari vehicle. Smaller than their African counterparts, the Sri Lankan subspecies of the Asian Elephant you see is characterised by patches of depigmentation on its ears, face, trunk, and belly.

The 30,821-hectare park set up in 1972 is located just south of the Central Highlands and spreads around Udawalawe Reservoir. The catchment area provides water for both agriculture and hydropower needs, as well as serves as a gathering place for the park inhabitants. In addition to the Asian Elephants, these include large numbers of toque macaques, gray langurs, water buffaloes, sambar deer, spotted deer, jackals, foxes, and albeit fewer numbers of leopards and jungle cats.

Travel tip: The park is best explored on an afternoon game drive and can be clubbed together with a visit to Ella.

Herd of Sri Lankan Elephants, Udawalawe National Park.

Up close and personal, Sri Lankan Elephant, Udawalawe National Park.

Grandmother and grandchild, Sri Lankan Elephants, Udawalawe National Park.

Just born, Sri Lankan Elephant, Udawalawe National Park.

Blue-tailed Bee-eater, Udawalawe National Park.

2. Wilpattu National Park

For a truly unique safari experience, Wilpattu National Park wins hands down. Sidelined for almost three decades because of the civil war [the park is situated in the north-west of the country and was part of the disputed area], its lush landscape houses abundant game and birdlife. It is also the country’s largest reserve with a protected area of 131,693 hectares comprising red cliffs, dry lowland forest and clusters of water bodies called ‘Villu.’ Villus are exclusive to the area and shaped like shallow saucers surrounded with sand dunes and filled with rainwater.

Together with Yala National Park in the south-east of the country, it is the oldest game reserve to have been established in Sri Lanka; Both were founded in 1938. Some 40 Sri Lankan leopards along with endemic elephants and sloth bears call the park their home, and treat it like home. The lack of tourist traffic has led these animals to feel confident enough to walk in the open spaces without ducking and diving!

Travel tip: The park is best explored on a morning game drive. Recommended stay—Green Sapphire Holiday Resort, Wilpattu.

NOTE:
You may also like to read Global Travel Shot: Seeing eye-to-eye with the Sri Lankan Leopard at Wilpattu

Spotted Deer, Wilpattu National Park.

Sri Lankan Leopard, Wilpattu National Park.

Ruddy Mongoose, Wilpattu National Park.

Villu, saucer-shaped depressions filled with rainwater, at Wilpattu National Park.

Golden Eagle, Wilpattu National Park.

3. Minneriya National Park

Not till too long ago Minneriya National Park was Sri Lanka’s most popular choice to view the Asian Elephant. A ranking which has dropped over time due to rising water levels in its tank [especially as of 2024] and the subsequent migration of its wildlife to adjoining ‘Eco Parks.’ But it is still an incredibly beautiful reserve comprising of canopy forests, scrub, and wetlands, where elephants frolic in the large water tank, endemic monkeys scramble over dense forest canopy, and deer play hide and seek in the groves.

Located a short distance from Sigiriya, the 8,890-hectare area started off as a wildlife sanctuary in 1938, and was granted national park status in 1997. Life in the park revolves around the 3rd Century King Mahasena’s water tank [wewa] which becomes a focal point for elephants in the dry season. Mahasena had built 16 such water tanks during his reign; however, it was the Minneriya tank that earned him the title Minneri deviyo, meaning ‘God of Minneriya,’ in the eyes of his subjects.

Travel tip: A safari in Minneriya National Park is best clubbed with a visit to Sigiriya.

Dancing Indian Peafowl, Minneriya National Park.

A happy young male Sri Lankan Elephant, Minneriya National Park. Notice the tusks. Only male elephants of the species have tusks.

Canopy Forests, Minneriya National Park.

Gray Langur/ Hanuman Langur, Minneriya National Park.

Minneriya Wewa, Minneriya National Park.

4. Yala National Park

Yala National Park, Sri Lanka’s most famous game reserve bang on the island’s south-east coast has always been an all-time favourite for both tourists and locals alike. And this is no recent phenomenon. Even when I was a child and living in Kandy, a stayover in Yala was a given part of holidays. After all, the country’s entire animal kingdom is here along with a bird species count of 215. The cherry on the cake: 130,000 hectares of grasslands, lagoons, and scrub eventually merging into sand dunes to face the iridescent blue of the Indian Ocean.

To further add to its lure are two ancient Buddhist pilgrimage sites inside, including caves with rock paintings, and the belief that Yala was the Kingdom of Ravana, the antagonist in the Hindu epic Ramayana. The downside of all this amassed fame is that Yala gets extremely crowded. And that is an understatement.

Tasked with protecting the island’s wildlife since 1900, first as a sanctuary and from 1938 onward as a national park, Yala functioned on a completely opposite tangent prior to this—it used to be a hunting ground for the elite during British rule!

Travel tip: The park is best explored at sunrise. Recommended nearby stay—Blue Turtle Hotel, Tissamaharama.

Sri Lankan Leopard resting on a tree branch, Yala National Park.

Safari jeeps lined up for a view of the leopard, Yala National Park.

Mugger Crocodile, Yala National Park.

Asian Water Buffalo with calf, Yala National Park.

Southern edge of Yala National Park.

On an endnote, and this is inspired from fellow blogger Bama’s comment below: if you are unable to experience Sri Lanka’s fabulous game reserves, for whatever reason, fret not. You will most likely come across at least one magnificent male Sri Lankan elephant [even one perhaps sporting a majestic pair of tusks], right next to you on the highway in the Habarana-Sigiriya area. The male species are solitary wanderers. Once they cross puberty they leave the herd, and their male egos don’t exactly support male bonding. Alpha male, did I hear someone say. 😀

Young male Sri Lankan Elephant taking a stroll on a highway, Habarana-Sigiriya area.

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P.S. All my safari bookings and transport to and from the parks were arranged by Sanjeewa of Sanara Travels. He can be contacted on WhatsApp at +94 76 941 5579. I booked my hotels directly.

[Note: This blog post is part of a series from my solo independent travels to Sri Lanka. To read more posts in my Sri Lanka series, click here.]

the road less travelled: delft island

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Rama Arya

Forty kilometres off the northern coast of Sri Lanka, is its farthest island—Delft.

It is an unusual name to come across for a tropical island in the Indian Ocean. After all, there is not much in common between the bleached island and the picture postcard region in Netherlands where white glazed pottery with blue decorations have been historically made. The 18th Century Dutch colonial rulers obviously felt differently; for them it was a perfect fit for their new home. Perhaps a gentle reminder of their roots in faraway lands.

Remote and sparsely populated, Delft is the largest island in the Palk Strait which separates Sri Lanka from the Indian subcontinent. Eight kilometres wide and 5.5 kilometres long, it is not just its name which is out of the ordinary. Delft Island used to be a coral reef in the distant past as revealed by the petrified coral chunks strewn on its emerald green beaches. Sans any streams, potable water is limited to catchment areas for surface water and a few pockets of ground water.

Despite these challenges, 1,300 Tamil Christian and Hindu families call the island their home today; their houses clustered around compounds in the north. Empty, windswept scrublands meanwhile stretch out in the south, right up to the rugged charred coastline. Continue reading →

travel diaries: hiking through the horton plains

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Rama Arya

There is a deafening silence as I enter the Horton Plains in the wee hours of the morning. Above me, the silver sun is still trying to find its way back into the sky. It is not an easy task.

A thick blanket of mist and cloud engulf me, the golden blades of montane grass, and the sand-spattered 3.5-billion-year-old Precambrian-era boulders. Every now and then a slight drizzle kisses my upturned face. I peer through the mist, strain my ears for another human sound. A footstep, laugh, threads of a conversation. All I can hear is my own breath. I look at my phone. There is no signal. Continue reading →

travel shorts: hill country—nuwara eliya to ella by train

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Rama Arya

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Most travellers are of the opinion that the only real way to see Sri Lanka is by train. And that of all the rail journeys through the sparkling tropical island, the most beautiful is the one from Nanu Oya [near Nuwara Eliya] to Demodara [near Ella] in the heart of ‘hill country.’ They are not wrong. 🙂

Built in the mid-19th Century by the British colonizers, the train’s primary purpose for the longest time was to transport crates of tea leaves and coffee from the mist-wrapped estates to Colombo Port. The segment from Nuwara Eliya, a colonial town, to Ella, a village steeped in Hindu mythology, is a tourism institution of sorts today. Continue reading →

global travel shot: seeing eye-to-eye with the sri lankan leopard at wilpattu

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It was a bit hard for me to decide which to be more in awe of. The surreal deep red earth covered in lush jungle and sparkling pools [villu as they are locally called]. Or the Sri Lankan Leopard that sauntered past me, a mere hour into the game drive. Both, the leopard and I stared at each other. At some level, I guess, we saw eye-to-eye. He was the actual star of the show.

Wilpattu National Park on Sri Lanka’s north-west coast is not the country’s most popular game reserve. But, hands down, it provides the most authentic experience.

At 2 percent of the country’s land mass, it is Sri Lanka’s largest reserve. It is also one of the oldest—established in 1938 with around 40 Sri Lankan Leopards prowling through the heart of the national park. There are also Sri Lankan elephants, sloth bears, and a prolific bird-life, who I, however, think, fall a little short in comparison to the graceful feline. None of them stare back as piercingly as the latter.

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[Note: This blog post is part of a series from my solo independent travels to Sri Lanka. To read more posts in my Sri Lanka series, click here.]

jaffna: the unexplored north of sri lanka

Posted on April 1, 2024 by Rama Arya

Twenty-six years of civil war is a long time. A whole generation grows up exposed to the horrors of war, stripped of their right to education, health-care, and utilities. It is hard for one living in a ‘secure’ country to even fathom such dreadfulness day in and day out, year in and year out.

Sri Lanka’s LTTE-Sinhalese civil war started on 23 July, 1983 and ended on 19 May, 2009, during which an estimated 40,000 civilians died according to a UN Experts Report. Those who could leave, left the country. Root causes of the civil war were a series of anti-Tamil riots following independence in 1948 and the 1956 Government Act which recognized Sinhalese as the only official language.

Fuelled further by the government’s citizenship and education policies, it led to the creation of the LTTE or Tamil Tigers, as they were known, and their demand for a separate Tamil state ‘Tamil Eelam.’

Suicide bombers were a trademark of the Tamil insurgency. Even India, Sri Lanka’s neighbour, could not be immune to it. India’s ex-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991 by a 22-year-old female LTTE suicide bomber.

Jaffna [Yalpanam in Tamil] on the northern tip of Sri Lanka, was the epicentre of this civil war which spread across the island’s northern and eastern coastlines. Mutilated factories, bombed homes, and walls pock-marked with gunshots are still scattered throughout the city and its surrounds. An echo of its turbulent past.

Three things, by some miracle, have survived from the nearly three decades of fighting: One, the region’s places of worship—magnificent colourful Hindu temples, poignant grand churches, and sacred Buddhist sites—two, its bygone colonial ruins, and three, a bunch of remote sleepy isles on the Palk Strait in the Indian Ocean. Continue reading →

the sigiriya frescoes: king kassapa I and his 500 damsels

Posted on March 25, 2024 by Rama Arya

477 AD. Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.

29-year-old Prince Kassapa was filled with a deep burning desire to be king. So deep, it seemed to completely engulf him. To be the ruler of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka’s ancient historical spiritual heart. How wondrous would that be!

And he would have been. Could have been. Except for one problem. His mother was the non-royal wife of Moriya King Dhatusena. The rightful heir to the coveted throne was his young half-brother Moggallana, offspring of his father’s chief consort.

Not to be deterred, Kassapa I, also known as Kashyapa I, decided to lead a palace coup with the help of Migara, the army commander who had a personal grudge of his own against the king. Young Moggallana, meanwhile, managed to escape, and took refuge in South India.

When Kassapa demanded to know the location of his father’s treasury, his imprisoned father responded saying Anuradhapura’s water tank was his one-and-only treasure. Miffed on hearing this, Kassapa had his father entombed alive.

For the rest of his life, Kassapa’s subjects and rivals, as well as the local Buddhist monks, would call him Pithru Ghathaka Kashyapa meaning Kashyapa the Patricide. It was a label he would not be able to shake off even after death.

In a bid to start afresh, away from public disgrace and the threat of a possible future retaliation by Moggallana, Kassapa moved his capital 75 kilometres south. Here, deep in Sri Lanka’s tropical plains stood a 180-metre-high monolith volcanic rock pillar with unhindered 360-degree views for miles on end. Continue reading →

photo essay: unravelling turkmenbasy, the rukhnama, and ashgabat

Posted on February 26, 2024 by Rama Arya

To know Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital, is to know the country’s first President and dictator Saparmurat Niyazov. And to know the Rukhnama, his autobiography and ‘words of wisdom’ for his people, is to know both. 🙂

Here is a photo essay of the three, with excerpts from the Rukhnama [the first and second volumes]. For no other three—a man, his book, and a city—are more closely intertwined than Turkmenbasy [Niyazov], the Rukhnama, and Ashgabat.

“When you read Rukhnama, you shall be purified, justified; your life and existence shall have a justification; your objectives and intentions shall be fulfilled. Your existence among the Turkmen shall be accepted!”

Continue reading →

11 memorable experiences only to be had in turkmenistan

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Rama Arya

Tourist number: 1933.

It is the early hours in the morning of 1 October, and I am at the gleaming falcon-shaped marble-encased airport in Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan. I ask the official at the visa counter what does this line on my entry stamp mean. He explains that 1,932 tourist visas had been issued in 2023 before mine. I am 1,933rd. This does not include the 3-to-7-day transit visas, by-the-way.

With a silly grin plastered on my face, I tell him he has no idea how much it means to have that sticker on my passport. Many months of planning and three back-to-back flights, from Goa to Muscat to Dubai to Ashgabat, and I am finally, finally here.

I guess my enthusiasm is contagious. The otherwise poker-faced official gives a little smile and wishes me a happy stay. I respond with a beaming grin.

Outside, shifting lights on the airport’s facade recreate a falcon’s flapping wings. Continue reading →

time-travel and dinosaur plateaus in remote north-east turkmenistan

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Rama Arya

Lebap Province in north-east Turkmenistan is as remote as it gets in this Least Visited Country. Filled with moonscapes, a dinosaur plateau scalloped with around a couple of hundred, 150-million-year-old footprints of Megalosaurians during the Jurassic Period, deep canyons, and grottoes dedicated to saints and wishes, it is untouched by tourism. No-one speaks English here either.

To put things in context, Turkmenistan does not allow tourists to travel independently through the country. Neither can one simply travel to any random part of the country that tickles one’s fancy. There are designated places one is allowed to explore, and when out of Ashgabat, one must be accompanied with a licensed local guide.

Not many people visit Turkmenistan. The average number is less than 10,000 annually excluding the 3-to-7-day transit visas. Even fewer make it to its remote north-east. One of those rare ones was me. 😀

Here is my photo diary on this part of the world. I hope it inspires you to take the road less travelled, in this case time-travel to Lebap Province! Continue reading →