Hanthana

It was 0700 hours when we got on to the kandy-colombo intercity express train, headed to Kandy, picked up by Lalith who took us to the starting point,with heavy bags we started to hike up to the mountain,5minites of climbing and I was panting the most it was quite a steep climb,but every pause we took to glance over the mountain ranges, the clear blue sky with a few patches of clouds gave us enough reasons and strength to hike on for ever.

A few minutes into the hike we reached the top of Hanthane,only to be stopped by the angry voice of a police man, I presume, his message was clear, “this is a high security zone and you are not to enter, please leave immediately unless you want to end up at the police station”

We were Thoroughly disappointed, and I was getting really mad over the “hadisi neethiya” and the Sri lankan defence,how ever though Sri lankan govt passes laws and regulations at their will, this was Sri lanka after all and we were Sri lankans,

So we obeyed and hiked back down(kuko wage),HAHA but only to walk a few more km in order to to be out of sight of that cruel man and to start climbing up hantane again.

Hanthana Cliffs

We climbed up thorough a gap, and we started to have our lunch, our dining area was the best you can have, fresh wind blowing at you and the warm sun making the best combination. We spent a few min giving a rest to our feet, while we gave no rest to our eyes which was glued to the splendid creation of God, knee high grass all around you with rocks placed like a flock of sheep, the green filed mountain range, the clear blue sky this was truly spectacular. This was truly a site which will remain in my heart.

Ok it was the cruel policeman which made our hike more adventurous, as we couldn't go towards him we had to hike the other way which was thick forest, and to make it cooler it didn't have a trail. We all decided to enter, half way through the bush waking we felt we needed to start marking as we need to come back we made a few marks going in was easy as we only had to walk without any guidance, however after some long hard hiking up the forest the sun hide it self-leaving us with a misty air, we could hardly see 10feet away from us. After we came to a clearing we took a small break afterwards we decided it was time to head back.

Only 2min after turning back we realized that we are not on track ,the mist made it very difficult, as I knew some where around us is the cliff so I did not want any one blindly walk and fall off the cliff,how ever after long min of searching we found the trail we came on and actually for real we had to trace back our own foot prints, this was totally cool I must say, every one putting together all in there memory such as “hey I remember this tree” or “i think this is the fungi tree we stopped to take a picture” Helped us to stay on track at least for quite a long time.

How ever we soon realized we were lost,yes we were lost for real, I always wanted to get lost but have to say I was really worried,but I knew the Lord will take us out from this small yet thick jungle,and rightly so we got out,it was victory moment every one cheered and clapped in joy,by this time the mist cleared it self away so we were able to spot mahawali river which told us the direction we needed to walk. It was 4 45 and we had about 1 ½ hours of daylight and we needed to get down,with the victorious exist we were all pumped up so we decided to take a route which we did not know where it will lead us to but we knew it will lead somewhere.

With heavy walking at super fast pace, and some times even jogging,we climbed down this was because we had to race with daylight ,we ended up at sarasavi gama around 6 30 about 15km away from kandy,getting on to a three wheeler we headed home,

YES WE DID IT, thank you Jesus for being our guide and keeping us safe :)

2011