Kandy by Train

Bible Rock 

I’m Finally Writing on the move, Kandy is the destination this time, This is One journey which have been on the side-line waiting to be written upon, However going to Kandy is an everyday journey, but this doesn’t let the beauty fade away!

I’m traveling by train the most preferred out of a few options, and if anyone would ask me what’s the Best way to get to Kandy I would most certainly say that it is by  train, The intercity train makes your ride faster in fact the fastest ways thus far, Oh I forgot about the Air taxi :P. You could start this Journey either early in the morning or late in the afternoon like I am right now, The First part of the journey is more about flat land, but not just any, some of them being cultivated with the Rice crop, it is an Ideal site to see to the Eyes of a perfectionist, for some reason or another I see a  field of rice crop brings in a lot of hard work, I see it every time along my journeys, let it be preparation or harvesting.

Amazing sites off the Foot board

Along this journey I meet a lot of travellers and I do get a chance to exchange views, one of them being they just loved traveling on the Foot board of the train, It never clicked me enough cause for me travelling on the foot board is more a norm than an extra ordinary act, however I do know its danger and believe it’s not for the faint hearted :P But let me encourage everyone to at least try it once! It doesn’t have to be by yourself though. I am encouraging you not because I want to make you into a stunt man/woman but only for you to experience the beauty of nature with no frame in the picture.

Alagala

Bouncing the way further into the mountains you begin to feel the unruly nature a little bit more, no mountain seem to look the same and the vegetation begins to change. This is the best part of traveling to Kandy on the train, This is the time I stand up and move to the footboard, but be aware a bridge might be on its way just like the one I passed right now, the bridges gives you sprouts of difference, every time you go on one of them, everything sounds different and if you look over your window you are sure to see a lovely river or creak flowing through two mountains, It’s simply amazing.

Roughly after passing the 3^rd or 4rth tunnel or Kadigamuwa to be more précised you got to be alert while the left stands out with roaring mountains the right(side) gives you a glimpse of how cool Sri lanka could be, Mountains next to each other the sun Brightly shining down at them, few seem to stand out, out of all the mountains(may be because I climbed them my self but) I am sure that no one would miss Bible rock or bathaleygala, a rectangle shaped mountain which looks just like sigiria this stands out while the rest make it look better, the whole picture is quite hard to explain but it is a full 180dgrees of pure awesomeness of it’s Creator, I hope I didn’t underwrite the left hand side of the journey lol, right after passing ihala kotte you got to look up on to your original left where you will see Alagala not lacking a bit of it’s Mightiness, A high mountain with scary cliff which might tempt you to ab-sail hehe,

This is one awesome Journey you all need to do, and now with “exporail” people with all comfort zones can take this trip.

The Train ride to kandy is simply amazing

Grand Tourer ;)

Galle Light House

So since I tend to drive fast(according to thathi) he thought of letting me drive on the Sothern Highway the first highway in sri lanka and the Joke is “Finially the SL highway Minister can call himself the highway minister-Nissanka”lol any way we started early in the morning and reached the entry point at 0646 hours, and Started our drive along the highway 110 kmph was my maximum(that’s all the car could handle hehe) so I was pretty happy the speed limit was 100kmph, so I drove along the highway at a constant speed of 100kmph overtaking a few conservative drivers who chose to drive not at the top speed, and to be overtaken by the others, The landscape is quite a nice mainly with Rubber plantations and paddy fields which were bisected by the construction of the highway, But honestly Driving along it is not as interesting as I thought as all what I did was shift gears from four to five and visa versa, but the good thing is you get to Gall in 1 hour and 1 min, in pretty good comfort, We soon arrived in gall and took the left turn towards Unawatuna, I was warned by Niru that       

                                                                Unawatuna was in a state of “unrests” However thathi and I  

                                                                decided it’s fine let’s just go check it out.

Jungle Beach Unawatuna 

                                                         

Snorkeling in Unawatuna

So we did and we soon managed to talk to a boat dude who talked of the Corals and fish out in the yonder, so we were pretty much taken by his words and there we boarded what was one of the most terrible journeys I’ve been on, Looking down at the bottom of the glass boat made me sick instantaneously, and by the time we got to the spot where we were supposed to snorkel I was dizzy and feeling the motion sickness, but I managed myself off the boat and into the water I grabbed a life jacket cause I  was that bad, and I managed to swim with a bit of fish but I couldn’t enjoy it much as wobbling on the waves didn’t help the cause either, so after snorkelling for a little while I swam back to the boat where I puked L, thathi didn’t find it easy as well, he too was battered up by the dizzy boat ride, we soon came back to the beach where I managed to rest my head under the warm sun, we both did but thathi got up after a little while grabbed the snorkels and went snorkelling closer to the beach he waved signs of good fish so after he was done I too went into the sea and started snorkelling, Wow it was truly amazing even though I would still rate Nilawelli as the best and would never forget the first with Nissanka, This was pretty good too I mean I saw quite a number of fish and I loved it. 

I was really hungry so was thathi so then we took off to have lunch there we saw the Jungle Beach having gone there before I knew it would be nice so we drove ourselves to the Jungle beach it was just us and a couple of tourists and had the whole beach to our selves, it was a nice experience. After which we went up to the temple which gives you a bird eye view of the Gall town we saw the Gall Fort in the distance and there we decided to go there as well, The buildings inside Fort was so nice specially the once which were refurbished, we walked along the rampart and there we had a “hello king coconut” or better known as Thambili hehe, which was so refreshing.

it was time to say Good bye to Gall thathi suggested that we take the normal route back to Colombo as the sea and the sunset would be nice, and I yes I was happy as the highway was quite a boring ride( but I loved it too ), any way the way back was so fast, and the gear shifts and all the revving up when overtaking is way more cooler than on the highway, even though I had two close calls with the cops :P, I was going over a double line and they saw, I got a bit freaked out but thank God they didn’t pull me over, any way  it was so fast that we even missed a bathing spot which we planned on, but luckily we didn’t miss the sea turtle farm in kosgoda, there we saw sea turtles being helped to survive in the smallest ways.

Sri Lankan sun set

The sun was setting it was a bright yellow at first so we decided to just pull over, and watch the sun set, I managed to find a comfortable rock with a back rest where I gazed out into the ocean waiting till the sun gets dipped down in the horizon, the sun was so bright yet so clear it changed from yellow, bright yellow, orange and finally red it was indeed a treat to watch the sun set, and when the sun did dip itself for the night, thathi said “I hope you would enjoy many sunsets with the one God has planned for you” hehe infact that’s pretty much it, I’ve been thinking too while I saw it set lol. Any way with that we started our way back to our car and started our drive back, Soon darkness set in and I had to use lights and it was terrible I saw dozens and dozens of silhouetted figures running about on the road it was so difficult to drive, specially the cycles which didn’t even had a reflectors. So I thought its best if I pull over and give the wheel to my father, so we did and soon found ourselves at home where we sipped into one of ammi’s tasty iced coffee.

Grand tourer ;)
15.12.11 with thathi 

Hiker's Paradise

Hiking in the Knuckles range is supposed to be heaven, and it is truly a hikers paradise, We hiked manin gala, this mountain is used to check the time by the locals in early days, We started climbing at around 9000hours  and we actually hiked the whole day, Getting to the top was a bit tough to all of us, but being at the top of the mountain was such great feeling, It was a clear day with a clear blue sky, but soon clouds took over not too much to take away the sunshine but it was one of those days which makes it great with any kind of weather, actually it was super!! We came to a stream where we took a well earned rest and there we had lunch, refreshed our selves and started climbing again hoping to reach mini worlds end before the light could fade off, and we did.

On top of  Mannin Galla

Hiking in Knuckles 

i have been to mini worlds end on number off times before but this time our guide took us to a corner where the wind from all over gets capped into a small channel and it shoots it self up, and it was a thriller of feeling the power of the wind right on you, Getting to that spot was a another challenge on its self, cuz we had to crawl our way there to reduce the surface area that is hit by the strong winds!

We didnt want to meet any herds of elephants whom were reported to have been roaming at dawn, so we quickly walked back to the place we were staying, it was a hike to remember totally loved it! and surly made me want more,

Some things are better kept as secrets

I dont want to write my experiences on this particular hike so i thought of posting a poem i wrote after coming back home :)

You’ll simply not know

Some grow tall while the others stay short,

I will never understand what stands them apart,

To me it’s a mystery that I’ll sure be a part,

But until that day you’ll be in my Heart.

When I look back down into the depths,

I wonder why I grow so tall,

You will laugh cuz you know I’m not tall,

But I will simply smile cuz you don’t know it all.

Bambi J 

Hiking in the mountains of babarakanda,with Not two hands less but with 10 hands more(Dinuk,Osanda,Pathum,Nevaan and Aloker). And with the prayers of So many.

Aug 2011

A story of a kayaking Trip

Nissanka, my friend from childhood arrived in the the Island for Christmas. So I together with my father thought it would be nice to spend a couple of days with Nissanka and Arinda. And thus a story of a kayaking trip begins.

Miracle valley was our destination, even though I’ve seen a couple of pictures which were not so impressive I’ve heard of so many happy groups who totally enjoyed their stay over at miracle valley. Ari sadly could not make it with us due to his busy schedule, So we set off from nissa’s house at around ten in the morning, after driving for some time we were picked up by Priyanka from the top of the road, Priyanka was such a nice host, the hospitality shown by him was the “icing of the cake” of our whole trip.

So we walked along a footpath which ran in parallel with a stream, I at once knew this would be such a nice experience, the clean white water finding itself around the rocky stream the green canopy above you and the smell of forest set the tone of our whole trip. We soon arrived at miracle valley I was really excited nissa was too, Priyanka has built the place in such a way that it blends into the environment. The veranda all around the house made the stay such a relaxing stay over, even though it was action packed. Priyanka soon showed us around even the kitchen this made me feel at home.

Kayaking in Randenigala Sri lanka

After a few minutes of relaxing over a nice cup of coffee, we decided to go kayaking, so we started to stack up the kayaks on top of priyanka’s hand held tractors, it was a tough piece of metal and looked a hard one to master it’s manures, but priyanka did it fineJ, as we walked in hand with the tractor to the waters priyanaka explained to us all the technical details of the tractor which only nissa and my father understood hehe.

Soon afterwards we were ready to paddle our way on the reservoir, with a few instructions we were off to the very beginning of randenigala reservoir, paddling along the lake was breath taking experience the colour of the water was like the green feathers on the peacocks which were along the banks walking around, I was so happy to look around and not see one single roof of a house, after a bit of paddling we pulled up the kayaks into the banks and walked on foot jumping from one rock to the other  just like free runners(form of urban acrobatics), the rocks were all carved by the mighty force of water into different uniquely shaped rocks even though it was all similar, after a bit of jumping around rocks we walked our way back to the kayaks. Where we set out to the cliff priyanka promised me that I could jump off into the water, I was highly excited but nervous at the same time. And Nissanka opted not to jump off as he has developed a back ack after attempting such a jump, with this at the back of the head I just couldn’t afford a bad jump, this made me worry but not enough to keep me from jumping, so I went like a brave soldier but decided to jump off a tiny cliff first just to get a feeling, after a couple of jumps on the tiny cliff I climbed my self up on to the tall cliff. My heart was pumping in more blood, this was definitely a “first” for me, as I looked below to the waters it looked as if it was miles below, with a big breath and a small prayer I lept out and into the water I hit, it took a age for me to hit the water but after I came up I was screaming in joy, WOW that was so awesome.

lol this is not the cliff i jumped from ok? :P

Just one jump didn’t fill my thirst so I had couple of more jumps before calling It a day, and after all that we paddled our way back, I was cold and needed to have a shower so I thought a hot shower would be perfect but then the little stream made both nissanka and I to have a outdoor bath instead, Trust me the water felt so clean and fresh, with that we cleaned ourselves and went for dinner, It was thosey and it was really yummy, I ate quite a lot as I was really hungry, both tiered we called it a day and went to sleep,

Nissanka apparently woke even before the rooster and yea he took the place of the rooster by waking me up early the next morning, we had rotte for breakfast, the food tasted really good as all the meals did. Ahead of us lied another day of kayaking this time a lot of kayaking, so we packed in bits of food and off we set out in our kayaks, The lush greenery around me made me feel so blessed to having able to come on this trip, Nissa from the back of the kayak too enjoyed the view all around he too was taken in awe of the scenic beauty just like the rest of us, we kayaked our way forward as we went pass wildlife, My thathi and Priyanka even managed to spot a deer family we were a little late for that, but we could see schools of tiny fish swimming below the green waters. We soon entered into a magical land it was such a “storybook” moment, I have never experienced nature in this form before. This magical land had a river running into the reservoir and both Nissanka and I went into the white water on our kayaks just for the fun of it, and indeed it was fun and I’m longing for that day when I get to ride on white water. So there again we pulled in our kayaks on to the banks and set off on foot, bare foot rather along the river, I was reminded of the day when myself thathi and ammi walked along the mahawalie when the river was a bit dry this was back in the day, so with that memory in the back of my head we kept on walking both in water and out on the banks, the river was full of white water i almost wanted jump off into the water with my life jacket on so that it would wobble me down stream.

We took rest on top of flat rock where we had our snacks and we were off to our kayaks once again, we decided to pull in once more but this time it was to fish, Priyanka hooked the first fish and this proved to be good fishing ground, and soon the fishing lines started to hook fish one after the other, both nissanka and I managed to hook a few fish as well, The feeling of hooking a fish is sensational there again I was reminded of my first ever fishing trip with thathi along the banks of mahawali, I will never forget that! So with fish packed up on the kayak we head off to Miracle vally, the story of a kayaking trip ended here, It ended here but will always have a place in my mind where it will tie in hand with nissanka,

Miracle Valley with Thathi, Nissanka And Bambi (me) lol
December 2011

Adam's Peak

Adam's Peak Sri lanka

Adams Peak is Climbed by most Sri Lankans, Partly as it is a Pilgrimage mainly for Budhist, how ever i later learned that it is not just budhist, but all four major religions claim some thing or another of the mountain. This is a good thing at least then we sri lankans get to experience the impeccable beauty of the creation,from the mountain tops.
Our Journey started off at around 2000hours from kandy, Myself(bambi),Nissanka and Tehani being the once in  urge of adventure accompanied by Saman and his nephew for whom it was a pilgrimage, We arrived at the foot of the mountain driven by Bernard in his van on the way we managed to spot a lone sambar, this made my blood pump in even harder. As soon as we started climbing i felt such a relief so did the others as to the fact that we were finally climbing Adam's peak. it was more of a climbing up steps this didnt help me as my stride was constrained to a tiny half a foot of a step, but slowly we climbed our selves up.

On top of Adam's peak

Sun rise, Adam's peak

Pilgrims both young and old have a great way to forget about the toughness of the terain, this is something i do as well even though i am aware that it takes even more energy, once in a way hum a tune or two when i climb just like that, the Pilgrims sing songs this is more of self motivational songs(kavi), with all that we pressed on forward both Nissanka and Tehani doing really well,

I cant exatcly remember the time, but we reached almost to the top having a good 2 hours to spare(i think), so there we oppened Nissanka's (pitty(floor)-full))aggalla and to make it even better Tehani's (suger free)coffee, Didnt we have the biggest of laughs in that cold night? gosh we did!

and soon we decided to go to the top of adams peak, there were so many to witness the sunrise, And with people from all over the world we watched the Sun rise, through the mountain tops I loved every bit of it!! words cannot tell how much you feel up there!

Adams peak with Nissanka, Tehani, Saman, Saman's nephew and Myself
January 4th 2012

Alagalla

Hiking our way to Alagala

Arrived in kandy at Midnight and I walked my way to my grandparents’ house where I tucked myself in bed only to be woken up to the loud tune of “Mr Saxso Beat” (my alarm) early the same morning. Soon I hurried myself in getting dressed and tying   my shoe laces and packing up all the water bottles and food to be taken on the hike, I was in one pretty bad state for hiking , as I had a terrible cough and also was grasping for breath, so just to be on the safe side I swallowed a pill which easers the breathing, and off I went to the station to be met by Joash, later   pramith and Nilesh , and soon having grouped ourselves off we bounded a train heading to Colombo.

The train ride was quite a small ride as we were only going up to ihala kotte, during which we treated ourselves with some yummy wadeys which could have been the cause for all that “padeys” which later filled the air lol .

The train stopped as to what I believed was ihala kotte but I wasn’t exactly sure as I saw no board but I trusted my instincts and we all got off, yes we were at the right station!!soon we followed the foot  path which Broaden itself to some jeep tracks and suddenly I saw a green snake a “ahata ulla” it was funny the way Joash reacted he totally got freaked out even though he proved himself to be a good hiker J.

On top of Alagala

Along the way Nilesh was quick to spot yohan, I meant to say a Bison or at least a look alike ;) since we were missing yohan we all thought it was a good idea to take a picture with the bison, and as we approached it we soon found ourselves getting caught up in the mud nilesh was the smartest who quickly droped the quest while me and pramith went forth and there by getting our feet all wet and covered with Mud. I like muddy shoes any way so it wasn’t a bad choice either, as we climed a bit further on our left lay the Mighty Mountain “alagalla” , It was so tall and indeed it looked to be a steep climb I was soon reminded by what my father spoke of alagalla which he climbed in his young days,  and I was happy and proud to be doing it myself along with my friends. As we gazed into the rock even more pramith found a interesting image which surly looked to be a bit like a butt, with funny little jokes popping quit often we marched our way up in through a tea estate and into the border of the alagalla reservation we came.

As we entered we surly noticed the change in vegetation and much to our surprise the undergrowth became even more nasty the slope of the climb didn’t help either, We soon stopped to take a water break but we just realized that we were running out of water nothing seemed to be going right as we soon realized there were dozens of leaches attacking us, leaches later proved to be real bloody and naughty as one even crept up to my groin and was sucking away blood luckily I had tight underpants!! Hehe any way none of these stopped us from pushing ourselves to the top, as of the previous experiences I knew all of this will pay off once you know that you have done it. And if you’re lucky enough to have a clear day you will be overwhelmed by the beauty all around you.

We were Blessed with a clear day that day, the sky was spotless it was a clear blue sky , and as we soon hiked our way through some tough bush- waking  we were amazed at the beauty around us, it’s just unexplainable, I’m quite sure even the best of writers will find it hard to write how they feel.
At that moment you are Tired, bruised, beaten up But when you look beyond ,everything just flows off and Joy fills the air , I know that every hike will not be a clear  and bright, so I made it a point to enjoy God’s creation on a bright sunny day.

 We hadn’t reached the summit yet but we were just a few meters below it,  the last phase is a bit tricky as you got to do a bit of rock climbing I was once reminded of what My seeya said “be care full the last part is really dangerous” , so I knew I got to be careful and not just me the whole bunch especially the younger one out of the lot(joash) , Both me and pramith went in for the climb first but as usual I was getting all nerves, I mean indeed this was real tough, what’s tough is never the climb what’s tough is knowing what’s below you, to be precise there is nothing below you for a good kilometre or so, I have gotten over the fear of heights to a great extent but still rock climbing isn’t my thing, any way pramith bravely went before me and he soon reached the summit, we could hear him bellowing  in Joy!!  Up in the distance, the blood  started pumping In I really wanted to dash up as well but I kept my nervous down as we had to help our little joash up the rocks, He did really well for his maiden hike actually he did brilliant!! And with a very very awkward leap he lost his virginity!! Lol.

On top of Alagala

On our way to alagala

The scenery was Spectacular We were awed by what we saw, I was soon to spot Bible rock, Uthuwankanda, Ambuluwawa , Hanthane , Knuckles , and hunasgiriya(this I’m not sure), and the little mountains made it such a  wonderful master piece of the Creator.

With hunger setting in we opened the Tin sardine and made the “choristers’ salmon paste”( a secret recipe ;)),which we ate, but soon we realized that what we were actually looking for was for some liquid. The baking hot sun didn’t help the cause either, weary we were to head straight back down, So we opted to hide ourselves from the baking hot sun by going into a cave like structure where we took refuge from the sun. There we engaged in singing songs and making harmony, as singing was a common trait among the four of us.

After a one final visit to the summit, we started our hike back the mountain, this was the funniest and the craziest descends I’ve done thus far, cause slipping down was quite frequent and we all did slip not just once or twice but 101 times, I think I started it off by taking every one off trail in through a slippery trail, The funnier it was when one falls down(walking down) and everyone starts laughing and at the same time the other one laughing falling down while not even walking down, It was so funny but we soon hiked our way back to civilization as water was the number one priority at that very moment.

We were pricked, scraped, sweaty, scratchy, tired, and with bloody legs after all the leach bites , But looking over the shoulder we saw alagalla and it was so great to know that we all did it and we all made it back safe through God’s grace.

Alagalla Hike
08,12,11 with Pramith nilesh and Joash J