Main attraction today was visit to Yala National Park. The park is famous for largest concentration of leopards in the world and most tourists  are coming here for leopard “hunt” with their photo/video cameras.
I have been on safaris in Namibia, Bostwana  and Republic of South Africa, but didn’t see anything like this that was happening at Yala National Park. I am not talking about animal spotting.
The gates of the park opens at 6:00 and you must be there before that time. That’s way we went to bed very early yesterday as it took about an hour to get to the gates from our guest house. Even with such early start we were at the end of long queue of 4wd cars.

Everybody was there for a leopard and when the gates were open it looked more like start of a rally, but not a safari trip. In the park cars did split, but after awhile the race was on again as somebody spotted leopard and announced it by radio. The arrived to the place and yes, it was leopard there, except it was about 200 meters (650 feet) away from the road in the shadow on the tree, so silhouette of leopards was all we could see. But I can’t complain I didn’t see it.
The park is plenty of other animals – elephants, water buffalo, crocodiles, different lizards and a lot of bird species – but that leopard “hunt” overshadows everything else.

It was interesting experience thought and I would go for another safari during day or just before sunset if I would have time.  I feel it would be totally different experience as you could enjoy park without crowd of jeeps in one spot. But I was on the mission to see Sri Lanka in 5 days and need to keep moving. It was no time for another safari.

We wanted to spend this night near the beach and have a rest after intensive trip around Sri Lanka, but we did one short side trip before heading to the beach.  Not far from South coast there is Mulkirigala Rock historical temple.

 In the guide book was written it has little of Dambulla and Sigiriya.  I am not sure about Sigiriya except you need to climb a steep rock to get to the rock temple. It is much smaller comparing to Dambulla rock temple, but still it is very interesting and very quite as not many tourist are coming to this place.

And now is beach time

Mirissa beach still is not overdeveloped with holiday resorts, has great restaurants with fresh sea food and was perfect place to spend my last night in Sri Lanka.

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Nuwara Eliya is small summer resort used by British to escape heat in other parts of country. Weather is very refreshing thought it can be a little be chilly at night so no surprise to see locals walking with jackets or sweaters on.
I didn’t spend much time in Nuwara Eliya except visiting small botanic garden. There are no so much to see there, but I need to kill some time till my train arrives.
Today’s plan changed after talking with our driver last night.  There are two ways to go South from Nuwara Eliya. You can go by car, but there is better way. You can take the train from Nanuoya to Ella.
Nanuoya railway station is located 10km (6 miles) from Nuwara Eliya. It seems there is no way to book 1st class ticket in observation car in advance, but our driver suggested to buy cheapest available tickets and latter upgrade it.  Total cost was 750LKR. It is not the cheapest train trip, but it is really worth it and is the one of the best train trips I ever done.

Railway pass Horton Plains National Park with pictures mountains, waterfalls, tea plantations and view to World’s end, the key attraction of the park. The train goes somewhere on that hill in front of World’s End.
It takes about 3 hours to get from Nanuoya to Ella and then continue trip by car. Couple kilometers from Ella there is one of widest waterfalls in Sri Lanka – Rawana Ella.

It was still long way to go to the tonight’s destination Tissamaharama (or Tissa for short) which is gateway to Yala national park, but we decided to go even longer way.
The shortest and fastest way would be by taking A2 highway (see the map). But alternative road B35 is much better. Why? B35 public road passes crosses western part of Yala national park and it is good place to see elephants and I saw more elephants today then on my safari to the Yala NP I took next day.
Kataragama is another stop on this road.  It is the most important religious piligrimage site in Sri Lanka and it is a holy place for Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus. It is quite village during day and is better to visit it at night when food offerings ceremonies start.

The same as on second day it was already dark on arrival to Tissa, but we need to go to bed earlier anyway as it was booked safari to Yala NP for next morning. Early morning.. Get up at 4:00.

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