Habarana national park

It was another early start, although not as bad as yesterday with breakfast at 6.30. we left the hotel at 7 to drive about 30 minutes to the village of Habarna where our safari would be starting. This was in Hurulu eco park.

After decamping to two open topped and sided keep you're vehicles we spent a couple of hours exploring the park. The roads were very bumpy but the results worth it with our first single elephant followed by a small family walking along through the grass.

During the trip we also came across another lone male elephant eating at a tree and another group of three walking along the tracks. None seemed particularly bothered but our presence.

There were numerous other sightings of elephants further into the grass along with some bird life!

We met back up with our minibus at around 10 am for the journey back to the hotel with a quick stop at a batik 'factory'.

We spent the next few hours first with a walk along the road to a pharmacy for some insect bite medication and then as the sun was past the yardarm, a beer and some cards in the hotel bar overlooking the pool, along with some snacks to tide us over!

I had a swim in the pool before we both got ready to meet back up with the group for an extra tour to Dambulla.

The bus collected us at 3pm to take us the 30 mins to the temple at Dambulla. It was still pretty warm when we arrived so we took our time walking up to the cave complex. Our tour leader took us through the 5 spectacularly decorated caves with dozens of Buddha's in and gave is an explanation in each. It was fascinating although as usual I've probably forgotten most of the detail but I do remember that it was started in the second century BC and the workmanship was impressive.

After walking back down we had a quick stop in Dambulla before driving back to the hotel. The evening was spent relaxing and everyone did their own thing for food. Ed and I had a few beers in the hotel restaurant along with food. My choice was a lovely devilled beef meal with rice .. Sweet and sour and nicely spicy.

We went back to the room just after 9 to sort out things out for a 5 am start to climb Sigiriya rock before a long drive to our next stop!Read more