Elephants, glamping, whales and final thoughts on Sri Lanka.

We departed Amba Estate at around 8:30am to head to Udawalawe national park. This was elephant spotting time. 

On the drive towards the national park, we saw elephants by the boards of the park and road. Cham explained there is an electric fence to keep them in however the elephants are very clever and they lift a tree log onto the fence to disable it. Obviously this raises safety issues and sadly on our drive away from the national park, there was a body in the road with a lot of blood. Cham said it’s most likely an elephant attack. People feed the elephants but they forget they are extremely large wild creatures.

Before we went to our glamping site, we stopped off at the elephant transit home. We got to see the handlers feed around 40 baby elephants. Some elephants are fed milk every three hours however between feeds they are released back into the park so they can be as wild as possible. 

There was one lovely elephant called Namal who lives on the grounds of the sanctuary. Sadly a poacher shot him in the leg and he had part of his rear leg removed. They have made a stump for him to get around more freely but if the other elephants attack him, he would not be as strong as them to defend himself. 

There were lots of really little baby elephants being fed. Again the reason they couldn’t have their mums milk, is usually due to poachers. It’s so sad to hear that even the game keepers who are entrusted to protect these lovely elephants, also kill them. Cham did explain that often if someone is caught poaching, they usually get shot themselves. They’re not supposed to do it this way but they often say they were going to shot at them first. 

After another yummy curry lunch, we swapped from our bus to a jeep for our game drive. Here was our chance to see more elephants, birds, buffalo and if we were lucky, a leopard. Sadly we were doing the drive in the midday heat so we were not lucky enough to see a leopard however we did see lots of lovely elephants and colourful birds. 

We stayed the night at Big Game Camping. Upon arriving it was becoming dust, so we were quickly allocated our tents. We were given strict instructions to never leave the tent open. Of course this massively freaked me out so I asked Vicki to do a full bug inspection when we first went in and before bed. 

For dinner, there was a lovely bonfire and they cooked us a BBQ. The food was yummy but the best part of the evening, was looking up at the millions of stars. We also saw the International space station zip by. It make me think of Peter so much and how much he would love to see them too. 

Because it was quite dark, I was pretty jumpy and this amused the group immensely. I jumped at a leaf falling from the tree and there was a silver metal frog that someone decided to put next to my plate then asked me to past something so I saw it, I didn’t notice it at first but when I did, I screamed. 

I really enjoyed the glamping as we had a toilet and shower in our tent. We also slept with just the safety net closed so in the morning I watched it get lighter and could hear all the amazing creatures wake up too. A cute little critter also joined us for breakfast. 

Our final full day with the group was in Unawatuna. We had a long drive to Hotel J and were greeted by a lovely swimming pool. We had a couple of hours free time so Vicki and I headed straight for the pool and ordered Lion beers. 

In the afternoon, we took the local bus to Galle. Cham took us all around the Fort and we had a lovely spot to sit and watch the sunset. I thought I’d be clever and do a time lapse video, sadly I was a tad dumb and managed to do a slow mo video instead. 

We had some free time to do some shopping. I wanted to get lots of gifts but there wasn’t as much there as I thought they’d be. I bought the girls these lovely baggy trousers for the summer which I think they’ll love and a few other gifts. 

After our final dinner together, it was back to the hotel. I’m sad to see some of the tour go but I will keep in touch with a few of them. 

Vicki and I decided to book a whale watching boat trip for our final day. I’ve heard Mirissi is the best place to see them so we had an early start to get to the boat for 6:00am. Of course the timings given to us were off and we didn’t even leave until 7:00am. 

The further we went out, the choppier the water got. We saw a pod of dolphins which was lovely but we were all desperate to see a whale. Sadly an hour or so in, I started to feel motion sickness and was vomiting so much. This lasted the next four or so hours so it wasn’t that fun. 

The captain was very keen to find a whale (otherwise he has to offer everyone a free tour the next day) and we finally saw a fin whale. We saw this whale for all of two seconds. I know it was supposed to be a once in a lifetime experience however I wish I didn’t go on it. I’ve never felt so unwell through motion sickness and poor Vicki was great at looking after me even though she also didn’t feel well. 

Sri Lanka has been an incredible country to visit. I’ve loved how friendly the people are. I love the concept of Buddhism and I think if everyone in the World shared some of these practices then it would be a much nicer place to live in. A test of how much I love a country is usually would I return, honestly I’m on the fence. It was great but I do feel like I’ve seen everything I wanted to see. I guess the only reason I’d return, would be with Peter as I think he would love it there.