Uduwalawe

After starting off in Colombo, taking a private car to Dambulla, taking a bus to Kandy, then a train to Haputale, we made it to Uduwalawe, our last in-land stop. The scenery was amazing from Kandy to Uduwalawe. Before that, there was the hustle and bustle of what felt like the entire country moving around because of the New Year celebrations.

When we arrived in Uduwalawe we were greeted by another friendly guy. We talked about going on a safari the following day and set up a full day safari where we'd see a good chunk of the park. Pick-up was 5:30 am so we got up with charged cameras and phones ready for the day of adventure and ELEPHANTS!!!

We hopped in the jeep, and our guide drove off after packing up all the supplies. The jeep was actually a pick-up truck with seats and a canvas roof built into the flatbed. We had to yell so our guide Pia (sp?) could hear us.

The ride out to Uduwalawe National Park was beautiful in the pink sky. Sadly this is my best photo of that:

When we got into the admissions area, Pia went out of the cab and asked us for the money for the tickets into the safari. We paid him and then I started to worry. As he walked over to the line he walked by everyone, then shook hands with a guy and had a dart and small talked. Why isn't he in line? The line continued to get longer and longer. Then he comes back with a cardboard box, he opens our cooler and then puts two beers into the cooler. I don't even remember asking for this! Then he had another cigarette! I was getting very frustrated with this guy's decision making, but of course, his English consists of animal names and survival English, so he didn't understand my distress AT ALL. In the end, he got his tickets from some schmuck who owed him a favour and waited in line while he sat back and enjoyed himself.

With the tickets in hand, we drove off into the park itself. Pia had the tendency to just stop the truck, open the door, and just talk to us about what we could see and his plan. After the first corner, Pia swung out of the cab and said pointing behind us, "this is main road," then pointing ahead, "this is off road." At the second turn, we found our first animal.

I couldn't believe it. And in the background, you can see the outline of a peacock perched on a pole. Uduwalawe has a lot of peacocks.  We continued to drive around and ran into a couple other residents at the UNR.

Here are three female elephants, the front one is pregnant. 

This is a jungle fowl. I'm glad I took a picture of this guy because we never saw another one.

 Here's a bird.

 And another bird.

But this is a lizard.

As we drove around. I realised how unprepared I was and how unprofessional I looked taking pictures with a digital camera that's about 5 years old. Most people driving around had camera lenses the length of your hand... or children half-awake. Driving around I did see a car with just one person sitting in the flatbed and I empathised with him as a person who has travelled alone before. I'm happy I had someone to talk to for the ride. 

The photo above is what most of the ride looked like. This pale dirt road with plants on the side. you run through roads like this all the time and then you uncover this irregular part (lakes and rivers, or clearings). Other times something is eating or perched just off of the path. At times it felt like we were travelling in circles. 

About four hours in, we realised we had another six hours, we decided to cut our safari down to a half day. Pia got on his phone, we spoke the manager, the manager spoke to Pia and everything was cleared up. 

After that, we flipped from time moving like molasses to sneering at how little time was left. The best parts were definitely saved for last.

This is a water buffalo calf.

 The photo above and the one beneath are about ten meters away from the calf. 

 The crocodiles were nowhere near the buffalo. 

This is Pia and small Sri Lankan man. 

 This is a kingfisher. He has a caught a fish in his beak that's roughly the same length as she (or he) is tall. The bird spent a good few minutes slapping the fish against the tree branch and eventually swallowed it whole with no issues at all. Very impressive, unlike the clarity of the photograph.

 These were definitely the three biggest elephants I saw on the safari. 

This is the last photo I took on the safari and I think it's one of my favourites.

I really liked this safari, it was cool seeing all these animals up close and knowing how much space they have to roam, fly and soak in. My advice would be to bring a camera with a good lens because not all of the animals get very close to the truck and just book a half-day safari, six hours in the park is all you need.