Stan
Dec-26-2004, 05:06 PM
Last March, my wife and I left our children, aged 4 and 5, with my parents and spent two and a half weeks driving around Sri Lanka.
The highlight of the holiday was spending three nights in Yala Village, a Hotel on the edge of the Yala Game Reserve. We had our own little house set in an unimproved scrubland. The motto of the Hotel was "To leave only footprints"
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13229180-M.jpg
where elephants, wild boar and water buffalo would regularly walk past the house. We had our meals alone in the watch tower, that had views over the sea and waterhole,
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13232329-M.jpg
where the water buffalo would lie. One evening I spent a while watching a water buffalo in labour on my own, she allowed me to stay for about an hour and then disappeared into the scrub, she was back the next morning with a calf
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13232338-M.jpg
The sea shelved so sharply that if you walked in the surf, you would end up flat on your back with your legs dragged from under you. The fishermen would spend three months living on the shore line diving for lobsters, a little van would arrive each morning and they would haggle for the catch
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13229181-M.jpg
Yala is a reserve of 250,000 acres, of which 35,000 acres are accessible to the public. There are 36 leopards in the reserve which makes seeing one very special.
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/3853320-M.jpg
We waited in the rain for 3 hours for him to come down out of the tree
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/3853315-M.jpg
We drove on and found an elephant with her calf, however much we waited, she kept it firmly on the other side of her to us
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13232336-M.jpg
We stopped in a picnic area within the reserve, beside a river; the monkeys were very bold and were always trying to steal our food. This one with an infant stayed back so I took pity and threw her orange segments.
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/3855830-M.jpg
There is a museum before the gates where you pick up the guide, he is university educated and very knowledgeable on anything you need to know in the reserve. The driver had worked there for 18 years and neither of them had a pair of binoculars, we had one each so they spent most of the time snatching ours so we could not see but they could.
Without a special pass to leave the road or go into the restricted area it is rare to see a Leopard. That said if you google yala there are very good shots of them in the reserve but not from a truck and not in the tourist part.
We stopped at his bosses house on the way when we left the hotel and waited for the driver to come back to give him my binoculars as a gift ( I hope he kept them)
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13238699-M.jpg
The people who work in Yala are very dedicated, they try to prevent poaching, administer medicine to injured bull elephants and other animals in the reserve.
The reserve is at sea level.There are hundreds of square miles of plain inland that are now drstroyed. Areas that were once paddy fields but due to the lack of rain are now grazed by cattle will have been flattened
I feel an enormous sense of loss, we met so many memorable people, our driver, Kapilla who could not do enough to ensure our trip was the best
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13237642-M.jpg
He invited us back to his house for supper, which was a huge honour.
Our waiter at Yala Village who was Tamil and would tell us the difficulty he had working in Sri Lanka
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13240732-M.jpg
The death toll will rise, I feel for those lost, those awaiting news of loved ones and especialy the loss of the beautiful area of country we both saw, the wild boar the elephants and the peacocks. The poeple we met, saw, talked to and photographed.
I only have 28800 kps dial up this took ages to sopt out, I will post more pics Here when I have time to go through them again
The highlight of the holiday was spending three nights in Yala Village, a Hotel on the edge of the Yala Game Reserve. We had our own little house set in an unimproved scrubland. The motto of the Hotel was "To leave only footprints"
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13229180-M.jpg
where elephants, wild boar and water buffalo would regularly walk past the house. We had our meals alone in the watch tower, that had views over the sea and waterhole,
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13232329-M.jpg
where the water buffalo would lie. One evening I spent a while watching a water buffalo in labour on my own, she allowed me to stay for about an hour and then disappeared into the scrub, she was back the next morning with a calf
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13232338-M.jpg
The sea shelved so sharply that if you walked in the surf, you would end up flat on your back with your legs dragged from under you. The fishermen would spend three months living on the shore line diving for lobsters, a little van would arrive each morning and they would haggle for the catch
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13229181-M.jpg
Yala is a reserve of 250,000 acres, of which 35,000 acres are accessible to the public. There are 36 leopards in the reserve which makes seeing one very special.
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/3853320-M.jpg
We waited in the rain for 3 hours for him to come down out of the tree
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/3853315-M.jpg
We drove on and found an elephant with her calf, however much we waited, she kept it firmly on the other side of her to us
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13232336-M.jpg
We stopped in a picnic area within the reserve, beside a river; the monkeys were very bold and were always trying to steal our food. This one with an infant stayed back so I took pity and threw her orange segments.
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/3855830-M.jpg
There is a museum before the gates where you pick up the guide, he is university educated and very knowledgeable on anything you need to know in the reserve. The driver had worked there for 18 years and neither of them had a pair of binoculars, we had one each so they spent most of the time snatching ours so we could not see but they could.
Without a special pass to leave the road or go into the restricted area it is rare to see a Leopard. That said if you google yala there are very good shots of them in the reserve but not from a truck and not in the tourist part.
We stopped at his bosses house on the way when we left the hotel and waited for the driver to come back to give him my binoculars as a gift ( I hope he kept them)
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13238699-M.jpg
The people who work in Yala are very dedicated, they try to prevent poaching, administer medicine to injured bull elephants and other animals in the reserve.
The reserve is at sea level.There are hundreds of square miles of plain inland that are now drstroyed. Areas that were once paddy fields but due to the lack of rain are now grazed by cattle will have been flattened
I feel an enormous sense of loss, we met so many memorable people, our driver, Kapilla who could not do enough to ensure our trip was the best
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13237642-M.jpg
He invited us back to his house for supper, which was a huge honour.
Our waiter at Yala Village who was Tamil and would tell us the difficulty he had working in Sri Lanka
http://stan.smugmug.com/photos/13240732-M.jpg
The death toll will rise, I feel for those lost, those awaiting news of loved ones and especialy the loss of the beautiful area of country we both saw, the wild boar the elephants and the peacocks. The poeple we met, saw, talked to and photographed.
I only have 28800 kps dial up this took ages to sopt out, I will post more pics Here when I have time to go through them again