December 17, 2011

Day 3: Tissamaharama – Ella


An early start to the day again, leaving the resort at 5.30am to Yala National Park for an early morning animal safari.  Yala National Park has a spectrum of terrain: dense jungle, scrub jungle, open savannah, riverine woodland, rock pools, streams, freshwater lakes & a long coastline which curves around Sri Lanka's southeast coast.


We spotted plenty of birds, peacocks and peahens, jungle fowls (the national animal of Sri Lanka), a male jumbo all by himself, and later two female elephants with a baby.  There were also several huge monitor lizards, crocodiles, monkeys, several herds of spotted deer and a herd of sambar deer, wild boars, wild buffaloes, mongooses, and a rabbit.


Rabbit, crocodile & monitor lizard

Green birds, peacocks, mongooses 



The very shy wild boar 

The handsome Hanuman monkeys

We hunted the elusive leopard and finally spotted one sleeping atop a tree – unfortunately it was really too far for us to get a decent shot of him.


 
Fellow animal hunters 

Our jeep driver with our tour driver 

We went back to the resort for a quick freshening up and checked out, followed by lunch at a nearby restaurant – rice with devil chicken, curry fish and chicken.  It was a rather expensive lunch!  After filling our tummies, we hit the road again to Ella (water fall in Sinhalese), about 2.5hr away.  The small village sitting tight at the southern ridge of the Central highlands is aptly named in the backdrop of numerous waterfalls, small & large, which crash, gush or trickle down the mountainous terrain.  On the way, we stopped by the Rawana Ella (Falls) for a quick photo stop.


After checking into Sky Green Resort, we headed out to hike up the Little Adam’s Peak, for a view of the surrounding mountains and the Ella Gap, a treacherous downhill highway formed by the opening in the chain of mountains all the way down to the southern coast.  Only mum and I made it to the top, me with Yan Yan on piggy back.  Hubby, MIL and Yiu Yiu decided to just wait for us halfway up.

Girls posing at the resort

Please pardon the 'Ah Soh' look 

The Ella Gap, too bad it was a cloudy day 

Yan Yan trying to make the V sign

Back at the hotel, it was time for a good shower and a 3-course dinner comprising a soup, main of rice with devil chicken, chicken chop suey (which is basically Chinese style mixed vegetable) or roast chicken, and desserts.

6 comments:

Small Kucing said...

very good shots :).

WK Liew said...

Eh Yiu Yiu got model potential la. I think if you dun piggy back Yan Yan, she will also follow the rest of the pack & wait for you & Mom halfway

BuffaFly said...

Looks interesting but I'm wondering why you chose Sri Lanka as holiday destination...? Kinda unconventional...ppl with young kids usually go to like Australia, hk, nz...

A Mom's Diary said...

small kucing - thanks.

WK - you got jalan to get her into advertising or not? :-) She refused to follow her papa and jie-jie and insisted to stick on to me like a leech. What choice do I have?

Buffafly - 9/10 people asked me this same question - why Sri Lanka? I've been to HK and NZ, sans kids though, so wanted to go to a new destination. Australia would be good but it's too expensive with the ex-rate, and so many people on the trip. I've wanted to go Sri Lanka for a long time, even pre-tsunami time so finally managed to.

It's a nice country for kids too - Yiu Yiu enjoyed it tremendously.

ZMM said...

OMG, another early day!

Love Yanyan's attempt at the V sign.

A Mom's Diary said...

Zara's Mama - haha, yeah. Our trip was quite packed so we had to do the safari in the early morning. You can also do the safari in the evening.