Uda Walawe, Elephants Galore

DONATE -- click on this link

Panamure to Thimbolketiya
Kilometers: 15 Elevation gain/loss: 160/190

The plan was to follow my GPS through the fields and back lanes connecting Panamure to Thimbolketiya, thus avoiding the main roads and the crowded, noisy city of Embilipiitya. Sri Lankans, certainly once you are away from the tourist mad centres, are remarkably hospitable. Even if they have little, they will warmly offer you a coconut from their tree, or a meal, or any help you may need. So, when my plan to wander through unpaved footpaths became known, I soon had a full entourage of guides and guards to accompany me. My own posse! With me was the talkative and well-informed Kanangara, who at 70 years old, kept pace like a man half his age, and the delightful, smiling policeman Sangadasa, who struggled bravely to carry on despite being hindered by a foot injury.

We walked passed banana plantations and fields of vetiver, the area being too dry for much rice cultivation, crossing through impoverished villages where the men don't work (not much) and the children don't go to school (not much). There is little industry in the area, education seems pointless, and a general ennui seems to have settled over many of the people.

In no time, we had reached the main road and found our way to my guest house. Chosen only for its ideal location along the route, the inn turned out to be little more than the Sri Lankan equivalent of the cheap 'n dirty motel on the outskirts of town where you take your one-night-stand for a quick shag. Or worse. No glass in the windows, no lid on the toilet tank, cold water pouring directly from a shower pipe with no shower head, one dim 20watt bulb illuminating a dark room painted dark red. A single dubious sheet on the bed and pillowcases I didn't even want to touch with my bare hands. Nothing but the best for me, eh? My posse was suitably unimpressed and advised me to avoid all but minimal contact with the dodgy staff (lest they get the wrong idea).

I comforted myself with the fact that it was only for one night, and struck out for Uda Walawe, the national park famous for its elephant population of almost 500. Go to Yala National Park, deep in the south-east, and you can enjoy a great number of different species, most notably leopards. You, and the 400 other jeeps EACH DAY that roar along the dirt roads jostling for position, causing knotted traffic jams and scaring away all but the most intractable and inured buffalo. Uda Walawe, by contrast, has a wide open feel to it, much like the African savana, and you're unlikely to see another jeep during your entire trip.

Of course, you're not likely to see the full zoo of animals Yala offers, but if it's elephants you're after, you can't beat Uda Walawe. There's also a great little orphanage nearby, where they ready the elephants for rehabilitation in the park, and it's encouraging to see so many of the now-wild elephants (about 50) wearing radio collars, proof of their successful reintegration. At sunset, head for the reservoir, where large herds gather.

After a bumpy afternoon of being thrown and jostled about in the back of a jeep, photo-op happy and having had my pachyderm quota thoroughly satisfied, I returned to the flea-pit where I was to pass the night. I threw a clean sheet over the bed, ate a packet of bisquits for my dinner (deciding not to risk the dining room), and hightailed it outta there come first light of morning.

The Panamure Elephant

DONATE -- click this link

Urubokka to Kaella to Panamure
Kilometers:  22  Elevation gain/loss: 375m/558m

Passing over from Urubokka, up the steep, pot-holed road that leads to Kaella and down again on the other side you would think you had crossed a much higher range of mountains or travelled much further. On one side, it's pissing down with rain and is the tropical green you'd expect. On the other side, it abruptly turns dry and brown, scrubby like the African bushland. The heat and sun were getting to me, so I was relieved to be met by my host for the night, the delightful Dan Diaz. Dan and Saman Ratnayake, a policeman in charge of safeguarding Sri Lanka's archeologial treasures, have, through a labour of love, overseen the building of a brand new, not-yet-in-any-guidebook monument to one of the country's beloved legends.

The famous story from 1950 tells of the Panamure elephant bull who, when his herd was captured by hundreds of men in a kraal (timber stockade), bravely fought to free himself and rescue the others, showing quite extraordinary determination. The cruel process of herding elephants into the kraal, tying, noosing and starving them to weakness, and eventually taming them for domestication had been commonplace for centuries, but this episode was to be the last. The unusually large bull, who was romantically involved with the herd matriarch, succeeded in breaking free and in his attempts to free his female, was shot and killed with a single bullet to the head. The news of this made its way into every newspaper of the day, his loyalty, spirit and courageousness leaving not a dry eye or untouched heart in the country. Public opinion ran high, agitation was widespread, and finally the Parliment declared the practice of elephant capture from that time onwards banned, ushering in a new and more humane chapter in Sri Lanka's human-wildlife relationship.

Head two kilometers due north from the tiny Panamure junction just outside Embilipitiya and you will come to the recently constructed monument honouring this story, complete with true-to-life sized elephant statue, an interesting little musuem housing displays and the actual skull of the bull, and a replica of the kind of kraal fencing used to pen the herd in.

Make sure to ask someone to show you the mineral-rich spring behind the museum, the lure that attracted the elephants to the site in the first place. Aparently, even in the worst drought the water lurks just beneath the surface of the soil and if you clap your hands, the spring will start to fountain forth out of the ground. Even on a day like the one I visited, with the nearby stream flowing and the spring full, you can clearly see the bubbling, rolling sands beneath the water churn all the more furiously with a sudden loud clap.

Worth a visit on your way back from Yala or Kataragama, for sure.