After our good and scenic rest at Ella, we took off further south to Tissamaharama – Tissa in short – our base for exploring Yala National Park. A former capital of Sinhalese Kingdom of Ruhuna, today it is a town running close along the man-made lake Tissa Wewa (which dated back to the time when the kingdom was present), with businesses lining the main street and otherwise surrounded by (burnt) paddy fields.

We have opted for a late afternoon/early evening safari at Yala National Park but considering we arrived at Tissa quite early, Claire and I decided to explore the main street by foot after we checked in to a hotel at the edge of the town. As we walked, we were reminded that we were no longer in the hill countries. We definitely felt the heat of the late morning sun.

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As Claire and I have been busy from the word go, jetlag never really got a chance to hit us. Day three and we were up for another early morning adventure. Destination: Pinnawala Elephant Sanctuary. Situated some 20-odd kilometres away from Kandy on the Colombo-Kandy Road, we made it there in time for the door to open for the day at 8.30am so we could participate in the morning (9.15am) feeding and to also not lose further time from our schedule. At this stage, we had a pretty good idea how the remainder of the week would roll but subject to plenty of flexibility.

Even though it was early, a small crowd was already waiting by the gate when we arrived. And perhaps precisely for the early hour, we didn’t see too many foreign tourists there either, the most obvious being a group of French tourists who were bantering among themselves (yes, I occasionally eavesdropped shamelessly but some of the things they said were too funny for me to disregard). Nilan made life easier for us by purchasing tickets on our behalf (we gave him the money and stood aside to wait) and with our (foreigner price) entry plus supplementary feeding (Rs 2,000 + Rs 250) tickets we made our way in.

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During our trip, Claire and I try to vary our activities so we can experience the country as much as our limited schedule allows. We have visited both ancient ruins and modern Buddhist shrines, did a couple of hikes to better appreciate the splendour this country has to offer, soaking in the cultural knowledge whenever possible and now, a safari! Yes, with wind in our hair and a coating of red-sand dust all over us.

Now, the safari at Yala National Park is not to be equated to an African-style safari, with herds of animals running along the jeep. However, our hired 4×4 did zip around the ground, in search of the residents of the park including elephants, leopards (they were too far for me to photograph properly though), deers and macaques. We truly enjoyed this little outing, and had we had more time, we would have considered a full day safari, perhaps with an overnight stay in the park too.