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Published: December 13th 2013
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Little Mermaid 1
With Laya Safari Hotel in the background Friday 6
th December: not a lot to do this day as we had decided to take it easy and enjoy the beach. So after breakfast we headed off across the lawn and on to the beach. It was hot, seriously hot but fortunately there was a strong breeze which made it bearable. We walked down to the shore to be welcomed by a couple of village dogs: dogs are everywhere in Sri Lanka especially along the main roads for some reason, and many of them show signs of having been injured. Although the driving here is pretty crazy drivers do take care to avoid the dogs lying along the verges. So accompanied by our new, scruffy canine friends we strolled down the beach which shelved very steeply into the sea. The swell would break into a wave just offshore and it was only when the wave washed up the steep beach that one realised how powerful they were. We had been warned not to swim in the sea and when one felt the strong backwash as the wave retreated that we appreciated how potentially dangerous it would be to swim in the sea. Dinner that night was quiet as it seemed
Room with a view
Laya Safari Hotel room with decorative towels on the bed that we were the only guests at the hotel.
Saturday 7
th December: Diya had arranged a jeep to pick us up at 3pm to take us into the nearby Yala National Park. The jeep showed up on time and, accompanied by Diya, we headed back to the main road and then west for a mile or two until we came to the entrance to the Park. After paying the entrance fee and picking up a guide/ranger (compulsory, and presumably to ensure that the jeep drivers adhere to Park regulations to stick to the roads and not sound horns or flash headlights) we headed down the graded track into the park. Our jeep came without springs, so it seemed, and every bump would elevate me a few inches off my seat. We saw lots of different animals, many deer and buffaloes and also many wild peacocks. We had an interesting incident when a young male elephant with quite impressive tusks (the first tusker we had seen so far) wandered out of the bush and headed towards us. Our driver stopped the jeep so that we could take a closer look but the tusker turned away from our jeep and headed for
Little Mermaid 2
Without those rocks protecting her the Little Mermaid would be as wet as a real mermaid the vehicle directly behind us. It stuck its trunk into the passenger area provoking a few shrieks from the passengers. The driver tried to move away but our jeep was in the way. Suddenly we moved off over a bump propelling me several inches into the air and preventing me from taking photos of the drama behind. The tusker started trumpeting his frustration at not being fed and started to chase the jeep behind us. There were several jeeps behind the tusker and he ended up in the middle of a whole convoy of jeeps. We stopped a bit further one and the driver of the jeep that the tusker had delved into pulled up alongside us and proceeded a give our driver a major bollocking. Then we came across a virtual gridlock of jeeps as it seems that a leopard had been spotted some distance away under, or in, a tree. We couldn’t see a thing through our binoculars and nor could our very keen sighted guide but we couldn’t get past on account of there being jeeps filling the road and the prohibition on driving off road. We eventually got past and headed to the nearby coast where
there was a memorial to some of the tourist victims of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. This stop was also intended as a “comfort break” for the passengers of the many jeeps touring the park; and as there weren’t any toilet facilities the tourists simply headed off down the beach or into the bush to do their business – it all seemed very inappropriate. After this stop we headed back towards the Park entrance with a brief detour which resulted in us meeting two mother elephants with their babies. However, several other jeeps showed up and caused the elephants to head off into the adjacent jungle. Then it was a jolting ride back to the entrance to drop off our guide and then return us to the hotel, for a shower and another quiet dinner.
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Amol
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Emotional Touch given by Elephant pics.
Excellent Photography, Article is certainly a Visual Delight and Emotional Touch given by Elephant photos for the readers on Travel and Tourism.