Sri Lanka Holidays

Uda Walawe National Park, Sri Lanka

The best place in Asia to see herds of Asian Elephants
Wild Elephants, Wildlife, Bird Watching, Modern Rain water reservoir, River Walawe, Dam & Hydro Electricity Project

Large herds of Asian Elephants in the open area close to modern man-made Rainwater Reservoir (3400ha)
Uda Walwe National Park, Sri Lanka is the best place in Asia to see herds of Asian Elephants. Pachyderms in the wild. Uda Walawe National Park, that retains their leaves even during the dry season, is one of Sri Lanka's Dry-Zone Dry Evergreen Forests that harbours one of Asia'a largest & most viable Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) populations. The 30,821ha park was set up in the year 1972 to protect the catchment area of the man-made Rainwater Reservoir which is at the south end of the River Walwe. At the same time the reserve was designated to provide sanctuary to wild elephants. The park is beautifully situated just south of the Central highlands of the island, whose grand escarpment provides a magnificent backdrop. And at the centre lies the huge man-made rainwater reservoir with a surface area of 3400ha, which provides irrigation for farmlands downstream & generate hydroelectric power. The elephant-proof fence around the perimeter of the park prevents some 600 elephants, roaming freely around the reserve from getting out of it to attack the farmland. It also prevents the cattle (belonging to the farmers of surrounding villages) from getting into the reserve.

Uda Walawe rainwater reservoir
You will be reaching the park by following the road along the 4km bund across the Uda Walawe rainwater reservoir. The variety of terrain is made up by woodland of old Teak tree that line the River Walawe, open grassland traversed by streams & scrub jungle, in turn making the habitat a home to variety of wildlife. The lack of forest cover makes the viewing of elephants easier than anywhere else in Asia: herds up to 100 or even more could be seen along river & near the numerous streams & tanks. Behold the sight & a site. They could be seen crossing the River Walawe too.

Elephant Transit Centre
In 1995, Department of Wildlife in Sri Lanka, in an attempt to support the orphaned calves from the other areas of the island, set up the Elephant Transit Centre too at Uda Walawe National Park itself with the support of Born Free Foundation. Twenty of the 32 calves are "foster parented". Like the famous Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage, baby elephants here are bottle-fed milk until the age of three & a half, after which period they're given a diet of grass. At the age of five, they are returned to the wild. It is fun to watch baby elephants being bottle-fed every three hours. But then since the jolly good fellows are kept in pens, you will not get right amongst them, touch them as you do with good fellows at the famous Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage.

Wild life & Bird Life
While the park is home to macaque, langur, jackal, leopard, sambar, spotted deer, barking deer, wild boar, mongoose, bandicoot, fox giant flying squirrel, jungle cat, sloth bear, porcupine, pangolin, water buffalo, crocodile & water monitor lizard, the reservoir attracts a wide range of aquatic birds, including majestic Indian darters, egrets, cormorants, herons, kingfishers, comical black-winged stilt. Endemic species include Sri Lanka spurfowl, the Sri Lanka jungle fowl, the Malabar pied hornbill, rare red-faced malkoha. You would as well spot the lesser adjunct, Sri Lanka's largest & ugliest bird, standing at well over a meter tall. Birds gather in large numbers around the tanks Magam, Habartu, Kiri ibban, Pulgaswewa, Timbirimankada. Among the raptors (birds of prey) are brahminy, black-winged kites, crested serpent, hawk, fish eagles, & the magnificent white-bellied sea eagle. Endemic species include the Sri Lanka spur fowl, the Sri Lanka jungle fowl, the Malabar pied hornbill & the rare red-faced malkoha.189 species of avifauna have been recorded with bee-eater, hornbills, peafowl, hawk eagles, ibis, and Indian rollers. Within day, a keen birder (ornithologist) would sight no less than 100 species of birds in the park.

Around Uda Walwe
The location of Uda Walawe makes it within a couple of hours drive from the Unawatuna Bay Beach as well as Ratnapura, the world renowned city of gems of Sri Lanka. Tissamaharama, an ancient city, home to a beautiful Buddhist stupa & magnificent Tissa Wewa, a large rainwater reservoir & the town of Hambantota are within striking distance too. Hambantota of large salt lakes, where kitchen salt is produced from evaporated sea water in shallow lagoons while attracting shore birds (flamingos, gulls, plovers, and tems) sits pretty hugging the main road itself. An ancient method of salt making, a drive with a sea breeze. The famous novel "Village in the Jungle" by Leonard Woolf, (a British civil servant of Crown colony of Ceylon, husband of the prime feminist of the era (A room of one's own) & acclaimed writer Virginia Woolf of Bloomsbury Group - To the Lighthouse) was set in the village of Hambantota. The novel depicting the fate of Sinhalese speaking peasants under the merciless iron boots of the British colonialists & their reign by way of an alien language called English, Birmingham iron shackles & Winchester rifles, was made in to a classic film by one of the top ten film directors of the world (right alongside indomitable Akira Kurasowa & illustrious Satyajith Rai, in the category of finest utilization of resources available, given the economy & the industry technology of the country of the production), renowned Lester James Peiris of Sri Lanka. We will be driving past Hambantota. The town is famous for its Buffalo curd (a sort of creamy white yogurt - fermented buffalo milk nicely, firmly set in shallow reddish brown clay pots) which, with generous helpings of Kitul palm honey syrup makes the finest dessert in the world, hands down. Nobody beat our dessert; no world beats the village of Hambantota to its famous curd. May god save the humble villagers! Amen.