TRAVELMAN UDAWALAWE NATIONAL PARK, SRI LANKA: I went on Safari with my Trusty Guide and Saw Big Animals

There are a few national parks in Sri Lanka. Udawalawe is known for elephants. After having visited, I can tell you that you’d have to be the unluckiest person on the planet if you don’t encounter more than one elephant during your visit.

I made a couple of money blunders along the way. The first blunder was thinking that it would be best to split the price of a mini-van from Ella to Udawalawe with two young women I met in Ella. The van was 7500 LKR divided by three people. (100 LKR is approximately 0.67USD).

It was a nice ride and not too pricey, but I had yet to discover how incredibly cheap and easy (and fun!) it is to ride the public bus in Sri Lanka. If I would’ve taken the bus it would’ve cost less than 200 LKR. ...So take the bus.

If I took the bus, I wouldn’t have been with the young girls, and I wouldn’t have gotten dropped off at their hotel in the early evening with them, and I wouldn’t have spent $45 USD on a fancy tent room thinking that I wouldn’t be able to walk to a cheaper place easy enough, and thinking that it’d be a treat...

****The bellboy carried my bag to my tent room.****

Once I popped the cork on my wallet, the money started flowing like champagne at a P-Diddy yacht party. They had three options for the safari. The first was the basics with an experienced driver. The second tier was about 20% more and had a “well experienced driver.” The third tier was more than twice as much, but it included a naturalist guide with a bird book, brunch in the park, and the best part...A pair of BINOCULARS! Wowza! The girls had bought this package, so figuring it’d be fun to go with them, and wanting to do it up right, I let that money flow. Make it rain, bitches! Yeah, Playa’!!!

Groan...

****It was a hotel room with canvas walls. Weird, different, I prefer real walls.****

Every now and then I get a bit spendy and careless with my money on this trip. That’s okay, I can live with myself when I consciously go over budget. What makes me mad is when I fail to read the fine print (very fine, and very much not mentioned at all by the woman at the desk). The safari price didn’t include a 4600 LKR entrance fee to the park.

Both me and the girls did not find out about this until we arrived at the park the next morning. I was lucky I brought that much cash with me. Travelman was pretty... pretty... pissed off. ...

The night before the safari (I had to get up at 5:30 A.M.) I bought the dinner buffet at the hotel. It was basically my only option. It was decent for the price, still too much money though. They had an upstairs seating area (it was outdoors on a bi-level patio).

The host/waiter dude insisted that since I was one person I had to sit on the second level. This meant I’d have to walk down and back up, back and forth every time I wanted food.

I told him, no, I’d like to sit downstairs. He said I couldn’t. I was about to tell him I’ll sit where I damn well please for the money I was paying and then I saw the two young ladies.

They were a bit stand-offish during the mini-van ride, but only a tiny bit, so I asked to join them. They were cool with it and we had a nice dinner conversation. They’d been volunteering for a month in Kandy with orphans and abused young girls. They told me a horrific story of how teenage mothers get their babies taken away and aren’t allowed to see them again, and more specifically, a story of an eleven year-old who was raped by her uncle and had a baby from it. .....Horrible.

Incidentally, no one came by to take a drink order during the meal. Also, when I first arrived, I sat in the bar area and talked to a married woman from the Netherlands who was traveling with her younger sister. We wanted to order a drink. We waited, and finally someone who worked in the bar walked by us. We flagged him down. The woman asked if she could order something to drink. The man hesitated, then said. “...Uh. No.” Then he walked away. We had a good laugh about it. We assumed he didn’t understand what she had asked.

The next day, after I felt lied to about the safari price (I know, I know, that’s what I get. I should’ve looked for fine print) these incidents were lumped into my anger. It’s funny how little things at a restaurant or hotel don’t bother you and you let them slide, until something happens that really pisses you off! Then those little things get magnified and are further examples of why you should let your righteous indignation explode like thunderclouds.

****view of the pool from outside my room. I only got to use it briefly that evening****

Looking back, my safari experience was worth what I paid and I had a great time, but that doesn’t change the fact that I could’ve paid half the price and gotten almost as great of an experience... And not have felt swindled by a resort that’s recommended in Lonely Planet.

******This is the Jeep I was in for the morning... by myself. The girls had the exact same package, we left at the same time, but they put the girls in their own Jeep. So I sat in mine by myself and they sat in theirs by themselves, and we all made a bigger carbon footprint. It probably has to do with giving more locals work.*******

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****The infamous binoculars I looked through twice, maybe three times****

It was a ten minute ride to the park entrance. Our drivers seemed to be racing each other. The girls Jeep and mine kept leap frogging one another...

I caught a pic on one of the leaps past them...

We got in the park, encountered a giant line of safari jeeps at the entrance, waited for fifteen minutes while my driver paid the unexpected added park fee, and then my guide showed up.

This dude...

This dude barely spoke English! (Travelman was trying to keep his blood from boiling). He was such a waste that it became comical to me. He’d point, “...Bird.”

Yeah, bird. I know. “What kind of bird is that?”

“Big brown bird.” Says the naturalist with the bird book.

I roll my eyes, thinking I was on my own.

Okay, I’m exaggerating, but only a tiny bit because it was a couple weeks ago and I can’t remember the specific generic comments he made. And he did eventually, when pushed by me, say the names of some birds and point them out, but it was little more than I would’ve been able to do if I picked up a bird book and called myself a guide that day. He was more interested in offering to take photos of me in front of “Big brown bird,” “Male Elephant,” and “Lizard in tree.”

****Water Buffalo, in water. (I know this because my guide pointed this out.)****

At the start of our journey, shortly after I’d paid the unexpected park fee and met my naturalist guide who talked like an actor playing Tonto in the 1960’s Lone Ranger television series- “Big bird in sky. Eagle. Make big nest in tree, kemosabi.” (Why a Sri Lankan guy was using the word kemosabi is a mystery to me, as well as artistic license put to use by an author.)— right after this we hit a traffic jam of safari jeeps, loud jeeps. I felt like I was stuck in traffic in India rather than on safari in Sri Lanka...

Everyone wanted to stop and get a gander and a picture with these guys. I didn’t know it, but they’d be the first of many. My bad mood vanished upon seeing them so close. They didn’t seem bothered by the jeeps in the least. For the elephants, it was ust another day in the park with these little creatures going by in their loud rolling machines.

“Baby elephant in middle, protected.” Says my guide.

This beautiful flower, the Lantana, is an invasive species that is overtaking the park and doing it’s best to kill all the other plants. Park workers are at the beginning of a project that will hopefully be removing it from the park. They’re going to Napalm them (kidding.)

I asked my guide about it because I’d read a sign about the plant on the way in.

“Lantana. ...Lantana.” My guide elaborated, extensively. “...Lantana. ...Flower.”

I saw a lot of birds: Eagles (in pic), peacocks, kingfisher, parakeets, painted storks, etc... (I didn’t have a worthy zoom lens so I’m not including most of those pics)...

This Jackyl was running down the road in front of our Jeep for a bit...

The following is the surreal brunch I had on a rock overlooking one of the large bodies of water. In front of me was a painted stork. To my left, in the distance were water buffalo swimming across the water, as well as a herd of them on the far shore, and on the edge of the herd, a lone male elephant grazed. I also saw a pelican.

It was nuts. The girls had their own table set up about a hundred yards away.

I felt like Sir Travelman and that I should be saying things like “Right-o, chap!” ...“Carry on, Jeeves.” ...”Chin up, dear boy.”

The meal was okay (the juice was the best, the white bread chicken salad sandwich that was mostly bread was the worst). But the feeling of sitting there at a nicely set table for one with a cloth napkin and my driver standing by waiting on me was so entertaining.

My guide was off somewhere pointing at the water and saying “Lake. Water, blue.”

I do say! Jolly good, Sport!

This was the designated bathroom cove...

“You go pee pee here.” Said my guide, quietly...

But damn! He took what I think is a flattering picture of me. He kept snapping pics here and I wondered what he was doing, but this was the last one he snapped of five and it was much better than the others. Maybe I should’ve hired him as my personal photographer instead.

This elephant was taking a morning mud bath...

Then we saw this one with tusks. My guide was excited. He said it was rare to see a tusked Asian elephant in this park...

Then we hit the mother load. My guide kept telling me how lucky I was. He kept saying it was rare to see such a large herd. Usually you see no more than five together. There were at least twelve here (and almost that many jeeps watching.)

“Baby elephant. Small one.” Says my trusty guide. Based on his comments, it could’ve been the first time he had ever been in the park as well.

I came close to tears watching them and wanted to stay for hours. So even though I overpaid, I didn’t care. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever witnessed (a close second behind pudding wrestling playmates in my backyard- Okay, I’ve never seen that, but a man can dream.)

“Pudding. ...-Chocolate.” Says my guide

Look at the one in the water. I didn’t even notice that until I zoomed in when I was doctoring my poor cell phone camera work. —Travelman: Professional Cell Phone Nature Photographer, bringing you the best poorly framed, blurry nature cell phone shots on the internet...

At the end, I tipped my guide well purely out of first world westerner guilt, then went back and gave the reception desk that sold me the safari a piece of my mind. I told them, I did, right-o!

Didn’t get so much as an I’m sorry.

Well, then. ...Carry on, Chin up.

(Okay, so this post came off more like I was complaining than finding humor in the misfortunes, at least that’s the impression I’m getting based on the first couple comments. Once again, had a great time, even with my overpriced guide, Tonto. It’s all fun and games until somebody pokes their eye out, and no one lost an eye, so it’s a win.)

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