Polonnaruwa and elephant safari

Trip Start Jul 15, 2009

Trip End Jul 30, 2009

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Where I stayed

manuel guesthouse

(Polonnaruwa hotels)

Flag of Sri Lanka Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka
Sunday, July 19, 2009

An early breakfast and bus to Dambulla (which took an hour as stopped everywhere) before waiting for an hour for a bus to Polonnaruwa, which meant that we didnt get there until midday. I am sure it would have been much later if the rickshaw driver hadn't got us onto the correct bus as it really wasn't clear.

We went to Samatha guest house - disgusting and dirty stay away. The Manuels guest house (900rs a night) which was ok. The room was on the first floor so had an outside seating area and mosquito net and ensuite. It wasn;t the nicest place we stayed but was fine as was the food.

we went on an elephant safari - 4000rs for teh jeep and 5245rs for 2 people entry into the park at Minneya. Although we had seen lots of elephants in Africa we thought it would be interesting to see the gathering of 150+ elephants which flock to the area in times of drought... as always we were lied to and it was another month until that happens (aug). We ended up in the park about an hour and saw about 46 elephants in total. What was amazing was seeing a 2 week old baby there and just sitting and watching as the elephants ate and bathed. We are not really interesting in the birds about.

At night there were lots of midges circling the lights but no mosquitos - but still used the nets. There wasn't really any restaurants in the town so we ate at the guest house and drank beer. overnight i was bitten by something - was it fleas/ ants or ???