Day 1:
John arrived around 11:15am to safari lodge. After welcoming and introduction of staff, he had a brief about ASL at the lounge. Before having lunch, 11 went to his chalet. He had lunch at 1pm, then we went to afternoon safari about 2pm.
It was nice and warm day, park wasn’t busy, we saw lots of wildlife. Since less crowed, a lot more animals were close to the road and freely roaming here and there. Also, we saw lots of spotted deer and buffalos, gray langer monkeys, giant squirrel, Crocodiles and more. We were fortunate to see a sloth bear not far from the road. He was digging wet termite mount for his late lunch. We watched him there about 15 minutes.
We came back from the park 6:15pm. John enjoyed his dinner and went to his chalet about 8:30 in the night.
Day 2:
We started today at 6 in the morning with a packed breakfast to go Sigiriya rock fortress(5th century AD). Climb started at 8:30am. We went to the summit and enjoyed the view. On the way from summit we saw mirror wall and Sigiri frescoes. There was not that many visitors. It was a sunny day. John was really impressed about Sigoriya. We got back to vehicle 11:40am then went to lunch at Dambulla,(Giman Hala).
Afternoon we had our second safari at Kaudulla National Park, due to rainwater level at lake there were not big herds of Elephants but we managed to see two herds with babies. Also, a few single male Elephants. We saw lots of waders (water birds) due to northern migrant period (visitor birds) now in Sri Lanka. After safari we arrived to the lodge around 7pm, there John had his dinner and after a long day he went to bed bit earlier.
Day 3:
Today is a rest day for the guest, John slept until about 8:30 in the morning. After breakfast, we walked on the bird trail around the property. We saw many birds (serpent Eagle, Rose Ring Parot, Broun Fish Owl) and more. Also, we saw some animals. We saw Bronze Back Tree snake.
Today chef made spaghetti with Sri Lankan touch for a lunch, also curd & treacle for the dessert. John really enjoyed our home made lunch. Afternoon around 4pm we started our village walk, John was really interested to see rural life of Sri Lanka. He wanted to donate some school books & accessories for few kids we meet during our walk, that was really interesting experienced. Also we went to see home base clay pot factory during our walk. We walked back to lodge around 6:15pm.
Day 4:
Today we had our day start 7:30am, had a hot breakfast from the lodge & then we went to Anuradapura ancient city (3rd century BC – 10th century AD). There we visited Isurumuniya ancient Buddhist temple, ruwanweli stupaya, Mirisawati Stupaya, Jetawana stupaya, Sri Maha Bodhiya etc… guest was amazed about our secret places built in ancient time. After ancient city we went towards to Polonnaruwa. On our way we stopped at Acmi and had our lunch.
We went to Deer Park Hotel Girithale about 4:30pm, we got an hour rest. We went to experience primate research center to explore Red Slender Loris. There we meet research head and had an interesting briefing, then the tour started. During the tour we were lucky to see 6 Loris. We got back to hotel around 9pm. Guest had dinner from the hotel.
Day 5:
After breakfast we start todays activity around 8am, Polonnaruwa ancient city (10th AD -13TH AD) . First, we focused on three type of Monkeys which we wanted to see today. As expected, we manage to see all three different Monkeys, (Toque Macaque, Gray langur, Purple Face leaf monkey). John got a very close view of all three kind of Monkeys. Also, we visited few places in the secret city Galviharaya and watadagaya.
After visited Polonnaruwa ancient city we had lunch at Deer Park Hotel Girithale. We got back to the lodge around 5pm. Today guest had his dinner around 7pm.
Day 6:
5.30am start our third safari, we saw another Bear at the very beginning of the safari, at least we were there 15 minutes on our own. Also we saw a Leopard during our morning safari. We got to see Herds of Buffalos, Crocodile, Mongoose, and a Jackal. From safari we got back to the lodge 12 noon. Guest had his lunch around 12.30pm.
Upon John’s request we went for an extra safari in the afternoon, we manage to see another leopard and some more animals (Star Tortoise, Mouse Deer). We were back at lodge after safari about 7pm, soon after arrived guest had dinner.
