Where the heck are we now?: National Parks and Beaches....Sri Lanka

We hired a Tuk Tuk to take us from the hill country to the south beaches with a stop at the National Park on the way. We enjoy riding in a Tuk Tuk as there is fresh air and always something to see...

Beautiful waterfalls...

School girls running...

Water buffalo on the side of the road...

The milk man doing deliveries...

Lots of produce stands along the road, the fruits here are unbelievably delicious! A view from the tuk Tuk...

We look happy enough...

Even though Sri Lanka is not a big country it has 23 National Parks and we visited this one on the way...

We had our own safari truck waiting for us...

Udawalawe Park is known for its’ large herd of Asian elephant so we were on the look out for them but we also saw lots of beautiful birds, a male peacock, more colourful than the female...

This colorful one...

This handsome owl...

Then we saw our first elephant coming out of the bushes...

The first of many...

They came very close...

They were different colors depending on where they took their mud bath...

This guy was scratching himself on the tree...

There were a lot of new babies in the park so we started to see some signs of them always close by their mothers. The mother is pregnant for 22 months having one baby at a time which weighs around 230 pounds at birth.

And a herd of elephants which we quietly watched for quite some time, it was so neat to watch them in their natural surroundings...

This one was giving itself a shower.

Then a small herd appeared...

Here they were swimming across the lake with the little one at the front

Crossing the road...

We came across these three...

And in a few seconds when they realized we were there they immediately closed in the little one in a very protective manner...

We saw many more on our safari and they are majestic animals...

We had another 2 and half hours to go so we were back on the tuk Tuk and on the road again...

This time we didn’t get far before a cable broke of the tuk Tuk and a repair job was completed on the side of the road...

And then the monsoon rain storm started....

We were drenched with the rain as we drove through the lightening and thunder storm, the roads turned to muddy rivers and we were in for quite the ride! But after a couple of hours of this we drove through it and were delivered safely to our destination at the beach, it was quite the full day!

The first beach town we visited was Mirissa where we stayed in a small B and B owned by an Estonian lady and her Sri Lankan husband. It was quite stylish and lovely and a short walk to the beach.