Probably one of the best spots to see elephants in Sri Lanka
While I was planning this trip, I did some research in order to visit one national park because I always wanted to see elephants in Sri Lanka. If you do the same, the biggest and more important parks you will find in every travel guide are Yala and Udawalawe. So I included these 2 options in my initial planning.
One of the advantages of backpacking without a fixed plan is the flexibility you got while on the road. This allows you to adapt to any change, stay more days in a place unexpectedly beautiful, or just visit an off the beaten path place recommended by some other traveler you have just met. And this is exactly what happened to me with the National Park.
While I was in Polonnaruwa, I was having a chat in my hostel with one German girl that told me about her experiences in the south of Sri Lanka. She was last week in Yala, and it was so big and so overcrowded with jeeps that she didn’t enjoy the experience at all, and she didn’t see any elephant… But somebody told her that Kaudulla Park, really close to Polonnaruwa was much easier and more enjoyable spotting animals. And she went the day before, and she did see a hundred elephants.
This valuable tip convinced me to book a safari tour directly from my hostel. And it was one of the best choices I took on my trip.
TIP: If you want to go to Kaudulla from Polonnaruwa, you can just ask your guesthouse, as there are many who offers this tour. but you can also go to the travel agencies you can find in the village and arrange the tour with them. This is the hostel where I stayed and booked the tour:
Kaudulla Elephant’s paradise
Kaudulla is located on an elephant corridor between Minneriya and Somawathie Chaitiya National Parks, and it is home to a population of 200 elephants! It is also an important bird area with more than 160 different birds (and 25 different mammal and reptiles, too). And, being a smaller park, there are many more chances of seeing elephants close up compared to Yala, Udawalawe, and Mineriya. And it is cheaper, too! Also, the best time to visit is from January to March.
The Park really is a heaven for bird watchers, so expect to see many peacocks everywhere! And pelicans! and so many other beautiful rare birds. It is also one of Sri Lanka’s newest wildlife reserve (declared as National Park in 2002) and this is one of the reasons why at the moment is not visited by a large tourist number (in comparison with the popular ones).
After going around for a while in an open-air jeep seeing many buffalos, monkeys, and several other animals, we arrived at a big esplanade. and there they were…like a hundred of big beautiful elephants eating, playing, and hanging around. This was so impressive. Being so close to these incredible creatures was so emotive…another dream come true. Feeling so blessed!
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