When mentioning the concept of "safari", many Vietnamese visitors are familiar with spaces in the form of "expanded zoo", right in Vietnam or neighboring countries such as Thailand and Malaysia. However, I don't look for such safaries in travel experiences. For me, safari is a vast grassland where animals live freely in the wild with little impact from humans.
I thought that dream could only come true in Africa, I was surprised to learn that Sri Lanka is also a country with many national park experience tours, where tourists can see wild animals traveling in the wild. That idea prompted me to set out to explore Sri Lanka, to find wild elephants.
Sri Lanka has about 26 national parks and 52 nature reserves. Choosing which national park to visit depends on the schedule and preferences of tourists. The most popular is the Udawalawe National Park with a large herd of elephants and many endemic animals or the Yala National Park, famous for the highest density of spiny monkey in the world.
I love monkeys but I also understand that observing monkeys will be more difficult when this animal is not as bold as elephants. The distance from Udawalawe National Park to the capital Colombo is also closer than Yala. That is why we decided to choose Udawalawe for this upcoming trip to Sri Lanka. Another option for tourists who want to combine Sigiriya with many historical sites is Minneriya National Park, also famous for its large herd of elephants.
I arrived Udawalawe in late April. Udawalawe welcomed us with a showers. Sri Lanka is about to enter the rainy season in the South, bringing heavy rains usually in the late afternoon or early morning. For tourists, this may not be a good thing, but for the flora and fauna in Udawalawe, the rains signal a flourishing bloom.
The homestay owner named Deshan will also take us to explore Udawalawe. An average tour will last about 4 - 6 hours, depending on the wishes of tourists. You can choose an early morning or late afternoon tour, two times with the possibility of seeing the highest number of animals. The amount I have to pay for a 4-hour tour is about 1,200,000 VND/person, including entrance tickets (30 USD for foreigners, about 700,000 VND).
Each group will sit on a 4-6-seat Jeep, designed for national park tours - if you have ever watched videos exploring African safari, what a car would look like. The tour fee is not calculated by car but by person, so our 6-seat car can only serve 2 tourists. This is a price I find completely suitable.
At 5:30 a.m., he woke us up to start the journey. To get to the gate of the national park, we have to cross a large freshwater reservoir. The first animal we saw was a large herd of ducks, free to graze early on the lake shore. Ducks are shy, easily seen and move, so we can't get too close.
At 6 am, the National Gate of the National Park has about a dozen Jeep cars waiting to buy tickets. Buying tickets to complete procedures, he drove started to take us to search for wild elephants. No difficulty leaving the ticket station, we met a first elephant. We often joke this is the race of Jeep drivers who see who will see the first elephants. The driver will try to follow the separate directions for visitors to experience the closest animal, not having to jostle with other tourist groups.
It was a rather quiet day in Udawalawe, I think it was like that when we didn't meet too many other Jeep convoys. Watching animals in national wild parks is a stroke of luck because animals will not always appear in front of tourists. Of course, drivers know which areas will be easy to detect. For 4 hours, we met elephants about 15 times.
Sri Lanka elephants are a classification of Asian elephants. Sri Lanka used to have a mainland associated with the South Asian continent, but through geological fluctuations, this island is completely cut off from the mainland. This has also created changes for Sri Lanka elephant species. Sri Lankee elephants have an average size larger than other Asian elephant species, have darker skin color and have a rather low rate of male elephants with hoes (the female hoes will not have hoes).
With decades of experience driving Jeep, Deshan can detect elephants from a long distance, or even birds perched on branches. In addition to elephants, in 4 hours, I also saw many monkeys, buffaloes, crocodiles, deer, hydrangeas, workers, starlings, hawk dart, wild boars... It is estimated that there are more than 300 species of domestic animals and birds in Udawalawe. The animals I could see during the 4-hour journey were just a small part of the diverse ecosystem of this national park.
I asked Deshan if he had ever seen a newspaper in Udawalawe (Sri Lanka considers the newspaper a "land" of this country), Deshan said he had seen the newspaper a few days ago. I had to be very lucky to see the newspaper at Udawalawe and I was not a lucky guest on this trip.
To ensure safety, we are not allowed to get off or contact too close to animals. There are times when a few elephants go close to the car and just need to reach out and I can touch but this is not allowed, for the safety of visitors and limiting the impact on animals. Only once I got off when I got to the resting point. You should bring enough drinking water, hats, binoculars (if any). Time is mainly sitting in the car so it is not too tired.
At around 10am, we finished the tour and returned to the homestay, continuing our journey to explore Sri Lanka. For me, finding wild elephants is one of the most wonderful experiences in the "Indian Ocean pearl". Seeing animals in the natural environment is a miracle.
