42 amongst elephants

Well I always wanted to be able to wake up in the jungle on my birthday and finally managed to do so for the first time in my life this December. I was fortunate to be able to get a bungalow inside the Udawalwer national park on the days that I wanted. Generally this is the most challenging part of an excursion to the jungle since during school holidays it is virtually impossible to get one. But for my luck there was one available though it was not my first choice. But this bungalow did have one advantage which the other did not have which is a river. So I was fantasizing about bathing in the river with a chilled beer in hand when I found out that the 4wheel drive of my vehicle needed to be repaired. The bad news was United Motors had no parts available. And it would take up to three weeks to get it down. This was not some expensive part costing a couple of lakhs but just a silly switch which would cost roughly 6000 bucks. Another reason why I should not buy a vehicle from United Motors. Well I had an alternative of getting the parts hand carried down from Singapore it would cost 50% more but it was worth the expenditure. But damn the part was not available in Singapore either. So I had only one choice which was to disengage my four-wheel drive and make sure that I would not be stuck in the mud when chased by an elephant.

The journey to the park was uneventful, We left Colombo at seven in the morning and arrived at the park gates by 11.45 Whilst there was not that much traffic it was not completely a stressful drive. Once again I was appalled at the bad driving manners of people in our country. I am not an aggressive driver and consider myself a peaceful one as well. What I can’t stand is people hogging the road and not letting others pass even though they are driving quite slow. In fact I had made a mental note to publish a special post about the bad driving one would experience on Sri Lankan roads and realized that I have already done that sometime back on a post titled Bloody Bustards.

Anyway it was just me and my family on the first day in the jungle. And my cousin along with his family was joining us for breakfast the next day which was also going to be my birthday. It had been raining heavily in Uda Walawe and the roads were absolutely muddy and I was worried if I might get stuck in the mud without even going off road. But somehow we managed to get to the bungalow without any problems. It was wonderful to be away from it all amidst the quite serenity of the jungle. Sadly the currents were too strong in the river and therefore a river bath was out of the question according to our tracker Kapila a nice young boy from the area. He had an interesting story to tell which would be an independent post of its own in the near future.

It was heavenly to be away from the concrete jungle and the work pressure amidst the greenery and the sound of nature. No phones ringing no urgent calls even though the work pressure back in the office was at boiling point. I thanked god for an able team who could shoulder the responsibility without calling me every two minutes trying to figure out what to do.

Believe it or not the entire day was spent eating and reading and just chilling out. I did not go out on any sight seeing or anything of the adventurous kind. Other than read the entire twilight series consisting of four E books. They were pretty good and the last one was exceptionally amazing. If you have not read it I suggest you do.

The next day saw the arrival of my cousin and his family which livened up the whole place some more. It was also the day of my birthday and they were sweet enough to have brought a butter cake with one large candle and I was forced to cut the cake and blow the candle as everyone sand happy birthday.

That day was quite eventful as the water pump did not work in the night and we were stuck without water. I was thinking to myself if the lack of water some kind of hoodoo following me in the jungle because this was the same thing which happened in Lunugamwehera a couple of weeks back. It was a case of water water everywhere but not a drop to wash. It was raining cats and dogs and it bone chillingly cold in the night. But we had none to even have a wash or go to the loo. Fortunately we managed to wait till morning before the tracker went and got someone from a close by outpost in the jungle. He managed to identify the problem instantly and we had water for ablutions. Enough elephants were seen to fill a shelf full of albums. I spent my time mostly doing nothing other than reading reading and even more reading. And I felt quite well rested by the time we came back to Colombo on Saturday to face another challenging week.