Amelia and I splurged for 2nd class tickets on our first rail journey in Sri Lanka. With our 450 rupee (£2.25) reserved seat tickets we boarded a train at Colombo's central station and gladly left the pollution behind. Compared to the trains we experienced throughout SEA this particular one felt quite modern and speedy!
We arrived 200 kms north of Colombo in about four hours. Even though Anuradhapura is known for its ancient temples we were there for a completely different reason... Wilpattu National Park is close by and renowned for its array of wildlife including leopards! Once we'd dropped our bags at 'Saubagya Inn' we immediately started hunting around for the best safari and haggling as much as possible when we found it. As our guesthouse owner seemed pretty content sitting on his sofa watching Hollywood blockbusters, we booked the safari with 'Village Garden Inn'.
There was just one local 'hotel' within the vicinity and their options were limited to rice and curry - the thought of eating it again (after eating it almost solidly for the past few days) was starting to become a little bothersome! But as the saying goes - "beggars can't be choosers", and as our options for eating something else were nonexistent, we tucked into yet another curry! Then it was time to turn in for the night as it was going to be a very early start.

At just after half five in the morning, we clambered sleepily into the back of an old Indian jeep and headed off towards Wilpattu. The journey in the open 4x4 took roughly forty minutes, so by the time we reached Wilpattu our weariness had well and truly been blown away!
After sorting the necessaries and picking up an extra passenger (a park ranger) we entered the national park as the sun was peering over the horizon.
We were barely half a kilometre into the park before we had our first 'bit' of ex...crement. But we knew it wasn't just any old faeces, it was fresh elephant dung! Amelia and I have certainly never been so excited by the sight of a turd before and from then on our eyes were on stalks.
Talking of storks, along with many other bird species they were in an abundance throughout the safari. During the morning we saw storks along with serpent eagles, green bee-eaters, egrets and the national bird of Sri Lanka (which looks just like a chicken!). As much as I enjoyed checking out the local birds, I was thinking about the potential of seeing bigger stuff. The constant scanning around (for 'the bigger stuff') made my eyes start to play tricks on me - spotted deer in the long grass appeared as leopards, and water buffaloes playing in the mud looked like baby elephants! One thing there was no mistaking though, was the black fluffy animal that appeared from a wooded area and strolled straight past the front of our jeep! Sri Lankan sloth bears are considered endangered with less than 500 left in the wild. We felt privileged witnessing the bear casually cross our tracks and I'm sure that it will stay engrained in my memory for a very long time.
The particular area of Wilpattu we were in wasn't particularly 'elephant friendly', with its dense woodland apparently it's quite rare to see herds of elephants. Fortunately for us we were able to see a lone bull from afar happily grazing on the weeds slap bang in the middle of a lake. Even though it was from a distance it was still an incomparable experience to our previous elephant encounters and in an ideal world that's the only way these powerful giants should be appreciated.
For most people being thrown around the back of an old jeep would be enough to keep awake, but not for Amelia! She frequently drifted off during our safari and if anything the back jarring bumps and sudden braking seemed to only help 'rock' her to sleep.. Our eagle eyed ranger was spotting wildlife left, right and centre! Lizards, mongooses, terrapins, crocodiles, to name a few. At one point, whilst we were motoring along a flat-ish road he spotted leopard prints in the sand! As we stopped to take a look my heart was racing and even Amelia's eyes were back open! We looked around for a while, scanning the undergrowth as well as the trees, but sadly the leopard was nowhere to be seen.
Time on our safari was called when the midday heat hit - most wildlife is hiding in the shade by this point anyway. Obviously it would've been nice to have seen a leopard, but we certainly didn't leave Wilpattu feeling disappointed.
No curry for lunch, but we couldn't avoid rice, so we had it fried up with some chicken and veg. The early start gave us an excuse to relax in the afternoon, so we caught up on some much needed 'admin' aka blog.
Inflight magazines are quite often a good place to find hints and tips about the place you're flying to. 'Sri Lankan Airlines' in particular had a feature on 2016 festivals. I made sure to make a note on one particular festival called - 'Duruthu Full Moon Poya'. It was the only festival that timed in well with our plans. However, the downside was the magazine didn't actually stipulate a time or an exact place! The 'festival' (first full moon of the year), according to our guesthouse owner, would start in the evening at various temples and run for a few days.
In the hope we could suss out what was going on, we decided to take a tuk tuk to reach 'Mahabodhi Temple'. When we arrived we were surprised to see only a few other people walking towards the temple (housing the oldest living human-planted tree in the world!). And those we saw were all dressed in white, so I hoped that I wasn't causing any offence in my black jumper. As we neared the temple we started to hear what sounded like chanting - Amelia didn't look keen!
I took a few pictures and then we entered the grounds around the sacred fig tree.
There were people of all ages there, most dressed in white, praying with the fluorescent orange-robed monks. I must say that we didn't feel like 'intruders' though, as the pilgrims who weren't praying looked at us with welcoming smiles. It did however feel a bit cult-like, especially to Amelia who tugged at my arm to indicate "let's go"..

We decided it'd be a shame to miss Anuradhapura's UNESCO World Heritage Site. So we booked in for another night and arranged a tuk tuk tour of the well preserved ruins with the owner of Village Garden Inn (a friendly Sri Lankan called 'Muthalif'). He picked us up for the five hour tour which started at just after 9.
Our first stop was at 'Vessagiri' which was supposedly an ancient monastery, but to us it looked like a load of boulders! Still, from the top of the boulders there was a striking view of the surrounding rice paddies and villages so it was definitely worth the stop.
From there we went onto 'Isurumuniya Rock Temple' and saw young pilgrims attempting to throw coins into a small recess in a rock (apparently if the coin lands in the niche, one's wish will come true). Amelia, after a little encouragement, proved a point by getting her first coin straight in!
We arrived back at Mahabodhi Temple to see the masses of white clothed pilgrims still there - clearly they'd camped out! Unlike our evening visit we felt much more at ease, in fact some young girls made Amelia feel particularly welcome by presenting her with some beautiful flowers. Near to the sacred tree was another temple, possibly the most iconic temple in Anuradhapura, 'Ruwanweliseya'. We've never seen as many Buddhist pilgrims as we saw there! There were literally thousands upon thousands, half of them were queuing up for what we thought was the entrance but actually turned out to be free food!
Just as we'd completed our clockwise lap around a smaller white stupa, 'Jetavanarana', the heavens (or should I say Nirvana) opened! It worked out to be good timing as we'd completed our tour. On our way back Muthalif stopped at a small cart selling 'short eats' (snacks) to buy us some 'Masala Vadai', an unusual spicy dhal fritter.
The afternoon was 'rained off', so we ceased the opportunity to continue blogging and finalise our plans to the next destination. Amelia and I decided to venture a little further afield in an attempt to find something different to eat. Our efforts paid off when we found chicken kotthu (stir fried shredded roti), which we even ate like true locals - with out mitts!

Dambulla was our next stop, from the bus station in Anuradhapura we boarded a small bus to take us there..