Sri Lanka is a destination that's been on my radar for sometime, and in November 2023 me and my partner Brooke had the opportunity to explore this beautiful little country with the hope of photographing wildlife in some of the spectacular national parks.
Before I get too in depth on locations, I'll run through our route and how we got about etc. We arrived in Colombo and basically got out as quick as we could, it's a big smelly city, I'm sure there's things to do and see but not what exactly how we wanted to spend our time with only two weeks to spare. From there we journeyed north, straight to Wilpattu national park, one of our favourite spots. Then onto Mannar island where we hoped to photograph the flamingo's, we were a little early in the season and they hadn't arrived yet, we also heard the new government has sold large portions of the wetlands to farmers and this has disrupted a lot of migratory birds.
From Mannar, we travelled to Sigirya, via Anuradhapura, then on to Ella. Here Brooke went down with Dengue fever meaning we didn't get to see much. November is wet season, more water means more mosquitos and this year has been particiularly bad for dengue in Sri Lanka - cover up and use spray! What I can say is Ella is very beautiful, nestled in the mountains with amazing hikes and views. It is a lot more touristy than the spots we had visited up to now, but also means theres a bit of nightlife and some great food options. We then made our way to Tissamaharama and Yala national park, despite it's fame, this was probably our least favourite part of the trip - more details later. Finally we stayed in Mirissa for some beach time and surfing before heading back to Bandaranaike International airport for our flight out.
Sri Lanka is a relatively easy country to travel, its cheap, the locals are very warm and welcoming and there is lots to see! Two weeks gave us enough time to visit some of the more famous spots, but if we were to go again, I think we would change the route and spend more time at different parks as wildlife photography was really our main goal. To get around we used a local driver, its more expensive than public transport, although it made our lives much easier. Amara was really helpful, made sure we weren't getting ripped off and was very supportive when Brooke was sick. We found Sri Lankan food a little dissapointing... Given the proximity to India, we had high hopes, but local food was often quite plain. The national dish is Kottu, chopped roti bread, fried with meat, vegetables and spices. It's good and cheap, the other staple is 'rice and curry' which was usually quite a generic curry, its a bit of a gamble, sometimes great, sometimes not. In more touristic locations you can find some amazing food, especially in Ella and Welligama.
Wilpattu National Park
Wilpattu, located in the northwest of the country, is the largest national park in Sri Lanka and it was one of our favourite locations on our trip. Here we stayed at the Big Game camp and did two full day safari's with them, the camp is basic but comfortable and the food and safari's were great, I think we'd go with them again if we return.
The size of the park and abundance of water, can make it trickier to spot some wildlife like leopards, especially in the wet season. This is why many visitors to Sri Lanka favour Yala, where you have a good chance to see wild leopards. You shouldn't be discouraged by this however, the park is much quieter and still full of wildlife.
We did two full day safari's in the park, most people just do a half day, so with a full tour you can get further into the park and away from the crowds. However, during wet season when we visited, much of the afternoon would be written off by heavy downpours so morning tours may have been better. The morning safari's also seemed to get more leopard encounters, probably as the drivers text each other and work together when they find something interesting. We experienced this with the sloth bear on our first afternoon, when all of a sudden we were racing through the tree's as our driver had been alerted his friend had found it not too far away!
We were quite lucky with the wildlife really, this leopard was sighted during our first morning and there were about 6 or 7 jeeps waiting to see if she came down. We caught a couple of short glimpses whist we waited about 45 minutes so we decided to move on, and it was the right call as the others stayed till sundown and she didn't come out.
Before coming I read about the first evidence of 'tool use' in reptiles from mugger crocodiles, where they would rest with reeds and sticks on their heads to try and entice nesting birds for an easy meal. I don't think this guy is fooling anybody...
Sigirya
Our next destination was Sigirya, famous for its elephants and temples. Here we visited Anuradhapura temple city, Dambulla cave temple and the famous lion rock. After those three I was a bit templed out... Beautiful and fascinating history, but we were here for the nature. I will say if you go to the Lion Rock, go early. There is only one narrow staircase up and down, later in the morning it gets quite busy and heavily congested with many selfies being taken. It's also a hot and sweaty climb so going early is a little cooler too, your legs are going to feel it the morning after!
The real highlight in Sigirya for me were the elephants and actually seeing herds of wild elephants was one of the big draws of Sri Lanka for me. There are 3 national parks around Sigirya and depending on the season the elephants tend to move between them, we visited Kaudulla. You also see a lot more elephants in the afternoon when they move out of the forests to drink and graze so most of the safari's are half days, which you can combine with a morning climbing the lion rock.
The half day safari is plenty and you will see heaps of elephants, we had more than 200 during our tour. Watching them graze, completely wild and free was really special. This was one of my favourite parts of our Sri Lanka experience.
Its not all sunshine and rainbows though. Human - elephant conflict is on the rise in Sri Lanka, with growing populations of both its becoming harder to protect these massive animals, that need space to rome. Throughout the night in both Wilpattu and Sigirya we heard gunshots and firecrackers being used to try and deter elephants from farmers rice paddys and peoples homes. We even saw an elephant that had been hit and killed by a car on our way back to Sigirya from Kaudulla. Our driver was also really concerned about having to leave his vehicle in certain areas as insurance companies won't cover elephant damage. Sri Lankan people love their wildlife and their elephants though and people are working hard to come up with solutions to this problem.
One other thing about the national parks around Sigirya, they also have a lot more wildlife than just the elephant heards, including chances to see leopards. It isn't so well advertised, had we known about this, we would have maybe tried another full day safari here instead of headinh to Yala.
Yala National Park
After a brief dengue intermission, our next stop was Yala National Park. At our drivers recommendation we based ourselves in Thissamaharama, the main entrance to the park. Before coming we had heard some mixed reviews with people saying not to go and others who had great experiences there. We decided to give it a shot as we had missed out on the Leopard in Wilpattu and Yala is known as one of the best places in the world to see them. I did two full day safari's here, the first day was great and we managed to avoid the crowd, we got to see Nandimithra a famous tusker elephant, but no joy with the spotty cats.
Our second day in the park was somewhat different. Not long after we arrived, a jeep further along the main road found a sloth bear. All of a sudden a furious race of jeeps started, with drivers desperate to try and get their passengers a glimpse of the animal. We ended up somewhere near the back of the line with vehicles wrestling to get closer to the animal, which was trying to feed on a termite mound ahead of us, we did get a glimpse of it, but it felt like we were in heavy traffic in Colombo, not a national park.
After this experience we were pretty disheartened and asked our driver to try and away from everyone, but as we were turning off the main road he stopped and looked back at another vehicle. He realised they had spotted something so he quickly reversed back to their position and he was correct, they'd found a leopard and her cub not too far off the road. Just as she moved out of the bush and looked directly towards my camera, another jeep pushed in right infront of us, blocking our view and scaring her deeper into the bush. Then out of nowhere an army of jeeps descended on us, there must have been at least 50 vehicles, we even saw one physically pushing another forward to try and get a closer look it was complete insanity. We got completely boxed in as the leopard crossed the road ahead of us, she even laid down in the road to try and show her cub it was safe to move out of the bushes.
In this situation, I think we got paticularly unluclky. She was spotted on the main road, not long after the park opened, so all the jeeps were closeby. Ranger's were also on the scene but they were completely overwhelmed and at the back of the traffic jam, one man was trying to organise and direct the drivers but it was chaos really. This really put a dampener on our trip, we didn't want to be supporting this kind of destructive tourism, I don't really understand who could really be enjoying it but it seems to happen regularly. One big difference I realised later, all the vehicles in Wilpattu had photographers who were there to have a genuine wildlife experience, whereas Yala just had a lot of full jeeps with people who may have never done a safari before and may never do another.
If you would still like to visit Yala, I think you can have great experiences there. There are multiple entrances to the park, East Yala is less busy and already you can start to avoid crowds there. Thissamaharama is quite a big city and very well known on the tourist trail. I would also recommend trying a full day, over hald day safari. Having a full day means you can go further than 90% of the vehicles just doing the morning trip.
For the last part of our trip we stayed in Mirissa for some beach time just to relax a little before flying out. We found it pretty touristy, but there was some great food and surf in Welligama. I'm a fairly new surfer, the beach was busy but big enough you could find some space and catch plenty of waves which were coming through pretty consistantly all day.
A few final tips if you're thinking about Sri Lanka. For the wildlife photography, you are going to want a telephoto lens. I used a 100-400 and most of the time it was enough, you might getaway with a 70-200 but really you're going to miss out on a lot of shots. I would of loved a 400 or 300 prime but no chance... I've already spent way to much on camera gear!
Avoid the mosquito's. Dengue is not fun!
The ATM's charge a lot for withdrawals and have terrible exchange rates.
Dry Season is better for wildlife encounters, but be prepared for it to be a lot busier.
Drink the tea, not the coffee.
Enjoy the journey's through the country and the wonderful locals! If you have any quesitons or would like contact details for our amazing driver Amara, get in touch!
