Yala National Park and Tissamaharama

A very young enthusiastic boy comes to pick me up exactly in time - it is half past six in the morning when he stops with his jeep in front of the hostel. Along the way he quickly gets a "rotti breakfast" and also gives me one that tastes great. I will go by myself although I’ve asked the owner of my hostel several times to call around to pick up more people to save costs.

I couldn’t believe it that nobody wanted to join into a jeep safari through the most populair national park of the country. He didn’t anybody and now I have to do this by myself and pay also everything. It’s very quite on the road at this time of the day. At the buffer gate of the National Park Yala only four jeeps are waiting - a big difference to previous trips to national parks elsewhere. We also pick up a "tracker" at the gate. Because I pay the entrance fee quickly and the administration my jeep driver takes over everybody and we drive into the park. We are second only.  

First we drive past typical "leopard" places where they are often present in the early morning. Not today unfortunately. I see little streams, rocks and big boulders and a few speckled deer and even some crocodiles but not the beast that the park is famous for. Fantastic!

The tracker suddenly points out two gigantic big owls sitting on a branch of a tree underneath the jeep. I never saw them. After one and a half hours of tearing around it is almost light; In other words, the chance of seeing the leopard become smaller, we suddenly see two fighting males of deer. They bang with their antlers in each other and the sound has to be heard in the furthest distance. What a force.

We continue our gamedrive and then suddenly we see in the distance, but clearly and without a doubt a leopard crossing the path. My driver puts his feet on the gas and we tear closer, but the animal continues his walk and disappears in the bushes next to the road. We don’t give up and drive around the block of ushes but we don’t see him anymore – we have lost him.

We drive back where we’ve lost hi mand we are lucky. The big cat is sitting quietly behind a few bushes waiting for us to continue. We drive a bit through but then stop the jeep and turn the engine off. We can see him sitting in the bushes and it looks like he wants to pass the road. He hesitates and keeps on looking our direction and we’ve got a pretty good few of him or her. If he does, I have a picture of a leopard that even experts would envy. It is dead quiet, no other jeep in sight and we wait .. and wait.

Then suddenly he decides to do it and walks with a curved back and trot to the safe side, again into the bushes. It goes so fast, but at 10 meters in full glory I saw a male leopard in the wild! The big cat walks into the bushes, and now we see why he so badly wanted to go to the other side; there is another leopard between the leaves. We move the car slightly so that we have an even better picture. We hear the animals growl at each other and it’s great to see them ly down next to each other. We also see them looking at us very clearly and I have to pinch myself to realize that this is real. They yawn, lick each other and play  among the trees as if we are not there.

The male stands up again and we gently start the engine to let it slide parallel on the road. There appears to be a water hole and when we are looking at a very short distance, he looks up - this is the photo you see in the magazines! Unique! He leaves after drinking and we continue to leave the animals by themselves.

I spot a lot of beautiful birds, a few waterbuffalo’s and several deer before heading towards the beach; a place where the "tsunami" and his destruction is still visible. What once a bungalow must have been is now a ruin and you see that the jungle recovered slowly from a disaster that took place here. There is a plaque as a reminder of that fateful day.

All jeeps from the park seem to rest here and while the other tourists have not seen anything spectacular I tell my impressive story about my encounter with the leopards. I also hear from several people that their owner of the safari tour had said that there were no other tourists - so almost everyone is alone in their own jeep! After 20 minutes here we take off again and close to the beach we stop next to two elephants that are close to the road. Two Hanuman Langor monkeys and a mongoose fly over the road. A male leopard seems to have been spotted and we drive together to the designated place.

Here is a row of jeeps to look at indeed a large impressive beast that quietly walks through the bushes. My driver does everything in his power to get so close and in my opinion puts the other jeep drivers to despair. On the way back I see an eagle in the tree and I thank the "tracker" for his help when he gets off. Upon returning to the hostel the owner comes directly to me with the guestbook and exaggerates that this has everything to do with the driver. He explains me not to mention my price for the jeepsafari in the book - the others would pay a lot more.

I wonder if I am ripped of or that he is going to rip the others. I wave the man goodbye and walk towards the minibuses in the village.