Adams Peak and it's residents.

The last day of the climb for the season is Vesak Poya day, falling in the month of May in any year. 2011 May is no exception and there is a decent crowd arriving by afternoon for the climb uphill with approximately 4800 steps to the top. Samanala Kanda in Sinhalese translated to butterfly mountain, is a 2243m high Buddhists believe that at the top of the mountain is the foot print of Buddha and the Christians, Adam and the Muslims and the Hindus, the lord Shiva.


You can surely plan and execute trips on a whim! Most of the travels we set out for are to see monkeys, with a few exceptions. The others are for monkeys and other wild animals. Most of these journeys end up with the camera full of a few people photos and hundreds of colourful money photos as half the monkey shots were taken with a camera set to shoot distant landscapes with dull colours. Because of this the settings are warm and the ISO high and the monkeys come lit up as Christmas trees.




So we leave Colombo by 7am, pretty late for people who get up at 5am to leave by 6am. Takes forever to travel in to the mountain range. The roads arer perfect till you reach the 35km road to Nallathanniya from Ginigathhena. The condition of the road makes it impossible to rech even 40kmph in an SUV.

Beware of the bad road! or mechanics' poor shoddy work. We started to hear noises as soon as the vehicle hit the 'bad' road. Sounded like the front wheel as loose from the axle and was going to fall apart on us. Towing is costly business. The guy in the picture runs a small service station at the junction of Maskeliya and can be trusted to do a few things right. But of course he couldnt pin what was wrong with our SUV. (sure! later we find out that a spring has been placed backwards and was not holding the brakes properly.. or some such thing)
























The roads are littered with tea pluckers going about their morning work. Their garb is colourful though the people themselves look withered and aged beyond their actual calendar age. The working conditions are harsh in these areas.


We stay at Wathsala Inn, a mere 300m from Nallayhianniya Police station and the base car park area for Adams Peak. What we enjoyed the most at the inn would be the food prepared at a moments notice and the generous quantities and the varieties provided. Rice and curry meal would comprise of at least 6 curries and Papadam with white rice or fried rice. All meals were served at the restaurant over looking the wonderful view of the monastery far away on top of Peak Wilderness mountain range's Adams Peak.


It was purely a mission to see monkeys as none of us even half heartedly had ideas to climb to the top, headed off by 3.30pm to the base to see if we can spot some toque macaques before they head off to their sleeping tress. The path is clear and well lit with deafening noise blessing the people climbing to worship the foot print of Buddha and admosnishing them about littering, harassing others and making noise. Of course there is so much noise coming from the loud speakers that it is impossible to make any noise above that. W scream at each other whenever we reach one of the tree tied speakers.



Slightly Chilled is another restaurant/inn conveniently located very close to the Nallathani town.




Walking quickly as the light fades and darkness engulfs the landscape, we spot of our first group of monkeys, the mountain purple faced langur. They sit merrily and eat young leaves of a giant rain tree. We only saw about 4animals the entire 2hours we stayed around making notes of them. There was no more time to see other monkeys and we were rather worried about over tiring ourselves for the drive back to Colombo the next day.


Monkey watching is not for the faint hearted. Some never move and the others never stop to pause. They live and eat differently. We only managed to spot two species of primates up in the Adams Peak. The Purple faced langur and the toque macaque.





























Mohini falls

Sleep comes in doses, road noises reduce by 10m as all the pilgrims are by then reached the base of the peak ready for their ascent. The sounds of the Kalani river creeping down to the ocean from it's heights too penetrates the walls and crawls through the cracks of the windows. Waking up around 5, we head off to the hills for more monkeys.

There are so many people coming down from the peak and some of them have that glazed look in their eyes of pushing their bodies to the limits and endorphins running amok within. There was on old man of about 75, helped down by a group of young men. He managed to tell them he is from a far away village in Monagarala and then collapsed with fatigue at a boutique sleeping. The army officers promised that they would see to it that the old man helped in to a bus that would take him back home, once revived and nourished. All in all an achievement for the man who at his age climbed to worship another faculty he believes in.


We took the steps two at a time in places as we knew it was a struggle with time for good photograpghs. monkeys sitting an feeding at anytime in trees are hard to capture on film and if there is no help from the light it gets more difficult.













Jackpot at Seethagangula! a small troop eats garbage and sits facing the Peak Wilderness with it's back to us.


The TM had a long hair do and the fur colour typical of the sub species living up country. We never had the opportunity to observe them for a long period. it was difficult to take a count or check for the amount of infants carried as they descended the hill from us at such a speed fleeing from the shop keepers who would throw rocks at them.

The light is too bright and too exposed to shoot these remarkably nimble creatures who display a tired weariness to the people around them. We heard from the Wild Life department official Mr. Munasinghe, that these creature come way down to the valley to raid their vegetable plots and to hand around the other fruiting trees and that when the season for the climbs arrive, the shopkeepers harshly chase all these animals away from their products.

With promises to come during the off season, we say good bye to the kind officials of The Wild Life office in Nallathanni.










This is a beautiful country and it is so easy to forget how we take the environment for granted and tarnish every available landscape with our garbage. Educating the public in masses would be the way to go if there was someone ready to take the challenge. On the way back to Colombo around 7pm, the roads were inundated with some of the heaviest traffic we had ever encountered. Vesak Pandals!!! People drove everywhere! Walked everywhere and hooted at any thing in skirts and even threw rocks and passed telephone numbers to other people in the adjoining vehicle. It was quite the embarrassing spectacle of our future generation behaving like lunatics.

I do not get to travel to other countries very often, but I do watch TV. After the earth quake in Japan, some of the cities in the eastern coast did not have power or food supplies for days. When the lorries and the aid agency vans rolled in carrying supplies, people of all ages, made lines, stood in a queue to receive the portions handed to them.
I also read that, when one of the newly provided power lines did not hold, and the electricity supply was terminated for a few hours, the shoppers in a small supermarket, put back the items in their grocery buckets back on the shelves and walked out of the store. No one stole or looted or damaged their city. No one stopped helping clear the debris till every bit was removed and was out of sight.

We too are a Buddhist country, more Buddhist values and cultural heritages than we can remember and practice. so then why do the young behave as they have no respect for any human being, even themselves and the adults behave like 'that' is the right of a young person to behave ???