Pilikuttuwa Raja Maha Viharaya Gampaha Sri Lanka

Pilikuttuwa Raja Maha Viharaya is a buddhist temple constructed by king Devanampiyatissa and used as a hiding place for king Walagamba. This place has so many interesting things to explore. There are large number of caves and rain forest covering them and also place called Belum Gala and many more historically important stuff such as paintings and wood bridge. There is also an extraordinary large giant Puss creeper which is considered to be the largest in Sri Lanka. This place is heavily crowded on Poya days but alomost no one is there on other days. when we went there it was only us no one else and it was a saturday. If you are planing to explore caves and enjoy the environment non poya day would be ideal.

Belum Gala

Giant Puss Creeper

Rathgaga Rathnapura Sri Lanka

Rathgaga is a river filled with stones. We can actually walk on stones without putting our foot on water along the river. We started the walk near Punchi Dabadiva a Buddhist temple, and walked couple of kilometers along the river and it was large stones all the way and there was no end to it near by. River is little crowded near the temple as buddhist devotees who visit the Punch Dabadiva temple comes to river to clean themselves and have a quick bath. Not many people are there when we walked around 400m from where the temple is and no one at all once we walked around a kilo meter. It is a wonderful experience to jump from stone to stone and walk along a river without water touching our body

and finally to have a bath in cold water. We can also lay on stones and relax for a while in  a cold environment.

Route from Rathnapura to Punchi Dabadiva

Siripade Dehenakanda Mukkuwatta route

Dehenakanda route is not a commonly used route and their are no stairs to climb like we have in Rathnapura and Hatton routes. We had to walk through the forest until we reach the top(we enter Rathnapura route even above the last shop located at Ahala Kanuwa). We could not climb all the way to the top within one day as we started climbing around 11.00 a.m. and we had to set up camp to spent the night. Route is not very clear as you have bent to ground to go through some places but probability of some one getting lost in forest is very low(route can be seen though difficult to walk keeping straight body at many places). We almost ran out of water towards the end and its a steep climb towards the end. So be sure to save some water if you ever travel through this route. Biggest trouble which we faced was the leeches. They are every where at the start of the climb but that trouble goes a way when we climb to a certain level. There are few water ways to refresh us other than that we could not find a single fruit which is known to us. Going to Sri Padaya through Dehenakanda route is a tough and awsome climbing experience that any sri lankan climber should not miss.

Close to top

Little after starting the tour

Tapasarama Kanda _ Bonegala Gampaha Sri Lanka

Tapasarama Kanda is a small mountain where only one hermit monk lives and the whole mountain is covered with lots of large trees. There is a rock at the top of the mountain and a small pond. Not many people go there and mostly it looks like an abondoned place. We can go there an stay as long as we can without any interruption (hermit monk wasnt there when i went there). We also had a quick nap :) at the top of the rock where trees were covering us from sunshine. Not much climbing is needed and top can be reached within 20 minutes. Nice place for a quick tour. If you ever wanna come there come to Bonegala and ask anyone for the route to reach Tapasgala or Tapasarama Kanda.