There are many wildlife parks in Sri Lanka and each one seems to have it’s own specialty. Some have lots of elephants, some have a small chance to see leopards, and others have birds. The most famous park on the southern coast is Yala, but I had read that it’s a zoo with dozens of jeeps driving around to get the best view of wildlife, so we decided to go to Bundala National Park which was famous for birds but also was known to have larger animals.
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Where I stayed
We organized our tour thru e-mails with the owner of Lagoon Inn, and we couldn’t have been happier with this place. This place is a great value with great views. We were the only guests at the Inn and the owner’s wife cooked us a wonderful noodle lunch and since we had over an hour until our Bundala National Park Jeep Safari, we walked to the edge of the lagoon and watched all of the amazing birds and vehicles trying to cross the flooded road. Book it here.
The Bundala National Park Safari Tour
At 2pm, the guide for our afternoon safari picked us up at the Lagoon Inn and we set off for the Bundala National Park headquarters where we had to pay Bundala National Park entrance fee. The total of the jeep and fees was about $30 per person for a four hour tour and it was well worth it. We saw a total of 3 other jeeps the entire afternoon so it really felt like we had the park to ourselves.
Animals we saw included elephants:
Monkeys (two types):
Deer:
Buffaloes:
Monitor Lizards:
Crocodiles:
Rabbits:
Sea Turtles:
And many, many birds – the famous Bundala National Park Birds…
This guy bit off more than he can chew:
This was really a Bundala National Park Birdwatching tour more than anything. The most amazing were the peacocks that roamed all over the park. The males were putting on a show for us:
In addition, we saw a boar and mongoose that I couldn’t capture on film.
Dinner and Nightfall
We went back to the Lagoon Inn and had a great Rice and Curry dinner with many curries and ice cream for dessert. We didn’t ask the price of the meals but when we paid the bill for our abundant lunch and dinner next day, we were only charged $6 each.
After dinner, we sat out back and watched the fireflies in the garden until the bugs got too wicked. I retreated to my room to hid under the mosquito net. This translucent little gecko in my room didn’t bother me much.
The next day, we went to the lagoon and it was even more flooded today and the morning tours to the park were cancelled – so lucky we had gone yesterday.
The owner of Lagoon Inn showed us where to catch the local bus so we caught 2 buses from Bundala National Park to Mirissa.
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