Jungle Trail To Sri-Pada (via Uda-Maliboda)

Date	Saturday, 25th of January, 2014
Crew	Seven people (Age of 24-26)
Days	Two Days (One Night)
Route	Kadawatha → Awissawella → Dehiowita → Deraniyagala → Maliboda → Uda-Maliboda Tea Factory → Pandeniya Village (Trail Head) → Medahinna → Summit → Nallathanni → Hatton → Colombo
Transport	Hired a van from Colombo to Uda-Maliboda Tea Factory, Hired two Three-wheels From there to Pandeniya Village. On the way back, Took public busses from Nallathanni to Hatton and from there to Colombo.
Accommodation	None
Remarks	The first 8Km from the trail head goes through a dense forest, where elephants hangs out very regularly. So it is better to start off as early as possible from Pandeniya Village. Also There are several water streams that has to be crossed on this trail. Therefore off-season hiking on this route is not recommended at all costs, as flash floods are very common during the rainy season.

Ever since we first hiked (first time for me, but not for others) to Sri-Pada, couple of years back from Hatton trail and Kuruwita Trail, we wanted to try out the Jungle trail (which is also known as Uda-maliboda trail), more as a hike than a pilgrimage. Few years later finally we managed fulfill our desire.

There are in-fact six trails to Sri-Pada. That includes the more renown three;

• Hatton - Nallathanni Trail

• Kuruwita - Erathna Trail

• Rathnapura - Palabaddala Trail

And the lesser known three, which are more of just footpaths in the jungle;

• Deraniyagala - Uda Maliboda Trail

• Murraywatte - Rajamale - Sandagalathenna Trail

• Hapugastenne - Mookuwatte Trail

Here we took the Deraniyagala - Uda Maliboda Trail. The total length of this route was about 12 Km (would take about 12 hours), and is unarguably a lot tougher than the three famous routes. The route can be separated in to two sections. The first 8 Km of the trail from Pandeniya river, runs through a dense forest, where there is absolutely zero human interactions. It's more of a footpath, and in off season it would be pretty hard to even to track the correct path. The next 4 Km is the usual Kuruwita trail, where the path is relatively easy and have lights (at night) all the way.

Preparations before the long hike

More preparations..

We started off from Kadawatha around 4.30am, picked our crew on the way to Awissawella, and reached Dehiowita by 6.40 am. Then we reached Deraniyagala, which was our next way-point by 7.15am. After travelling for another 10mins passing Deraniyagala on the B39 road, took a right turn to the Maliboda road. The road was paved till Uda-Maliboda tea factory, but from there to trail head (Pandeniya Village), the road was in pretty bad condition, thus a 4WD would be the ideal mode of transport. We got off from the van at Uda-Maliboda, as it was furthest the van guy had agreed.We decided against walking the next 4 Km as it would eat-up our time and energy which we were going to need later on. Other option was to take a three-wheel. Luckily we could easily found two three-wheels there, who were willing to take us to the trail head (Of course it was going to cost than usual. We had to pay 1000/- per three-wheel to travel that 3-4 Km, but it did worth it, after seeing how bad the roads were).

Awesome view on the way to Maliboda

The road from Uda-Maliboda to Pandeniya Village

Finally we reached the Trail head by 9.00 am. Trail starts by crossing the Pandeniya river. Since we had been travelling for few hours by the time, and since it was a long hike ahead, we thought of having the breakfast before we start off the hike. The Pandeniya river became an ideal place to have our meal.

Crossing Pandeniya river to start off the trail

Pandeniya river, where we had our breakfast

After having the meal, we grab our gears to start off the hike. We had brought Leech socks and some home made repellents to avoid the hundreds of leech attacks we are about to face. (Unlike the more renown three trails, first half this trail is a paradise for leeches. So it's a must to go prepared for leeches if anyone plans to track this trail). We start off the hike at 10.00 am.

First we had to climb up a hill from the river, through forest. This section of the trail was clear and easy to tackle (not that easy though). Usually the villagers clear this trail, at the start of the Sri-pada season, to an extent that is just enough to identify the correct path. After few hours of walking, we came across a water stream. Though the water level was pretty low, by the looks of it, it must had been a large stream on rainy seasons. This trail was rich with water, and there were plenty of small water streams on the way. For that particular reason, we didn't carry much water with us, as water of all those streams were very drinkable and probably are the purest in the country. At this point we decided to take a little break and got our selves refreshed with some food.

Easing the thirst with water flowing fresh from the woods

Re-checking the gears, in the short break

After the short break we again continued, as we wanted to get to Medahinna (where the trails meets Kuruwita trail) before it gets dark. As the trail kept going in to the dense forest, the path was getting tougher with the dense undergrowth and was becoming harder to tackle. There were steep ascends for most of parts of this section, but also descended from time to time. We also came across elephant dung few times, where some of them were still fresh.

Passing through ascends and descends.. one after the other..

Crossed many small water streams on the way

A large mushroom

Through a virgin forest..

It was slippery on some sections

It was only getting tougher

Again, after travelling hours through the forest, we came to a large water stream, which is the “Seetha Gangula” of this trail. It was 3.00 pm by the time we reach there. Though we had been travelling for 5 hours, still had no visual of the peak. Therefore, we didn't stop at Seetha Gangula for much longer. At this point, the trail does not continue from the exact opposite end of the river. We had to walk about 100m upstream to enter the rest of the trail on the other side of the river.

The blue cloth to mark the trail entry on the opposite bank

Seetha-Gangula

It didn't turn out to be that much difficult to find the trail entry point from river. Later we saw a blue cloth that had been hanged on a tree to mark the entry point to the trail, at the opposite bank. The trail again started going deep in to the forest. We kept going and going. After about one hour from the Seetha Gangula, for the relief of everyone, we eventually reached Medahinna, where this trail merges with the Kuruwita trail. It was almost 4.00 pm and was starting to get dark as well. It wouldn't have taken one hour though, if I hadn't started to struggle with a muscle cramp, which slowed us down. As we walked for another 15 mins from the point where we joined Kuruwita trail, finally we had the first glimpse of the summit.

Finally.. the first glimpse of the summit,
after 6 hours  from the trail head.

Taking a little nap after hours of walking

We didn't stop all this far, other than for few minutes, not even to have a proper meal. Therefore after we joined the Kuruwita road, we stopped at the first place where we could have a short rest, to refresh our self. We found a large enough rock, which turned out to be the ideal place for our need. There we serve our selfves with some food we had brought, and took a little nap for about 45 minutes. When we woke up, it was around 5.00 pm and was getting dark, So we started off again. After another one hour of hike, on a not so difficult terrain, we reached the "Geththampaana" around 6.10 pm.

Scavenging for a good cause

Geththampaana

One thing I couldn't mention earlier was, that we started collecting the junk left by preceders of the trial. Sad thing was there were not only polythene leftovers, but also empty alcohol bottles as well. We collected them all the way through and put all the junk to the dustbins at the Geththampaana. One incident I really thought to mention here was, to the sadness of all, just as we were putting them in to the dustbin, few teenage girls from another group of pilgrims, threw away some polythene bags to the ground right in-front of us. More than anything else, dustbins were just a few feet away from them, and we really couldn't believe and bare what we just saw, after the effort we gave to clean up other people's sins.

Scenic as the sun goes down

So far came, yet so far to go..

We left Geththampaana at around 6.30 pm. Then it was rather a comfortable hike, even though we traveled at a very low speed due to the tiredness of walking since morning. We reached Mahagiridambaya around 11.00 pm and eventually the summit by midnight.

It was dark, but still walking..

The way we came. Ratnapura trail on left (with white lights)
and  Kuruwita trail on right (with orange lights)

So from where we started at Pandeniya village, it had taken 14 hours to walk the 12-13 Km distance and get to the summit. It was pretty cold as we came closer to the summit, as expected. We decided not to spent the night at the summit and wait for the "Ira-sewaya" as we all have had that experience before. After we were done with our worships, we started to descend taking the Hatton-Nallathanni route. As we reach Nallathanni, we were pretty much like hovering, more than walking, due to the tiredness and the stiffness of muscles of legs. We managed to catch the first bus from Nallathanni to Hatton. None of us knew how long it took or at what time the bus left, since we all were sleeping as we were dead. At Hatton we had the breakfast from the decent enough restaurant we found and took a bus to Colombo, which left Hatton around 10.00 am.

"  Take nothing but pictures,                          

       Leave nothing but footprints!  "