National Geographic Traveller UK 03.2020

Dambulla

GALGAMUWA

Bulugolla

Anuradhapura

Lake Kandalama

NATIONAL PARKMINNERIYA

MIHINTALEMOUNTAIN

SIGIRIYA

DAMBULLA ROYALCAVE TEMPLE

Sri JayawardenepuraKotte

INDIAN OCEAN

BengalBay of

Colombo

INDIA

SRI LANKA

5 Miles

Getting there & around

British Airways, Emirates and Etihad

Airways have indirect lights to

Colombo from UK airports. Only Sri

Lankan Airlines lies there direct, from

Heathrow. ba.com emirates.com

etihad.com srilankan.com

Average light time: 10h30 (direct);

13h30 (one stop).

Sri Lanka has a decent rail and bus

network and roads are largely well

maintained. A hire car with driver will

cost from about £40 a day.

When to go

Sri Lanka can be visited at any time of

year, although the wettest months in

the Cultural Triangle are between

October and December. Peak season is

January to April, and sites are therefore

more crowded and prices higher. The

climate tends to be hot and humid all

year, and temperatures rarely fall below

the mid-20Cs (even at night).

How to do it

NATURE TRAILS offers an eight-night

wildlife and culture tour of Sri Lanka,

featuring Minneriya National Park,

Anuradhapura, Ritigala (a village famous

for its martial arts), Sigiriya, hot air

ballooning, whale-watching at

Trincomalee, and more, from £2,700 per

person. This includes accommodation at

the Cinnamon Lodge Habarana and

Trinco Blu by Cinnamon, guides, park

fees and internal transport, but excludes

international lights. amonhotels.com

cinnamonnaturetrails.com

ESSENTIALS

IMAGE: ALAMY. ILLUSTRATION: JOHN PLUMER

which has witnessed some of Sri Lanka’s
worst human-elephant conlict, and when
I arrive there’s a welcoming party of locals
eager to tell me their story.
Bulugolla is a village of just 17 families;
simple farmers who tend their paddy ields
and live in houses with iron roofs. For four
generations they existed happily enough, but
20 years ago elephants started to come. “They
took our coconuts and pulled down the walls
of our houses to get to the bags of rice,” says
one. “A few people were killed,” adds another.
Nobody slept. On starless nights, they’d lie
listening for the rattle of the tin cans strung
around their gardens, a crude early-warning
system to alert the villagers to approaching
elephants. Out in the ields, the men kept
watch on wooden platforms, shouting and
setting of irecrackers when a herd arrived in
a desperate bid to save their crops. “Everyone
was scared. Some families moved away.”
Then The Doctor visited, and he brought
a new idea. “For decades, we’d been trying to
put fences around elephants,” he explains. “I
decided to try putting fences around people.”
Under The Doctor’s supervision, they set
about building an electric fence around
Bulugolla. Wires were strung between posts,
and the posts themselves were electriied
(thus avoiding the situation in national parks,
where elephants had learned they could
push posts over without getting a shock).
“Elephants are clever,” says The Doctor.

“They’ve also learned to latten fences by

laying logs on them. This fence is lexible

so it bounces back up if something knocks

it down.” There are temporary fences too,

powered by portable solar panels, to protect

paddy ields during the growing season.

But has it worked? “In ive years, no one has

been killed and no house has been damaged,”

explains Mr K G Wijeratna, who’s president of

the Bulugolla Fence Committee, and proudly

writes his name and title on a piece of paper

for me. “There were 35 elephants outside the

village last night, but no problem!” another

villager chips in. “We can sleep, our palms

have coconuts and our children are safe.” “And

ater my son touched the fence, he knows not

to do that again,” Wijeratna adds.

In this country of masters and monks,

sacred trees and holy mounts, it’s a ‘doctor’

who’s answered the prayers of the Bulugolla

villagers. For them, the conlict is over; people

and elephants can coexist. The next step is

to convince the government to roll out the

solution nationwide.

Before I leave Sri Lanka, I meet a monk at

Mihintale Mountain whose wise words stay

with me long ater we part ways: “Buddha

told his priests to go in diferent directions.

Walk the same path and there will be conlict

— you must ind your own way.” Like the good

Doctor, I think. He’s walked a diferent path,

found his own way to the answer. Now the

challenge is to get others to follow.

Giant seated Buddha at Mihintale

Mountain, a sacred site and

monastery near Anuradhapura

100 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel

SRI LANKA