Is Kumana better than Yala national park in Sri Lanka?

so you've decided to visit Sri Lanka and you can't wait to explore the amazing wildlife in the national parks now it's time to book the best national park in Sri Lanka and you're probably going to think that it's the yala national park but I'm here to tell you that there are over 20 national parks in Sri Lanka that go completely unnoticed and undiscovered by Travelers and this series is about showing them to you what is up guys and welcome back to my channel in this series and in this video we are going to be exploring the Lesser known parks of Sri Lanka starting with kumana National Park [Music] thank you the common National Park is found on the southernmost part of the east coast and covers a radius of 350 square kilometers it's best known for the cuminum villus which are now recognized as a part of the ramsar Wetland site and because of the cumulative loose you can spot a wide array of aquatic birds in this park as well while you can spot the coveted leopard in the comuna National Park as well there is so much more that this park has to offer and we are here with parrotfish Collective who have been doing some amazing work in this region to really show you what else you can see and do in this area if you are planning on visiting the kumana national park you will need to hire a safari Jeep with the tracker or a guide that is license to enter the park unless you have pre-booked your jeep through an agent it is best recommended to book this experience from the surf town of arugambe which is the closest tourist Hub and settlement to the park this is actually a really great way to see the past because if you are someone who likes to be in nature you get to spend the whole day driving around and not only hoping to spot animals that's a great thing you can do but you have a lot of other things like the caves can have bath and maybe so there's a lot to see here but my favorite thing so far has to be the fact that I've seen only one other vehicle in the park so that's something really different to what you would experience in other parts like yala perhaps where you're constantly seeing other vehicles this park truly gives you a sense of diving into the forest and being almost isolated in it in nature oh [Music] [Music] and the fact that you can actually walk in this park which you can do in very few of them the park has these amazing ruins such as the stupa that we see here that like I said predates Christianity now this one has been redone by the archaeological department but the reason why they were in Ruins is because the jungle has overtaken them throughout the years as well as they have fallen prey to treasure Hunters over the years as well so that's why this one had to be done but it's very interesting for me to understand that there was a whole monastic community that lived here in some of the many caves here there's about 20 that caves that have been rejected for sure but perhaps even over 100 caves could exist foreign [Music] through this series are the people on the ground level who are doing some amazing work in protecting preserving and educating all of the stakeholders that are part of our environment and our ecosystem and so I really want you guys to meet Mr vinod malwata he is a part of parrotfish Collective here and I'm really excited to ask him a few questions I just want you to talk a little bit about the backbone of parrotfish Collective you know what are the things that really create inspire you guys to keep going we are a collective of people conservation professionals as well as Wildlife enthusiasts and I what we try to do is educate we primarily work in creating content that helps educate the general public our mission is to actually create as much awareness material to raise equal literacy rates of people in the hope that the more people know about the beautiful and environment in Sri Lanka the more inclined they will be to protect you know all the beauty that's around us one of the first things we did here was designing a national park logo for kubernet yeah the idea was to try to you know raise the level of um parks in Sri Lanka you know when you you look at parks abroad you know they've got their official national park logos they've got something to Market yeah and like a professional standard exactly so we've done a number of activities we've done some Visitor Center materials we did the educational guide to draw attention away from you know your charismatic species like the leopard or the bear yeah there's so much to see as you saw today so what we're trying to do is actually draw attention to some of these lesser-known species that are actually equally important their own story as well we're at another interest point and this one is called the bo at the Galway interestingly enough all of these caves have a drip ledge which is further proof that they were used by people and probably by monks as a place for meditation because the drip edge was something that you can see all around Sri Lankan cave structures that were used by people it's a technique that they use to make sure the rain doesn't run into the cave making it an excellent shelter and in caves like this we have further proof of people actually living in them because there's actually inscriptions and drawing dating back to very long time thousands of years ago so let's go in and check it out so many years ago this entire region was called the Rooney Kingdom and back then there was no bordering of national parks or anything like that there were Villages that were part of the forest as well as people and monks who lived in caves such as this so because of that reason you have caves like this that have artwork and inscriptions dating back to thousands of years ago but the really interesting thing is that within the same cave you have inscriptions that are much closer to present date from the 70s and the 80s and these are written in sinhala and in Tamil which means that they were from people who were moving through this area during the time of the war even using this place as shelter so for me that's really interesting because a place like this has been providing shelter for many different kinds of people throughout time and so there's a lot of history in an isolated place in a park like Humana that you don't even think about I know a lot of people watching this channel are people who are hoping to come to Sri Lanka and who are obviously really conscious Travelers themselves but everyone can learn so what do you think are some of the things that a conscious traveler can keep in mind so that when they come to Sri Lanka they are helping the other stakeholders be the Jeep drivers or the vendors to also be um sustainable or protect the environment I would say one of the main things could be is to you know bring some of the practices whether you live abroad or you live in Colombo bring some of those everyday practices here so you know it's a beautiful environment around us so not polluting obviously not throwing any litter out you know if you use a reusable bottle already you know bring those bottles yeah don't buy plastic bottles avoid things like that and another thing I would say is actually telling G privates because there might be this this notion that the the viewer here is here to see a leopard yeah so there's an idea that you have to show a letter to fail the trip exactly so I think it's like sometimes telling and and putting not putting that pressure on your yeah on your Jeep driver to see your leopard and saying look there's an opportunity um I would like to see the other things as well yeah I've read maybe reading up before coming I think is a big one because then you actually know what's there yeah um and then you can tell the Jeep driver hey I've heard of this spot and like can you take me there yeah can you take me there and like cause them to take you to these lesser-known sites and really enjoy uh the beauty that's around you and go away with a a beautiful Wilderness experience as opposed to you know just driving around trying to spot a leopard you might be seeing beautiful trees you know we saw some orchids today yes um birds and just uh also enjoying those little things I would say another thing that comes up if you know if people want to help is uh donating if possible to some of the local organizations working here as you know Sri Lanka is really um at a you know Crossroads in our journey and we we've endured some tough times over the last few years um so if you have the means of donating towards some of the great local work that's happening across the country across our Parks yeah uh do that you know like maybe everyone put 1000 rupees a month towards some of these initiatives uh what that could do if uh we'll say 30 people did that that's 30 000 rupees that could be someone's salary or yeah something like that and there's so many things you can do with that kind of money so just thinking of alternative ways of being how you can give back to the environment and that's a wonderful way to travel you know like traveling and promoting conservation uh in a place is such a wonderful and conscious way to travel because now you're really like those days if you travel people will be like watch your footprint you know you might be ruining the environment but when you're a conscious traveler you're traveling and you're trying to look at the people who are doing amazing work maybe supporting them funding them maybe taking some of the tips that vinod mentioned and using them when you're traveling here and working with the locals to kind of explain to them just how important protecting the environment is to you and so it should be to the person who is taking on your journey as well foreign which is kind of like the border between the yala national park and the kumana national park and I'm really excited to get in and have a dip and enjoy this water while my lunch is being prepared now to be honest that is the highlight of the trip for me so far because I love camping and this is kind of like it because they're cooking out here in the shade of the trees and I'm going to work up an appetite by swimming and go in and have some fresh jungle cooked Sri Lankan food and that's something that you can experience too I mean if you can't have your own meal cooked here something you can do is ask your Jeep driver when you're booking them to take you to these places they can take you to all the places that I've been today all you have to do is ask them and you can even ask them to be brought here to kombucha for your lunch break you can ask your hotel to pack a little lunch or some sandwiches and some fruits maybe and come here relax and enjoy your meal because at the end of the day this noon time is the warmest time of the day this is when you're least likely to see too many animals because they too are finding shelter and resting at this time this day trip has been completely different to some of the other day trips I have done because I don't feel like I have been chasing behind an animal such as a leopard and I don't feel that disappointment I'm not finding it instead I found an abundance of new animals I've seen so many birds that I have been in all those other parks that I've visited but have never been spotted and identified for me so I'm learning a lot through this journey and that's I feel like that's the kind of trip that one should aspire to have Park is not just a place for you to come and find a leopard there is so much more for you to see and learn from the plants to the animal and especially in a path like kumana the history and the archaeological ruins that are left behind so it's a really wholesome experience and I invite you guys to come and have that entire thing instead of just the one aspect of seeing the coveted lipid of Sri Lanka now we've already seen and done so much I feel but it's only half day and we have another whole half of the evening part of this trip and I'm very excited because when the sun does start to set and it gets cooler A lot of these animals that are napping right now will come out and we will see more of them around the watering holes so I am very excited for an eventful part two of the Stream foreign [Music] [Music] this is a village that is inside the kumana national park and it was evacuated in the 1980s reason being there was an attack during the war on some of the park officials and the government decided that they couldn't guarantee the safety of the people that lived within the village interestingly enough when the park was formed they were allowed to continue living in the village because they were so interwoven with the jungle but afterwards I guess you could say it was too dangerous to allow them back in here and guaranteeing their safety was an issue so no one has moved back in here since then those people were moved to a region known as Panama on the East Coast as well but it's very cool because you can see Signs of Life here I can see a Buddha statue this is the school building right here this could have been a home and there's also some interesting plants in the area I spotted very quickly some cactus that is growing here and it stands out because it's not unlike any other vegetation and our tracker mentioned that they might have the people might have grown it here in order to block off Elephants or you know not allow them to come in very interesting and just incredible incredible stories you can see that the place has been used by perhaps the SDA for the Army during the war as well there's a lot of writing not a big fan of vandalism but the the inscriptions that have been left behind after this place was abandoned also tell a story of its own so it is rather interesting to kind of have a read oh [Music] [Music] and just like that we have made it to the end of this video thank you so much for watching Until the End guys and if you did like this video and you found it it's informative and maybe we encouraged you to come and visit the permanent National Park please do hit that subscribe button and like this video because we have an entire series coming out on the national parks of Sri Lanka and we will be trying to get out at least once a month because these require a little bit more planning and free work and our other videos so bear with us we will have them all for you as soon as possible and I will see you guys on the next one bye a special thank you to our patrons for your continued support if you'd like to empower us to create more impactful stories like this then consider joining us over at patreon

Channel: Sheneller

Views: 94,241

Keywords: best national park in sri lanka, Kumana National Park, Kumana Sri Lanka, Kumana National Park Sri Lanka, Best park for wildlife in Sri Lanka, Sheneller, Shenelle Rodrigo, Sheneller Kumana, Sheneller Arugam Bay, Sheneller national Parks of Sri Lanka, Yala National Park, Arugam Bay Sri Lanka, srilanka, sri lanka travel, Things to do in Arugam Bay, Best wildlife park in Sri Lanka, yala leopard, kumana bird sanctuary, kumana national park sri lanka, Kumana leopard

Id: JD6Bv18A2mE

Length: 15min 55sec (955 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 21 2023