A Walk in the Cloud Forest…at Horton Plains
Morning 3.30 and the Clock in my Mobile Phone started ringing…I was tired because of a long drive of almost 4 to 5 hours previous evening.. I literally wanted to sleep more but suddenly my Son switched on the bed Lamp and asked to wake up ,he said, we need to go for a beautiful view of Sun Rise and watch the Clouds on the Hills.
Exactly at 4.30 AM we started our journey in our hired Covered Jeep from our Hotel in Nuwara Ellia towards the mountains. It was pitched Dark outside and was too cold which we never imagined in SriLanka though it was in early January and we should have thought of the winter.
After a drive for almost an hour through the serpentine mountainous road we reached a Hilltop, where some vehicles with tourists have already reached and were waiting for the Sun to rise from behind the Dark shadows which was still prevalent in the area.
Slowly after some time we saw a streak of golden lights appearing in the far end of the sky and their were hushing sound from the people around.. All the tourists were curious to see the sun rising up from the clouds and the vicinity was looking beautiful with the Sun Rays spreading around, Mountains till now invisible is showing its shapes and sizes and the formation of white coloured cloud was looking as if some body has sprayed shaving foam on top of the Hills. What a Beautiful scenery it was. Truly Romantic.
We were their at that particular view point for almost an hour till the area became bright. Our Vehicle Driver cum Guide was a sixty year old young man, very energetic and a lively human. He then drove us to another 20 minutes further inside of that Hill area and stopped at a place which already had lots of tourists and vehicles parked in and around.. Our Guide cum Driver asked us to wait for sometime and went somewhere inside an office area which was nearby to buy Entry Tickets for three of us.
We were about to enter the famous national park on top of the mountains, HORTON PLAINS, a stunning destination in Sri Lanka for the nature lovers, trekkers and adventure tourists.
Truly speaking we were not aware of the place before and neither we have been told earlier by our Guide since we were only interested to have a Sun Rise view on the mountains but this park was just stunning and out of the world. For me it was a Photographic delight.
As I came to know later that this National Park is a UNESCO designated Natural World Heritage Site, a Biodiversity hotspot with lots of flora and fauna visible in this wide landscape. Sambar Deer is visible in and around the open Grassland with many more species of animal can be seen if one is lucky.
We trekked to a Nine Km area specified by the Forest authorities for the trekkers which is crossing Grasslands ,Cloud forests, Waterfalls and most important a particular tourist attraction called WORLDS END from where one can see cloud formation below and it looks like the world is coming to an end below. Bakers Fall, one of the natural and beautiful Waterfall inside the jungle is another beauty which can be enjoyed.
We took almost three hours for the complete trek of nine km and was an experience of a different kind but was also not to be availed by people having physical fitness issue as my wife had a respiratory challenge while covering the stretch and we had to allow her to take rest in between for many a times.
Overall a visit to Sri Lanka is incomplete without visiting this place and should be in ones itinerary for sure.
