Yala National Park is in southeastern Sri Lanka and borders the Indian Ocean. It consists of 378 square miles divided into five blocks, only two of which are open to the public. Block I is 54.44 square miles and was named a national park in 1938. Block II, 38.34 square miles, was added in 1953; Block III, 157.32 square miles, was added in 1967; Block IV, 102 square miles, was added in 1969; and Block V, 25.7 square miles, was added in 1973. It has some adjacent parks to it as well, including Kumana NP (or Yala East NP), Yala Strict Nature Reserve, Kataragama, Katagamuw and Nimalawa sanctuaries are contiguous with Yala. Block I is the main tourist area, but Block III and Yala East are gaining in popularity. We visited in March 2019 with Sanjay of
Lankatracker and highly recommend his services. We spent two mornings and an afternoon in Yala, one morning and afternoon in Block III, which has fewer tourists, and a morning in Block I.
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| Map from the official website. |
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| Map from Wikipedia |
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| Elephant rock is in the background. |
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| Judy on Yala beach, on the Indian Ocean, with Patanangala, a rock outcrop, in the background. This is one of the few places we could get out of the vehicle. |
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| Our safari vehicle, at a lunch break. |
Yala has the highest concentrations of leopards in the world, as well as elephants and sloth bears which are also attractions. I saw three leopards, we saw elephants and Sanjay saw a sloth bear, but we couldn't see it before it disappeared.
Following are photos from our visit:
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| Sri Lankan axis deer |
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| Sri Lankan sambar deer |
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| Sri Lankan leopard. Seen the first day. |
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| We saw two leopards the second day, together on a large rock. |
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| Wild water buffalo |
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| Sri Lankan elephant. We saw elephants in Yala, but we saw more of them in other national parks. |
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| Stripe-necked mongoose. The first morning Sanjay said we were only looking for leopards the first two hours and were not stopping for other animals. He stopped for this one. I'm assuming it was not a common animal to see. |
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| Tufted gray langur. Seen near the entrance to Yala. |
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| Indian wild boar |
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| Indian hare |
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| Grizzled giant squirrel |
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| Mugger crocodile |
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| Bengal monitor lizard |
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| This Bengal monitor lizard was next to our hotel just outside Yala NP. |
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| Green vine snake |
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| Indian flapshell turtle. |
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| Green bee-eater |
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| Gray-headed swamphen |
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| Lesser whistling duck |
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| Crested hawk eagle |
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| Crested serpent eagle |
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| Common kestrel |
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| Black-headed ibis |
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| Jungle fowl |
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| White-breasted kingfisher |
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| Peafowl |
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| Yellow-wattled lapwing |
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| Black-winged stilt |
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| Asian open-billed stork |
This is a park with a lot of different thins to enjoy. Besides the incredible wildlife and the beautiful scenery, I was really impacted by seeing the beach area where the massive Indian Ocean tsunami hit in 2004 and had horrific consequences. In spite of the very bumpy and dusty dirt road, this was one of my favorite drives on the trip.
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