I am a Sri Lankan currently living in the US. I have had several wildlife/birding/photography tours in Sri Lanka over the past couple of years, some self-organized and some through local tour companies. This is the first time I have had the fortune to do a dedicated bird-photography tour with Walk With Jith. Having read the great reviews on the web about the quality of the tours offered by Walk With Jith, I picked them with a lot of expectations.....
After my solo Panama trip (which was rather rough - with me getting 2 diseases and missing the main target bird by a shave), it was a nice change to have hired a private guide to organize everything for us and do all the driving, and to sleep in actual hotels without risking exposure to parasitic diseases, etc. Ramata found us a great outfit called "walk with Jith" and superstar guide Thilina Karunanayaka for this laid back yet somewhat hardcore birding and cultural tour.
Hi Jith and Hetti. You may have thought I have forgotten about you but I haven’t. Since we were with you last year in March and April we have been traveling extensively. That has resulted in being very backlogged in processing photos from our trips. You may recall that even before our visit to Sri Lanka we were in Ethiopia, Egypt, U.A.E., Maldives, and Kerala and Tamil Nadu in Southern India. On the total trip I took about 80,000 photos of which about 15,000 were in Sri Lanka alone...
SRI LANKA HAS SOME EXCITING WILDLIFE AND A GOOD RANGE OF ENDEMIC BIODIVERSITY, INCLUDING 25 - 30 BIRD SPECIES. THE LOVELY COUNTRY IS NOT EASY TO GET AROUND HOWEVER - AN INDEPENDENT TRIP INVOLVING CAR HIRE IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR A NUMBER OF REASONS!
HOWEVER MANY GOOD QUALITY BIRD / WILDLIFE TOUR COMPANIES OPERATE HERE, INCLUDING OUR CHOICE - THE EXCELLENT 'WALKWITHJITH'. OUR GUIDE, UPALI, WAS VERY KNOWLEDGEABLE ON MOST GROUPS OF WILDLIFE SPECIES SEEN, FOUND US ALL BUT ONE OF THE ENDEMICS, WAS A VERY NICE MAN AND A VERY PATIENT ONE TOO. HE HAD TO BE. AS WELL AS FINDING US MANY DIFFICULT BIRDS HE HAD TO DEAL WITH MY PHOTOGRAPHIC REQUESTS! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
This was our first trip to Sri Lanka,as we did not have many days to spend, we just decided to visit Yala National Park. We engaged the tour company, Walk With Jith for our pick up from Colombo, drop off at Cinnamon Wild Hotel and the next day full day safari at Yala National Park.
Tilbage i 1985 havde DOF sin første tur til Sri Lanka. Men det var først efter en succesrig tur i januar 2015, at den her næsten identiske tur blev afholdt allerede et år senere. Det blev igen særdeles vellykket, og hvordan kunne det også blive andet, når programmet bød på rundtur i dette smukke, grønne land med de store landskabelige kontraster. Lokalarrangøren var også denne gang det meget velfunderede, WalkWithJith, med dygtige guider og med kontakter til de rigtige hoteller på ruten. Logier og mad var derfor så godt, som man kan tillade sig at forvente, når det skulle være med en fornuftig økonomi, og når vi også ville ud til nogle af afkrogene med de rigtige fuglesteder...
Foto Niels Henrik: Gruppen med guider - tidlig morgen parat til Sinharaja NP
