You may leave at any time but in general there are 2 options

There are 3 options to select from

“Elephant Transit Home” is situated on the way to Uda Walawe Park. This is one amazing bonus that no other city or wildlife park in Sri Lanka can offer. ETH is a baby elephant 
orphanage that takes care of baby elephants that are lost or wounded. You may drop by at ETH for 30 minutes to see baby elephants getting fed.

See the general temperatures in Uda Walawe Sanctuary. So in reality there is no need of any special clothing. The early morning drive to park at 5:30 might get slightly chilly but this simple top that covers your arms may be enough to keep you warm.

Most probably (we did say probably) you are likely to encounter an elephant within just 10 meters of your jeep. So even with your phone you can get few excellent shots to impress your friend on FaceBook as it happens. Taking a Selfie with an elephant may not be bad idea too. (Now don’t get too creative ) Having said all that now assume that you get to see a wild elephant within 10 meters and you have a DSLR with you. Just imagine the details you could capture. Zoom cameras/lenses are especially useful to capture birds.

Guides are provided by national park (wild life department) at the gate when you buy tickets to enter the park. Most of them speak good English to explain what you see and the details about animals.

In Sri Lanka due to increasing human-elephant conflicts, many baby elephants get orphan and abandoned. ETH is a place where they take care of these elephants and carefully introduce them to wild when they are big enough. ETH offers a unique attraction to see how these baby elephants (sometimes just few months old) are fed milk and observe them closely. But you are not able to touch them. For which the entrance fee is Rs. 500 per person. If you are with Kids this is a must see place. Many enjoy watching these sometimes very naughty little fellas in action regardless of their age.

Sri Lankan roads tend to be quite slow, so when calculating the distances and travel time it’s safer to assume average speeds of 40kmh. This does not mean boring slow driving, it’s quite opposite for many tourists, traveling on Sri Lankan roads alone is an adventure. But thing tend to get slow down and from time to time and in average speeds of 40-50kmh is a safer number.

Unlike some countries where no one speaks any English, in Sri Lanka you will find almost everyone can speak atleast little bit of English, and to be more correct almost every one understand atleast bit and pieces of English. Having said that if you are thinking of having a long detailed conversation with everyone you meet, you will be seriously disappointed. But there is about 10% population who speak very fluent good English. Most hotels have staff who speaks good English. We (Pavana Resort) in the past was accused of not having staff speaking good English though

It has now become a necessity for all the hotels to provide wifi (mostly free). Sri Lanka as a country has one of world’s best telecommunication infrastructure and internet facilities. But there are complains that some hotels offer internet speeds which are not very good.

There is big competition in mobile services sector in Sri Lanka and prices have become extremely competitive. So one of the wisest decisions you can make is to get a local sim card at the airport often cost around US$ 2. Rather than using your roaming phone, you can have incredible savings to make local phone calls using local number.

Increasing number of tourists use Sri Lanka’s public transport for their transport needs. For example traveling 100km in a public bus might cost you Rs. 100 (per person, and you may have to pay additionally for carrying bags) while a private taxi may cost you about Rs. 7500. You can do the math to see why most tourists tend to take buses. BUT public transport in Sri Lanka is not the most comfortable and efficient. They are far from public transport in Europe and developed countries.