We take a tuk tuk and spend half a day exploring the coast as far as Okanda, taking a detour at Panama into Lahugala National Park. Okanda is about as far south as you can go before coming to Yala East National Park and from here there appears to be no public coastal road. The only way to get to the south coast is to do a huge loop circumnavigating Yala East and the adjacent Yala Strict Natural Reserve by going back to Arugam Bay and then east and south via Monaragala. A ridiculously long-winded journey that we are going to have to undertake in a couple of days time.
Once we get to Panama directly south of Arugam Bay and turn west away from the coast we are soon onto ununsurfaced road, through rice paddies and lily ponds until after about an hour we reach Crocodile Rock, the largest granite outcrop amongst a group of similar rocks in this otherwise completely flat coastal plain. Crocodile Rock not surprisingly, takes it’s name from it’s remarkable resemblance to the crocodiles that populate the waters around these parts. From a certain angle and with the help of a bit more imagination, like a reclining buddha. For those with a less spiritual inclination, a pair of breasts spring to mind.
The climb to the top of Crocodile Rock defeats me which is unusual, I think I must have a touch of heat exhaustion. Or perhaps it is a combination of the sun beating down from a cloudless sky, the steep scramble over the rock and all our previous activities catching up with me, but today I am completely depleted of energy. I manage to get half way up, and even from here the views of the paddies and lagoons are enthralling.
Also among these gigantic rocks is a simple Buddhist cave temple and a stupa or is it a dagoba, I can never tell the two apart. There is also a large rock pool here which is reputed to be home to a croc, but all that is visible today are hundreds of fish. The Stupa is attracting many buddhist monks clad in saffron robes who are making their way up from buses in the car park as we head back to our tuk tuk.
Okanda slightly further south is a home to Murugan Devale, an Hindu complex with a colourful gateway tower which survived to 2004 tsunami and was in recent times th scene of fighting between the LTTE and the army. Now it is once more a stopping point for thousands of pilgrims who undertake the Pada Yatra pilgrimage walking from Jaffna in the north to Kataragama in the south. Today it is almost deserted save for a handful of worshippers and the man who runs the little palm-thatched store. A stroll away is a completely empty crescent beach with thunderous surf.
Lunch at the guest house and complete R&R in an attempt to overcome complete exhaustion. Dinner at Lucky’s.