We travelled to Sri Lanka with Kuoni on a wildlife tour. Part of that tour was spending three nights in the Yala Safari Beach Hotel within Yala National Park. It was simply amazing. How can you describe the experience of seeing an elephant walking through the hotel grounds or squirrels sneaking into the dining area to beg for bananas? It's incredible. My boyfriend is a birdwatcher and for this alone Yala is seventh heaven - there are so many species and so much colour. During our trips into the park we saw elephants, spotted deer, sloth bear, grey langurs, crocodiles, wild boar and land monitor lizards. We weren't fortunate enough to see the leopard on this visit but our park guides bent over backwards looking for it so it certainly wasn't for a lack of trying.
We had three separate excursions into the park in jeeps as well as a guided bird walk. Of the whole 12 days we spent on holiday the time we spent in Yala was without doubt the best part. When we go back to Sri Lanka this will be top of our list to return to. A must for nature lovers visiting the country.
On the practical side I can't vouch for the room costs as we booked as package through Kuoni (about £1000 per person for the 12 day holiday) but the bar is a little overpriced compared to the rest of the country. However, it's probably still cheap in comparison to most UK bars. Two trips into the park including jeep hire cost us about £30 per person - we did these additionally to the ones offered with the tour on a free day and it was worth the money. The guides are very friendly and make a lot of effort to show you everything they can find.
For the tour itself (the Kuoni Sri Lanka Wildlife tour) I would give five stars. But its rating would be much reduced without the time we spent in Yala.
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