travels with janne

From delicate flowers to majestic trees and from modestly brown lizards and butterflies to flashy birds, the Sinhajara Forest Reserve has a lot to offer if you are even mildly interested in biology.

I love rainforests with their fantastic jumble of species. In the Sinjahara Forest Reserve, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, we see plants living on other plants, plants that devour insects, colourful blooms, and majestic trees towering above it all in their search for light.

Pitcher plants (the endemic Nepenthes distillatoria) lurk in the undercover, waiting for a hapless insect to fall into their container of water.

We see hundreds of nelu flowers in bloom – a rare thing indeed, as they only bloom once every seven years. There are apparently about 33 species of nelu and we see two, both of which are in bloom. They are pollinated by honeybees. 

Startlingly bright yellow wild hibiscus and the endemic, delicately pink bovitiya add a touch of colour to the dark green jungle. Dainty flowers and tiny fungi also find a place to live here.

Crawling, hopping, flitting and flying through all this biodiversity are snakes, lizards, butterflies, birds, and monkeys, most of which are impossible to see, let alone take pictures of. From a distance I see a Ceylon tree nymph (a black and white butterfly), a purple-faced leaf monkey (aka langur), which is endemic to Sri Lanka, Ceylon paradise flycatcher, and a sweet little pair of Sri Lankan frogmouths (birds). I also hear the secretive Sri Lankan spurfowl.

I suggest you google these “invisible” animals to see for yourself what they look like.

In Sri Lanka there are 33 endemic bird species, 28 of which are found in Sinjahara Forest Reserve. One of these, which is quite common, is the Sri Lanka jungle fowl. We spot some hens scratching for food in the rain forest. The Sri Lanka jungle fowl is the national bird of Sri Lanka and forefather of our domesticated poultry. The hens are attractive but the rooster, which I have no photo of, exhibits fantastic colouring.

An astounding splash of colour comes from the endemic blue magpie. We also spot yellow-browed bulbul.

Even the creepy crawlies are charming, like this approximately 15 cm long millepede. I would not want to have to knit socks for all those feet.

The cute little kangaroo lizard is also pretty common here in the rain forest, as are various butterflies. I manage to take one shot of a butterfly and to identify it as a glad-eye bushbrown.

The stripy Indian palm squirrel looks very much like a North American chipmunk of Chip ‘n’ Dale fame. They seem to be all over the place, in both natural areas and towns. Typical squirrel!

From top to bottom, there are lovely patterns to be found everywhere in the rain forest.

All this wonderful biodiversity includes a multitude of leeches, so once again we have donned our leprechaun-coloured leech socks. Despite the protective green socks, I discover later that I have been host to a blood-sucker just above my belly button. How it managed to crawl all the way up there and find its way to my tender stomach skin I do not know, but the waist of my hiking pants is disgustingly bloody. Yuck!

An abrupt drop of about 1000 metres at World’s End affords beautiful views of the surrounding mountains.

Clambering over rocks, gullies and muddy, slippery paths, it takes all my attention to concentrate on where to place my feet, to keep my balance, to avoid slipping and falling, and to strategize about where to place the next few steps. Whew! This is more of a trek than a walk. Our goal is to reach the mountain viewpoints called World’s End and Mini World’s End in Horton Plains National Park. I lag behind partly because the going is a bit rough and partly because I do like to stop and look at the surroundings and take pictures, such as these Sri Lankan sambar deer and a mongoose:

It begins innocuously enough, with a flat plain and a muddy, but gently upward sloping path.

It soon transforms into an impossibly uneven and slippery route that has suffered from the latest heavy rainfall. I thank goodness my boots are waterproof as I step into a hole filled with water, almost losing my balance, and curse myself for having forgotten my walking sticks back at the hotel.

Despite the challenges, I find time to take a few shots of the wildlife, including delicate flowers, a green lizard with a very long tail and a browsing Sri Lankan sambar deer:

At Mini-World’s End we take a well-earned rest and enjoy the spectacular views. By the time we reach World’s End a few hundred metres further onwards and upwards, it has clouded over, as is so often the case here, apparently.

Walking back down is almost as challenging and by the time we reach the hotel I am totally knackered. 

Like a teardrop falling from the southeastern tip of India, Sri Lanka is a green jewel of biodiversity in the vast Indian Ocean.

Imagine a country where a rich array of wild plants weaves a green blanket over mountains and fields, in forests and mangroves, through villages and towns. A country where monkeys, leopards, wild boar and elephants roam freely inside and outside national parks. A country where 30 percent of its area is protected nature. Such a country is Sri Lanka.

I have recently returned from a visit to this wonderfully lush island southeast of India, exchanging the grey Danish November weather with tropical heat and, sometimes, warm, crazy downpours. We visit several national parks on our journey and experience a variety of ecosystems.

We begin outside the second largest city, Kandy, close to the Hanthana Mountains. The morning air is refreshingly cool, and the morning mist enchanting. I wake at six to the sound of birdsong and the chanting of Buddhist monks in the distance. Here is what greets me from my hotel window:

We go for a pleasant walk in the hills, uphill and hot but nevertheless not overly strenuous. We wear leech socks to protect us from the ubiquitous, squooshy black creatures with a high yuck factor. The green socks make me look like I am part leprechaun.

Along the way, we pass by a variety of habitats, including tea plantations, former tea plantations that have now been overtaken by wild lemongrass, and montane and submontane forest (cloud forest). We see lots of colourful flowers, birds, butterflies and a lizard who thinks he is invisible in the greenery despite his red face.

To enjoy Sri Lanka nature, you do not always need to leave the hotel area. Here are some scenes from the various hotels I stayed at:

Sri Lanka is only one and a half times larger than Denmark but has a population of about 22 million (Denmark’s is about 6 million). That means the population density of this small island is about 332 people per km², where Denmark’s is only about 132 people per km². Despite this, Sri Lanka dedicates about 30 percent of its land area to protected nature. Denmark has less than 2 percent true, protected nature. I wish our politicians and other decision-makers would learn from Sri Lanka’s example.