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A snack and a drink before you hit the trail
Yala park to get a restaurant soon

By Hiranthi Fernando
The Yala National Park was buzzing with activity during the long weekend earlier this month. Over 300 vehicles, jeeps, cars, vans, and buses entered the park daily, bringing in an average of 2000 visitors each day.

According to the Park Warden, Sirimal Tissera, they net a collection of Rs. 700,000 a day during weekends and an average daily collection of around Rs. 500,000 - 600,000.

To cater to this influx of visitors, a restaurant is soon to be opened within the park, the first inside the park. "Being 30 years in the Department of Wild Life, I feel it is a necessity to have a restaurant," Mr. Tissera says.

The park opens at 6 a.m. and the visitors' permit is valid until 6.30 p.m. For those who wish to have a full day's safari in the park there is no place to have a snack or a drink. If they go out for a meal, they have to pay again to re-enter the park as the permit is cancelled when the vehicle leaves the park. The restaurant, which is being constructed and will be run by the Ceylon Hotels Corporation is sited at the Patanangala beach. A fishing wadiya, which had been at the spot has been removed. The annual permit given to the wadiya had not been renewed this year due to ammunition being found on the premises. "The wadiya was a great disturbance to the park," the Warden said. "It was here for half the year, when the fishermen could not fish in their coastal villages." The fishermen had to obtain a permit annually and would come in with cadjans, boats, other equipment as well as cooking utensils. Lorries came in daily to transport the fish.

The site commands a panoramic view of the sea and beach, but no work appeared to be in progress except the foundation and rock columns. Opposite the site is one of just two places in the park, where visitors are permitted to alight from their vehicles and stretch their limbs. Not a single tree has been cut and there is no destruction of the environment in any way for the construction, the Warden stressed.

Explaining the delay in the construction, Bodhi Ranasinghe, Chairman, Ceylon Hotels Corporation said changes had to be effected in the plans to make the building blend with the environment. The new plan has now been passed by the Board of Directors and work is due to recommence soon.

The restaurant will cater for 48 persons, serving mainly snacks and soft drinks, tea and coffee but no meats or hard liquor. All food will be cooked and brought in from Tissamaharama daily. The restaurant would have six women’s toilets and four men’s toilets, an urgent necessity since so many tourists visit the park.

Mr. Ranasinghe says small summer huts are also being constructed behind the restaurant to cater to busloads who wish to bring in their own food. Many pilgrims who travel to Kataragama often drive through the park on their return.

Toilets, dustbins and water will also be provided for them. All garbage collected at the restaurant as well as the summer huts will also be taken to Tissamaharama by the vehicles that would ply to and fro daily, for disposal. These steps are being taken to ensure that leftover food or polythene will not pollute the park.

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