A trip to Handun Ella

Kitulgala is a very famous holiday hiking and adventure sports setting in Sri Lanka that is in the GS Division of Mahabage. We were making plans to spend a few days in Kitulgala and get into some adrenaline pumping sports around there when Handun Ella was brought into our attention by a friend who had travelled there before. The place according to him was truly beautiful and made for a splendid nature escape, so needless to say, we all jumped pretty quickly on the band wagon – and in our vehicle and was off and away the very next day.

You need to keep in mind that this travel is going to take you through quite a bit of forest and slippery slopes. There can also be leeches around the wet and foresty areas so try and avoid the rain as much as possible. For this very reason December through February and August to September would be the best times to travel there when there is very low probability of rain.

If you are travelling from Colombo, take the Colombo – Hatton Road to Kitulgala and then arrive at the Batukitha Junction from there, you need to turn into the Mahabage Road. Travel for about 8km on the Mahabage Road and arrive at the Grama Sevaka Office there to go to Handun Ella. You can ask some of the locals around which way it is and they are quite helpful.

If you travel from Colombo and take the directions mentioned above, you will reach your destination in about 2.5 hours. Give or a take a little bit of time for any traffic and also maybe a little bit more for you to find the way and you can reach Handun Ella within 3 hours tops.

What’s so special about Handun Ella?

Well, for one thing, the name Handun Ella is rather curious. Handun refers to the Sandalwood tree in Sinhalese. The locals had a bit of a chat with us on our way back from climbing the waterfall and they mentioned that the falls were so named because of the abundance of Sandalwood trees that used to grow in close proximity to the waterfall, sometimes even rendering the water the delicate and intense fragrance of sandalwood.
The journey to the waterfall is one more factor that made this whole thing so special for me and my travel buddies. There is quite an arduous 2km trek through slippery slopes, forests and of course plenty of leeches just waiting to have a good breakfast on the way to the falls which is why, if you can get a reliable guide, you should do so by all means. Remember to wear tight leggings or trousers tucked into socks and then wear boots. Keep as much of your body covered as possible and rubbing some soap or Siddhalepa balm (you can get both these in any one of the small shops along the way) on your skin especially knees down, can help avoid the little suckers from catching a free ride on you.
Basically, once you reach the GS Office as given in the directions, you need to make your way to the Ginikiritha Reservoir Bridge. Once you get to the bridge you will see a small footpath which is where that 2km crazy trek begins. We were not well-dressed for the leeches so we were in for a bit of a nasty surprise but the locals advised us to buy Siddhalepa and soap which we rubbed on our arms and feet
and that did help. There are two alternative routes, you can either trek through the jungle all the way to
and from the falls or, on your way there, you can actually walk through the runoff upstream until you
get to a certain smaller fall and from there you can jump back on the trekking trail. This will help you
avoid many of the leeches really.
But all that trouble and leeches and huffing and puffing to catch our breath was totally worth it once we
got to Handun Ella. The view was magnificent and nature around is uninterrupted. There are some caves
and hollows made out of the rocks by nature itself where you can just sit and chill or go exploring. The
current of the water is not much and you can actually enjoy a refreshing splash in the natural rock pools
that are there.
It is a lot of adventure and a lot of roughing it, but if that’s what you are looking for Handun Ella needs
to make it on to the top of you ‘to do’ list this holiday.