Kandy to Aluviharaya

My first Step.

Aluviharaya is in the A9 road. If you want to get to Aluviharaya fast, you have to take one of the following buses.

• Dambulla
• Kekirawa
• Anuradhapura
• Polonnaruwa
• Wawniyawa
• Trincomalee

All these buses are parked side by side in the east corner of the ‘good shed’ bus stand. Dambulla buses go a little slower than others. Therefore, if you want to get their faster, you better one of the long distant buses, like Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Trincomalee, etc.

You may always find any of these buses, except late at night. I choose a Kekirawa bus, and started my journey at about 8.00 am. I was able to take y favourite sheet, the left front sheet, since the bus was not crowded. Half the bus was empty, when it took off from the bus stand.

As usual I starred outside the window. There are a lot of stalls in the pavement. The stalls near the bus stand are mostly full of fruits and some are full of sweets. As we go far, then are the stalls full of clothes, accessories, shoes, anything and everything. I will describe my experience around these stalls in another post.

Then we pass the clock tower, which is about 500m away from the bus stand. After passing this, we start our journey deep in to the city, where major shops are the kings. If you look around there are various shops with eye catching show rooms and banners.

It takes about 10 minutes to get out of the city, since the buses go really slow in order to gather more crowd. Some times the bus is slow due to traffic, especially when the schools are over. Therefore you better not start the trip between 6.30-7.45 am and 1.00-2.00 pm, since those are the hours where schools start and end.

Then we slowly go far away from the Kandy city. After about 25 minutes we arrive to Katugastota. We enter Katugastota city by crossing a huge bridged. This bridge is built across the ‘Mahaweli River’ the longest river in Sri Lanka. Some times the river is brownish, which indicate that it has rained uphill.

Katugastota is comparatively a small town. Here you will see the bus taking a bent to your left. After that the road goes along with a small canal, a branch of the Mahaweli River. There are another three major towns to pass before arriving to Matale, the district to which Aluviharaya belongs to. They are,

• Ambatenna
• Akurana
• Alawathugoda

The road to Matale from Alawathugoda is very steap, and there are a lot of bents. The bus goes very slow, and it shakes like a cradle. This is the best part of the trip to have a little nap if you want, because there is nothing much to see around, except for the mountains and houses. Therefore you can sleep till you reach Matale city. It takes nearly an hour to arrive to Matale from Kandy.

In Matale, the bus will stop at the bus stand for couple of minutes. Do not get off the bus. Prepare your belongings, get ready to get off. After the bus starts again, call the conductor, and tell him that you want to go to ‘Aluviharaya’. All you have to say is just ‘Aluviharaya’ and he will definitely understand. It takes about five minutes to arrive to Aluviharaya. The conductor will inform you when the bus arrives there.

Aluviharaya is in the left hand side. Get off the bus. You may see a white wall with a row of black elephant statues. This is the Aluviharaya.