THE HONEST REALITY: Yala National Park Safari
Good morning guys, and welcome back to another video here in Sri Lanka specifically in actually just on the outskirts of Yala National Park. I’m actually leaving the hotel, it's about 5 30 a.m. We've got Mr. Trav. Yo, yo morning everybody. And we are actually wired guys you're probably surprised why we're so awake here at five. Actually, I guess it's like 5 40 a.m. It's because we just housed two
cups of coffee or a Trav house two and a half and so we're ready to go. We're ready to catch some not catch but see some wild animals. We are actually being escorted over to our van right now. We're our truck safari truck with this kind gentleman right here, and we are taking this safari. So it's about 75 dollars per person for two of us to take our own private safari and someone I guess you could call it a luxury truck. So they actually pick up just a few minutes away from the main reception area. As you can
see, we've got all the safari trucks here. It’s probably a little dark for you to see that's what we've got going on. Subodesina Machans [Bros]. This one which one's gonna be us? I’ll be camouflaged. Oh you wanna be
able to see us then. We are hopping right up aboard here did you need this light bro? You go first. Alright, and we're hopping in this thing. Oh.
Oh yeah. Alright, there's plenty of room up here we’re allowed. Yeah there we go. Exactly, this thing actually has a lot of space. We have one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven. Seven spots guys, you could actually fit quite a few people in here plus as Trav was saying quite a few leopards as well. I hope so.
Yeah, yeah. So let's get on with it. So guys we've got roughly a 10 minute drive from the hotel we're staying at which is the Cinnamon Yala or Wild Yala hotel and like I said it's about 75 dollars per person for us to take this tour right now and so during this time which is Covid time, you can only take private as far as you can to shared ones. Otherwise, I think it might be slightly cheaper and we did book it through the hotel. So I’ll let you guys, know that it probably could be a little bit less expensive. If you saw the bus video a few days back, there was quite a few people offering us safaris and they were offering us the jeep rental. I don't know what quality they were for maybe like 6000 rupies for a half day which is significantly less than what we're paying. Obviously we booked to the hotel
for convenience because we just didn't wanna leave the hotel premises so you obviously pay for the convenience but anyways, we're super pumped for it. Once we get over to Yala our 75 dollars feet includes the 25 dollar. Whoa, 400 feet right in some speed bumps there and so like 25 if you go to Yala on your own is what you'll pay as a foreigner to enter plus like whatever jeep. So like if you put that along with what we would have paid for the cheap it is slightly less expensive probably 20, 30 percent if you book not directly at the hotel but for anyone looking to no information there are cheaper ways to do it. Well, we're doing the convenience factor. So let's head over to Yala. As you can see,
it's literally just right at dawn there's a couple birds in there, you can still hear some of the insects out and this is around the time where some of the animals are starting to wake up if not already awake and they're gonna be looking for a little breakfast time chow. Alright, guys we've just entered through the checkpoint here. It looks like everyone is stopping. My guess is there is some sort of sign up, sign in we've gotta do over here. Entrance payment. Entrance payment,
yeah. Perfect, so we'll see. It looks like some of the tourists are heading over there. So we'll see here in just a moment if we gotta get out. Like I said when you
first enter this place, you gotta pay 25 dollars but since this is included they must have some sort of maybe pass or something or maybe the driver pays direct. I guess we'll find out in just a moment guys. Oh what's your name my friend? Nihan? Giha. It’s nice to meet you Giha. It's a
pleasure, thank you. So Giha is gonna be gonna get us our tickets actually. The tour guides I guess are the ones who go up wait in line, they pick up the tickets from the front desk and then they're going to get us into Yala so quick and easy that's for sure. I must say I’m actually pretty excited. We have this all to
ourselves because I doubt we would have even paid that much less anyways if this was a shared jeep from the hotel. So the fact that now we, me and Trav have this whole place to ourselves, it's gonna be vlogger central as we take a dive into Yala. Alright, guys we have gotten our tickets now and we're cruising into Yala National Park. So pretty soon I don't even need this light anymore. We are starting to see a bit of a sunrise, a beautiful, beautiful sunrise right here. Everything is just going to be lit up in that golden hour time frame.
I’m hoping we don't have like too many jeeps like as you can see, we got a jeep behind us. I’m hoping we don't have too many trailing us in here but I guess we'll see. Trav just told our tour guide to give us the best tour he's ever given because we're gonna be making content for you guys. So hopefully, that's what happens here we go. Let’s go, full speed ahead Machan [Bro]. Oh, and this looks like the fun guys, we've got the squad of like 300 jeep safari trucks all in a row here.
15 minutes, 15 minutes, yeah one question. Oh the gates open at six o'clock the gates open at six o'clock so I guess the earlier- the earlier you guys get to your van here then the sooner you're gonna be able to get in. So if you look down there we've probably got 150 ahead of us coming down this way and the lines are still building up all the way down here. Wow. Alright, so we have 15 minutes to burn. We’ve got trev here figuring out ways to get hang off the- hang off the jeep here, hang off the truck as a Tarzan man.
Yes sir. Now you guys can see the nice part is since it opens up at 6 a.m. it'll be just in time when the camera's bright enough don't need that light on anymore. I think you guys can properly see me and you can also properly see how many jeep safaris are coming in here and the line continues to wrap this way. Oh we've got some buffalo over here. Machan [Bro]
time to go Machan [Bro]. We're going on a little temporary safari. We're professionals you know Steve Irwin Nope, it's not.
I will come back. Yes. Okay yeah we'd like to go outside you know. Yeah, yeah. Are we gonna be too close to other jeeps? Yeah I will try the left okay. Oh perfect, perfect. You can get them to jump in the van? Yeah.
Perfect. As you can see here guys, we have finally made it up to the front entrance. We’re actually car number 55 out of 80 you said right. Yeah 80. 80 cars, yeah. So I think the good news is- is since we have to stop at this gate right here, give the tickets that's giving the jeeps a small I guess separation between each- each jeep but- subodesina machan [Thank you bro]. Alright, full speed ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, what did
he say? He said welcome, welcome. Thank you. Alright, guys at this point there's no turning back now and it's time to switch on the Aussie accent. Alright, guys we are driving in here at sunset. We got two Aussies in the car now. Hey you gotta
you got a good accent going over here. Yeah crocie mate. Yeah you know it's a great accent guys if another fellow Aussie is also saying it's a great accent. So we're cruising through here as you can see right at sunrise, it's so much more exhilarating when you have the Aussie telling you what's gonna be happening next. You never know if Aleppo is going to be flying out from the left a water bubbler on the right. These guys are
taking us on here we go guys, it's gonna be crazy already full speed ahead mate. Alright, guys as you can see we got an eagle flying right past those sandpipers marsh sandpipers it. Oh you see the way those marsh sandpipers land they kinda glide and then land right over there, absolutely crazy mate. At first, I thought
they were scared of the human convoys coming through here but it was actually because the eagle came around. Alright, guys we have spotted a small family of wild mongooses. Here they are. Right there he looks like he's about to have a little breakfast time. Hello there little mongoose, they don't seem to be too frightened by the truck, mongoose.
Hello sire, brave little guy there. Hey guys, so we're cruising through here. It’s a little bit later now probably we're getting close to maybe 6:30 a.m.
6:45 a.m. so it's really just a nice time, the tops of the forest are really starting to get lit up with this golden hour. We only saw just a mongoose so far but we're early into the safari, it's roughly about a three hour safari here and the nice part is we did kind of turn off from the pack and by pack I mean the pack of like trucks and jeeps that were all around us. So besides one jeep over there, we've got most of the place within a short distance from us is clear. Oh elephants. Oh massive elephants right over there, wow. Alright, now the jeeps
are all coming up. There we are there my a couple massive elephants, very large elephants out there. You can see the tusks on them. Yeah very big huge tusks. Yeah let's get them nice and close then mate. Is that main one the dad?
As you can see, they're having a nice morning cup of water. Absolute craziness there guys if you get too close to them, they will tap. As you can see, this is when you know it's time to get out of here. We've got the wildlife photographers. We've got all the jeeps pulling up here. Time to get- get out of here.
Alright, we've gotten quite close- quite close to the elephants over there. There they are. Yes, we saw the elephant very close. We didn't wanna get too close to those elephants and there was a bunch of jeeps that came up upon us so we told our guy to go a bit further ahead and now hopefully if we do have some sort of animal spotting, that'll give us enough time to be able to get some proper shots, show you guys without being bombarded by lots of tourists.
So I think that is the reality guys when you're going on a you know I would say for so far this is very inexpensive. You’re gonna be able to attract much larger crowds because it's more affordable. So that's why it makes sense but there's so many jeeps. Whereas, if
you're on those African safaris, they're just so expensive that you know just not as many people are simply doing there. Guys there's my KFC coming. Our tour guides like said some like very special name for it and you're like oh it's a chicken. He's like yeah chicken. There is it's a wild rooster guys a wild clock in the wild there we are. Cock doodle do their mate.
Oh guys, we've got ourselves an Indian peafowl in the wild. Hello there my Indian peafowl. They seem to not mind humans though. We just pulled right up to him and- and we're getting chased by this truck up apiamo over there mate, apiamo. There’s another Sri Lankan jungle fowl right there in the wild aka a chicken. As you can see guys, we're coming up across a very picturesque lion king like landscape there. We've got the rock
the massive rock up there in the distance we gotta get away from these- Whoa, almost got nailed by the branch there ha ha. Guys this is absolutely nuts. Alright, we'll see in some Jurassic style, keep it moving now apiamo. Yes very nice. We’re seeing here some lion king style rocks in the distance, the mountains you can just imagine Simba up on that rock right at sunrise. Apiamo there mate. Wow wild big he's just taking off the wild- wild boy there.
There he's going right there he's gotta have some sort of friends or someone right here. Oh he's itching himself. He's got a wild itch on his- on his- on his body. Wow, right there out there in the wild there we saw him itch himself and run across the road. Alright, we have some sort of flamingo looking thing there.
Good morning sire. This I feel like this is where we might be finding some sort of crocodiles out here. We're right next to a pond lots of plans as we prove to this area. Oh cody hell, I think we're seeing some sort of look at that water buffalo in the distance there might you see it. I
did not see the buffalo. Look at the peacock up in the tree. Oh he's got his- he's got his face fully spread there. He’s showing his callers there. They do that in self-defense there mate yeah.
He’s trying to attract a partner. Alright, boyfriend or girlfriend. Pulling in a body up there yeah and across- across the barn way out there. I think that's a bit of a water buffalo.
Yeah that's a water buffalo man. As you see it right there, he's blended zoom right in there. Yeah, you can see him. He's just waiting to get his morning snack something yummy, something tastiest maybe something fishy maybe something blooddy you don't even know but I think he's very patient. At any moment, he might just snap his massive mouth, grab something in there and chow down. That right there guys is absolute wildlife. Apiamo mate.
There we are again. Good morning there sire and another croc, he's thinking that flamingo that I think would taste so good right now if I had that thing right in my chompers, I’d be chowing down that flamingo leg right there. Oh yeah, that looks quite good there mate, doesn't? Oh you see he's got his- he's got his eye on that bird right there. I thought he was going for the flamingo but actually he sees that. Oh
we might actually see him go for it little snack chowthere. Oh. Oh the croc's about to take him. He hop out and walk closer, can we walk? No, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh.
Yeah not rules. Oh okay. No, not get down it's okay. Okay, okay. Yeah alright, this seems to be lost in translation there. There’s a little bit of confusion up there, he's like can we go and walk he's like yeah, yeah so he got out, he's like no, no, no, no. Alright, as you can see
there's actually a little baby wild boar out there. Unfortunately, you guys probably cannot see that very close because it's farther in the distance. Alright, we're coming across these marshlands. We've got a water buffalo right out there in the distance. I don't
know where the rest of his tribe's at at the moment but I’ve noticed those white birds over there, they have no fear just sitting right by his leg eaten. Alright, there's a lot of jeeps that usually means there's some sort of wildlife. My guess has gotta be elephants out here.
Oh a bear, bear. Alright, guys we got a bear out here. I don't know if we'll be able to see it. Look at how many jeeps there are. It's there. Wow, I wish I saw that. What did he say?
There was a bear at our hotel this morning that he saw. Oh we need to be quiet when we approach the bear. Oh we can get out.
Yeah it ended up just turning into a wild traffic jam not a wild bear that's spotting out there guys. That's a bit of a bummer yeah already so far I think our safari at the hotel has been a bit more intense but stick around guys, we're gonna make this entertaining one way or another whether it is getting mauled by one of these leopards or finding a bear and wrestling him, not really. We got another Sri Lankan jungle file out there guys. Craziest thing we've seen on this whole safari, a Sri Lankan jungle father am I also known as a chicken. You really need to see something so I can get hyped up man. Yeah alright, guys you see another one of those Indian jungle flowers there.
Whoa, he's making some sort of mighty noise. A lot of Indian pea fowls out here there guys between the chickens and the peacocks whereas we say jungle fowl and pea fowl to cry today out here crafting up here, he's so blown away. I’m shocked with all the wildlife we're seeing. I’m just shocked, did not expect this. That is 2022. Alright, guys as you can see there's a bunch of jeeps up here. Whenever, there's
a bunch of jeeps usually that means there's some sort of sizing. There’s like 20 of them. I think we're a little too late to the party there, yeah. Alright, maybe it's nothing. Yeah just a bunch of jeeps.
Guys I must say at this point, it's almost comedy. We've got one jeep there. We’ve got a jeep traffic jam right there. We’ve got all these jeeps like we've got Trav sleeping to be so pissed off. Like this is a- this is a safari in Sri Lanka for you, a lot to see here wild jeeps everywhere. Wow, look at that 20 jeeps guys. I’ve
never seen anything like it guys. Oh my God, I can't believe what we're seeing right. Whoa, it's 20 jeeps.
Oh gotcha, gotcha. Well, let me put it this way they got me too, they got me even better. Oh it's still funny to see though. Hopefully, it's a little bit of entertainment for you guys. We were like this is gonna be one of the craziest safaris ever and it for sure was the craziest safari ever the most traffic I’ve seen since being in New York city. What about you up there mate? I was like it's in Melbourne I like that one yeah I’m on a highway at peak hour traffic. Yeah exactly. Yeah Melbourne and Sri
Lanka, I can't tell I’ll tell you that. Check this out back here bro. Alright, this is the craziest thing we're gonna see today. We have two jeeps touching right there. Wow, I did not expect this, I’ll tell you that. Well, when you got this much traffic like you're in New York city you gotta make the most of it, right.
How’s the safari? Good. Seems like everyone has a similar mindset to us. Wow, look at this guys we are surrounded. Oh looks like the most exciting thing we'll see. This jeep right there has got a crack in the back window. Wow. Oh guys, I’m doing my best to make it as entertaining for you as possible but this is all that's going on here just a bunch of jeeps literally all racing to get to the front so they can escape- so they can escape this traffic. Guys I
will tell you if there's one recommendation I could give to Yala National Park is they should up the tour price and then limit the jeeps to about maybe 20% of what's going on and the reason being is because I can just see as we're driving past all these jeeps, everyone has a very similar look on their face. They're like frustrated. We got like the first I’ll be you know to be fair, we got about one hour where there weren't too many jeeps but now for the last about 45 minutes, it's just traffic. I’m not sure why there's a bottleneck if this is normal but I believe that if Yala National Park limited the amount of jeeps that went in here way more, we might have actually a much better safari or experience but the thing is- is I will tell you a lot of these people this is probably the safari of their lifetime and they're not very happy with it because like there's literally just traffic here like non-stop we've got jeeps there, we've got jeeps here and so trust me, I’m sure everyone would be happier if there was less. That's just about all I can tell you guys though. I mean there's really not much else to tell you about this safari. We did talk to another girl last night as you can see you know, she had a really good experience going in for the evening safari. She saw a lot of animals. I didn't
ask her if there was a lot of traffic because honestly I just did not expect. I did not expect this at all you know like we're out in in the nature in the wild. So obviously, I expected we'd come across some jeeps but like not that we're basically on like a two-lane highway here Tokyo or Hong Kong traffic on rush hour time but you know we're- we're alive. We're
breathing so got something to be grateful for right. Mate, is this how it is every day? Yeah. Is this like this every day? It’s like? Is there this much cars every day? Yeah. Yeah every day. Oh wow. Thank you. Not too certain you understood what I was saying but I’m sure it's probably the same every day, why would it not be? It’s not like today's any special day.
Alright, guys good news is things have really picked up here. The jeep started going faster so now we have dust coming in our faces. It does not get any better than that. Wow,
animals nowhere to be seen, dust everywhere to be seen, jeeps everywhere to be seen what a ride this is guys. One of the best of all time bro. I can't see anything I’ve just got dust in my eyes. Honestly guys, if we had dust in our eyes right now we are chasing leopards or elephants right now keeping up with them or running from them that would be epic but we're just driving behind about 15 jeeps getting blasted. It's seriously way too crowded over here too many jeeps.
They need to fix this somehow you know. Alright, update guys as you can see I got my hat all the way down right now because we're going like full speed ahead right now cruising into the dust. We actually just passed by a bunch of water buffalo but I was not filming that because we were going so quickly I didn't notice them to the last minute. Well hopefully, that means we're about to see some makeup for a lot of the stuff that we just didn't see while we got struck Hong Kong style traffic jam there mate but here we go.
Can’t even see the jeeps in front of us there so much dust they're kicking up dust. There's gotta be something big. We’ve got Trav updates. He's trying this- There’s so much dust coming in my eyes. Yeah for real there mate. Wow, I did not expect this. There's actually a proper race going on we're passing all these guys. Alright, there
we go, here we go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Oh that try to stop moving guys.
I gotta look this way the dust is kicking up everywhere. Wow, that looks like we got- we got a couple convoys trying to keep up with us. Here we go mate, we're making up for it. Wow, wow you can't see anything ahead of us.
I’ve got it all in my mouth there guys. We’re getting some serious adventure. This might make up for it, we shall see though. Oh.
We’ve got literally like 40 jeeps here. Wow, wow. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16. All I can see in front of us is 16 jeeps and that's just because that's literally all I can see the right, there's trees and stuff in the way but oh we've got this guy sneaking right on in there. Apiamo machan.
Apiamo, apiamo. Komada? [How are you?] It’s like- it's like we're in Hong Kong with this traffic jam. I’m so disappointed. Yeah, I thought there would actually be no one here. I thought this would be just us. Yeah for real bro.
This is literally the most exciting part of the safari, people are trying to pass each other by going in the dishes. We’ve got another contestant rate coming up here. Oh there we go, we're moving. Wow guys, as you probably saw in the title of this video, I did not expect this and let me tell you that I did not expect this. I thought we were gonna be in nature not in the city.
Wow, look at how many jeeps guys. Wow over over here. We’ve got another full set. Let’s go.
We were driving. Alright, guys you can see a few wild bambis out there. By bambis, I mean deer cruising right by them further out there in the distance here, and I wanna say way out there you can see some of the buffalo's getting a nice morning swimming in that pond. It's probably too far for you guys to see from the camera. Alright, guys we're coming across quite a large pond over here. You can see water
buffalo's all just relaxing in there cooling off in the morning, a whole bunch of them know there's got to be somewhere around 30, 40 of them out here right there just hanging out. Alright, as you guys can see, we just pulled up to a very beautiful landscape here. Actually far in the distance way out there you guys may or may not be able to see the form of it but it's called elephant rock because right up front you can see the trunk of it right about there and then the body of it basically spreads down to there. And so well the nice part is at least we can only see about 10 trucks right now rather than 50. It's- it's beautiful though. It’s
really an amazing landscape out here. Would be great if we saw some elephants come running in here right in front of elephant rock but I guess we shall see if any more action happens there. Okay, let's go. That right there guys, you probably heard that's the sounds of nature out here because we're just kinda at the trees but when you are parked for a second it is quite a relaxing noise. Oh we're having trouble getting in there. I’m getting
stuck. Alright, here we go. I mean as you can see guys, we've got a croc right there with his mouth open. Luckily though, we've actually already seen quite a few of those crocs at the Cinnamon hotel where we're staying at we had it much closer so from here it's just it's more of like watching it on TV just on the other side of the lake, the action's not there the actions when he was about to get bit. I was about to
get eaten by one and this one's like 20 meters away it's not the same. Yeah that's exciting. No way. No way but that's probably where the tour is gonna be concluding here pretty soon guys we're- we're at about 9:07 so breakfast stops at 10 a.m. for our hotels, we'll definitely be back before breakfast. I think our arrival back at the hotel's around 9 30 a.m. so
yeah a bit of a bummer on the safari but you know that's alright. We got a pretty damn good safari walking around our hotel yesterday. So honestly you guys sometimes the off the beaten path tours are where you're gonna find the best ones. How'd you like that one? I think Trav was saying that's one of his favorite excursions he's ever done. The safari?
Yeah. Look I’ve had good company, it's been fun here with Mac but there's been no leopards, one elephant I’m just happy I’m with Mac and not by myself. Yeah, yeah that's true. We've kept some positivity, got some good jokes still can't get over the fact where it's like all of a sudden yeah, yeah, yeah where it's like there is a Sri Lankan jungle fowl right over there and I’m like the rooster, the chicken. I’m like come on guys let's not try and make a chicken seem like it's that cool. You know I know it's there's not many siding so we gotta deal with it but a chicken's still a chicken and I’m going to eat one for breakfast now, sorry vegetarians. Alright, guys we've got a couple monkeys screwing around, doing a little monkey business out there in the distance.
There’s quite a few way back in there. Seems like they're playing. Oh they're jumping around, they're doing some sort of ring around the roses and there's a couple up there in the tree too.
Guys I think we're coming up on something here all the jeeps just stopped right here. They're turning off the sounds everyone stopped we were about to leave the park and Oh, oh you see that right there guys. I think we have located a wild leopard. I think he's just resting right now, he's got his mouth open though you might not be able to see it for me he's just sitting there thinking about what he's going to be for lunch guys and I hope it's not gonna be one of us. It's not
gonna be us but mate I’m so excited. Yeah finally, finally they say best ways, oh and he's opening his mouth. He’s yawning. Oh there he is. I really want him to come jump in.
Come here boy. Come here, he's just like no problem no problem right I ain't scared of you no matter how many jeeps are you, you people pulling up. Oh, oh the big guns are coming out. Look
at these guys have like a he's just got a two foot camera on it, two foot camera on there. Going for a bit of an inch. Oh there we go. Yeah get that good spot right there itch it you can tell those photographers right there getting angry. I want the shot, I want the
shot and that truck is and- that truck is. Wow I don't know what's more interesting right now. Should we be like nice guys and you know move out of the way? Move on? Yeah. We had a pretty you know it's rough
for us. Yeah. Alright, thank you very much, have a good day. [Music]
2022-03-18 11:22
