What I love about Yala National Park is the diversity of landscapes. There are thick jungle forests, scrub, open grass land, swamps, lagoons, lakes, large rocky outcrops and an interesting beach.

Yala National Park Patanangala Rock and Beach landscape

There are not many other 4x4 Safari destinations that include a beach. You can have an all day animal watching adventure and have lunch on the beach. It is very civilised. The seafront is not just one long strip of sand and sea. It is made more attractive by the presence of a metamorphic ancient outcrop called Patangala rock.

There are some fishermen's huts on the beach but we were advised not to go poking our noses around them as they do not stick to their quotas and are a bit sensitive to outsiders taking photographs. There used to be a house on the beach but that was demolished in the 2004 Boxing day Tsunami.

Yala National Park sandy Beach

When you are sitting on the beach try to imagine a 20 foot wall of water speeding towards you. That is what arrived 90 minutes after the earthquake. 250 people were killed in the Yala area. The picture at the bottom of this page shows the remains of the beach house property. It was totally flattened. The sea water swept 1 km inland through the gaps in the 10ft sand dunes. Looking at your surroundings on the beach, apart from the destroyed house, you would not think that such an event had happened.

Yala National Park sandy Beach Tsunami wreckage 2004 destroyed house

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