As ever, immediately after booking a trip, I've become fraught with anxiety about whether I've put the perfect itinerary together. Have I made ALL the right decisions?
Here's the dilemma this time:
We were offered a two night stay in Yala National Park, camping - albeit in a "luxury" tent.
http://www.srilankaecotourism.com/camping_Leopard_Safari_in_Yala.htm
At first we were all for it, and then I got some advice on Tripadvisor from a guy who told me that the Foreign Office have advised against all travel to Yala. This in itself did not put me off - I think there were isolated incidents on the eastern fringe of the (huge) park some years ago - however, while that advice is on the FO website, we will not be covered by our travel insurance if we go in to the Park.
British travel companies have taken Yala out of their brochures for now, but Red Dot continue to offer the camping trip as an option. I asked Ayanthi at Red Dot to take this section of the trip out and put us an extra two nights on the beach.
Now I am tormented - was this the right decision? Yes - absolutely in terms of following advice and keeping insurance cover. No - not if we want to chance to stay in a beautiful setting and see leopard. We've never seen leopard in our safaris in Africa.
Now, IF I can convince Roy to lose two nights of the beach stay, then we could always ask Ayanthi to put Yala back in. Just mentioned it to him but he doesn't seem fussed.... hmmmm... not even the lure of leopard has him this time. Strangely, when we were first looking at the trip he wanted to leave Yala in, it was me who was being cautious........
