Visited the Kahatapitiya Forest Hermitage on Unduvap Full Moon Poya Day

Hello everyone!!

_{Night sky with the full moon}

Yesterday was the Unduvap Poya Day and was the last full moon poya day of the year. Buddhists visit the temples every poya day as a ritual of worship. So yesterday I visited the Kahatapitiya Forest Hermitage with my family members. It is a Buddhist forest monastery founded by ven situated in the village of Kahatapitiya, Galle district.

_{Sakman Maluwa}

I've been here first time and it was a great experience to me because we went there in late in the evening. It was almost near to 7 pm when we were started our walk through the forest. Not only that it was started raining heavily at that time. But we continued our walk in spite of the rain. We got wet in rain, but it made another happy moment.

_{Beautiful snails}

As it was raining and got dark, there were little creatures besides the foot path. Oh! I found beautiful snails on the way. I didn't forget to captured them for you. The whole environment was calm and quiet. The silence is broken by only the crickets singing. Crickets are small insects who chirping loudly.

_{On the way}

This forest hermitage is a place for Buddhist monks to meditate. There were footpaths made to do walking meditation for monks. As well as there were meditation chambers to do meditations. The forest environment provides a peaceful and silence status suit for meditations. When I was stepping through the forest I felt the cold breeze. It was relaxed my mind.

_{Entrance to the Udamaluwa}

At the end of foot path there were stairs to climb up. Little by little we reached the top of the hermitage. There was an entrance to the Udamaluwa. It was normal as other Buddhist temples consist with Chaitya, Bodhi tree and Buddha statue. We worshipped there by offering flowers to Lord Buddha, lighting the lamps and burning incense sticks.

_{Chaitya and Bodhi tree}

_{Buddha statue}

We spent lot of time there and did the religious activities as the Buddhists. As it was got very dark and heavy raining we headed back along the foot path by enjoying the cool environment besides the way. Actually it was a nice experience to me at the end of the year. Hope to go there again in the morning to take another kind of experience.