Bandarawela

Bandarawela
Location of Bandarawela
District	Badulla District
Government
• Mayor	Nalin Priyantha Sooriyage (United National Party)
Population  (2001)
• Total	50,000
• Density	17,211/km2 (44,580/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+5:30 (Sri Lanka Standard Time Zone)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+6

Bandarawela (Sinhala: , IPA: [ˈbandarawela]; Tamil: ?????) is the second largest city in Badulla District which is 30km away from Badulla city. It is located on the western part of the Uva Province on the eastern slopes of central hills of Sri Lanka. Badulu oya is started from Bandarawela urban area and it flow through the Dhowa, Demodara, Hali Ela areas while feeding the paddy field bi face of the river. It has very cool climate condition than the other areas in the Uva Province except Haputale. Bandarawela is 200 km away from Colombo and about 150 km away from Kandy where you can easily reach by vehicles or train. Bandarawela is one of the major tea producing areas in Sri Lanka since British colonial era.

There are multiple routes to reach Bandarawela from Colombo, Matara, Kandy, and Nuwara Eliya. From Colombo, one can travel via Ratnapura, Balangoda, Haputale and Diyathalawa along A16 to Bandarawela which may take about 5-6 hours. From Kandy you can travel via Nuwara Eliya (route A5) and Welimada (route B44). All routes are scenic and one can get splendid views of geography changes while traveling. Bandarawela can be identified as one of the main echo tourisms cities in Sri Lanka due to its beautiful environment, cool climate, very close to other beautiful cities in the country and has better infrastructure facilities such as highways, accommodations, restaurants and clubs for the tourists, etc.

History

History of the Bandarawela area is coming from the time of great Sinhalese King Walagamba who fell back and regrouped in the Dhowa area to fight against Indian attackers called "solli". During the period of British colonial era, the city occurred rapid development of the infrastructures and human resources due to tea plantations and migration of the British and other local people to this area.

Originally Bnadarawela is one of the Sinhalese motherlands before the establishment of tea plantations under British administration. But today there is a mix culture due to the migration of Tamils to the plantation sector as laborers from India under British colonial times. Bandarawela famous as having been the camp in Ceylon of the Boer prisoners of war and some of the buildings erected for the temporary accommodation of the captives are now used in connection with the permanent camp health recuperation established here for the Navy , military and volunteers. There is few buildings remain which were built in the British colonial period with British architectural influence such as Bandarawela Hotel,Cargiles building, post office, etc.

Heritage

The main heritage sites in and around Bandarawela are ancient Dhowa (Buddhist) rock temple, Bandarawela Roman Catholic Church, St. Anthony's Church, and Methodist church Bandarawela. Dhowa ancient rock temple is squeezed between Bandarawela - Badulla road and the stream in the bottom of the valley. It is lacated about 6km away from the Bandarawela city.The cliff face has an incomplete carving of a large standing Buddha statue with an exquisitely carved face, while inside the cave there are murals & first century BC inscriptions. The inner cave has a "House of Cobra".

Pushparama Buddhist temple, Hindu kovil and Muslim mosque which were built in few decades ago also located in the Bandarawela urban area.

• incomplete standing Buddha statue in Dhowa temple
  incomplete standing Buddha statue in Dhowa temple
• Methodist church
  Methodist church
• Church of the Ascension, Bandarawela
  Church of the Ascension, Bandarawela
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Geography and climate

Green mountain in Ella area

During colonial times, the picturesque town of Bandarawela was once hailed as possessing one of the healthiest climates in the world, & nothing much has happened here to change that. Therein is the most favourable climate in the island. Geographically, the Bandarawela area is hilly and surrounded by the large number of mountains in Uva and Central Province.

According to the local climatic zone classifications, Bandarawela is classified under Up Country Intermediate Zone (UCIZ) which is spread over the Badulla and Moneragala Districts. The elevation above sea level at Bandarawela is 1300 m, the annual average rainfall is between 1100 and 1400 mm and the monthly average temperature are between 15 ºC (in February) and 27 ºC (in May and June). The Bandarawela area consists mainly at Red Yellow Podzolic soils which are strongly acidic and favorable for the tea plantation.

Economy

File:Dambetanne.jpg

Tea plantation in Dambetanne, Bandarawela

Basically economy of Bandarawela based on well developed Agricultural industry and tea plantations. Large plantations of tea on hilly areas surround the town. Vegetable fields also used to be a common sight around the town, vegetable cultivation presently become good income generation of the economy due to high vegetable prices in local market. The majority of Sri Lankan vegetable producers are living in this area, who produce up country vegetables for local market such as leeks, cabbage, carrot, beet root, potatoes, etc. One of the worlds best quality tea are coming from this area.

Education

During the second world war, many families moved to Bandarawela as leading schools in Colombo such as Visakha Vidyalaya and Royal College completely shifted to Bandarawela due to the fear caused by the Japanese bombs. This caused to improve the education background in this area. Bandarawela area has good education background to generate intelligent people for the country's development. This area has a lot of popular schools in the Badulla district. Bandarawela Central college is the most popular and best school in the Uva province. It is annually generate hundreds of university students for local universities . It is one of the oldest colleges in Badulla district. Some of the other popular schools are Little Flower Convent, Vishaka girls school, and St. Joseph college Bandarawela. These schools are governed by the central government of Sri Lanka. There are also two private schools which are popular in island wide. They are St. Thomes college Bandarawela and St. Thomes college Guruthalawa.

Place to visit

Rawana Ella

This water fall is situated on the Ella -Wellawaya road, this beautiful water fall lies visible from the main road itself. The water rushing down over several steps adds more hues to it’s sublime beauty. The Rawana ella is 40m (131ft) in height. It derives its name from the mythical King Ravana of the great Indian epic The Ramanya.

References

• Pbas galleries
• Bandarawela central college
• Unwind in Bandarawela