Things to Do in Tissamaharama: 15 Best Places to Visit in Tissa, Sri Lanka

Yala is the reason Tissa has more guesthouses than a town its size should. The main Palatupana gate, which leads into Block 1, is about 20 km south-east of the clock tower, a 30 to 40 minute jeep ride along the coast road through Kirinda. Block 1 holds one of the highest leopard densities recorded anywhere, and on a good dry-season morning you can also see sloth bears, elephants, mugger crocodiles and peacocks fanned out on the track.

Every safari company in Tissa heads for the same gate at the same hour, so expect queues of jeeps at 6 am in peak season. If you would rather trade leopard odds for quiet, ask your driver about Block 5, where elephants are easier and jeeps are fewer. Yala’s fees, blocks and slot times change often, and we keep them current in our full Yala National Park safari guide.

For budgeting, the foreign adult ticket works out from around USD 35 to 45 at the Palatupana counter once the vehicle fee, service charge and VAT are added, and SAARC passport holders, including Indians, pay a lower rate.

Tissa Wewa is the lake the town grew around. It is an artificial reservoir built as part of an irrigation system that dates back to the 3rd century BCE, and it still feeds the paddy fields that circle the town. The embankment (bund) road along its southern shore, shaded by old rain trees, is the place to be at about 5.30 pm. Fishermen pole out in narrow canoes, painted storks and egrets come in to roost on the dead trees in the shallows, and the white dome of the Tissa Dagoba catches the last light behind you.

Boatmen at the embankment take groups out for a 30-minute loop, priced for the whole boat rather than per person, depending on season and how hard you bargain. Agree the price before you step in. Do not swim or wade here. Mugger crocodiles live in the lake, and you will often see one lying motionless on the far bank.

The Tissa Dagoba is the white stupa you see from almost everywhere in town. Tradition, recorded in Sri Lanka’s chronicles, credits its founding to King Kavantissa of Ruhuna in the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, and the temple counts it among the oldest Buddhist sites in the south. According to the Mahavamsa tradition the site was blessed by the Buddha on his third visit to the island, a belief that brings pilgrims here in large numbers on full-moon (Poya) days.

It is one of the largest stupas in southern Sri Lanka, not the largest in the country (that distinction belongs to the giants of Anuradhapura). Published heights vary from about 47 m to over 55 m, partly because restoration went on for decades in the 20th century. Visit after 6 pm, when families bring oil lamps and white lotus flowers and the chanting starts. Wear white or light colours, cover shoulders and knees, and leave shoes at the gate. The paving gets hot by midday, so mornings and evenings are kinder on bare feet.

Yatala Wehera is the stupa most visitors drive past, and it is the most interesting of the town’s stupas. Dating to the 3rd century BCE, it stands on a square platform ringed by a wall of carved elephant heads and a moat, which makes it look closer to a small fortified shrine than a simple dome. Accounts differ on the builder. Some name a prince called Yatala Tissa, others King Mahanaga.

A small archaeological museum sits beside it, with Buddha statues, moonstones, coins and pottery dug up around Tissa. The museum is reported to open 9 am to 4 pm and to close on Tuesdays, with free entry. Yatala Wehera museum hours, closing day and fee with the Department of Archaeology] It takes about 20 minutes, and it explains what the town looked like when it was a royal capital better than any sign at the stupas.

Sandagiri is a smaller, partly restored stupa a short walk from the Tissa Dagoba, also traditionally linked to King Kavantissa. Around it lie brick foundations, stone pillars and the outlines of old monastery buildings, and on a weekday afternoon you will likely have the place to yourself apart from a few grazing cattle. Menik Wehera, a ruined stupa and monastery site from the same early period, is on the other side of town beside Yatala Wehera, about 2.5 km away, so pair it with that visit instead.

Neither needs more than 15 minutes. Do them on foot or by bicycle as part of a loop with the Tissa Dagoba, finishing at the lake for sunset. The ruins give a sense of how far the old city spread. Excavations around Tissa have found stone-paved streets with drains and a hospital dating to the 1st or 2nd century CE.

Tissa is ringed by old tanks, and two of the closest are the best for birds. Debara Wewa, about 2 km from town, is small and shallow, fringed with lotus and full of herons, purple swamphens, pelicans and cormorants in the early morning. Yoda Wewa (“giant’s tank”), a few kilometres further out, is broader and wilder, with crocodiles basking along the edges.

The flat roads between the lakes make a gentle bicycle loop of 10 to 15 km through paddy fields. Most guesthouses rent bikes for a few hundred rupees a day. Go at first light, carry water, and stay on the bunds rather than walking to the waterline.

Tissa’s paddy fields, fed by the same tanks for two millennia, make a village morning one of the more rewarding things to do in Tissamaharama between safaris. Local operators run half-day tours that include a bullock-cart or tractor ride along the bunds, a visit to a farmer’s home, a lunch of rice and curry cooked on a wood fire and served on a lotus leaf, and a demonstration of how the south’s buffalo curd is made.

Curd and kithul treacle is the dish to try here. Thick, slightly sour buffalo curd sold in clay pots along the Tissa roads, with sweet palm syrup poured on top. You will see the pots stacked at roadside stalls on the way in. A pot is enough for two or three people.

Bundala is the safari to do if you care about birds. It was Sri Lanka’s first Ramsar wetland (1991) and became a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 2005. Five shallow lagoons, salt pans and scrub hold 197 recorded bird species. From around October to March, migrants arrive, including flocks of greater flamingos that can number more than a thousand. You will also see mugger and saltwater crocodiles, and a few elephants live in the scrub.

The entrance is on the Hambantota road, about 20 km west of Tissa. Bundala is smaller, flatter and far less crowded than Yala, and an afternoon jeep from 3 pm catches the lagoons in soft light. The foreign ticket is reported at about USD 12 per adult before service charge and VAT. Our Bundala National Park guide covers the lagoons in more detail.

Wirawila (also spelt Weerawila) is a large tank about 10 km west of Tissa, on the road you take to Bundala or Hambantota. The causeway road runs straight across the water, so you can watch spoonbills, pelicans, herons and cormorants without leaving the car. The tanks around it are protected as a bird sanctuary, and in the early morning the trees on the far shore can be white with roosting egrets.

There is no gate and no fee. Ask your driver to pull over at the causeway on the way to Bundala. Fifteen minutes here with binoculars often turns up as many species as an hour in a park.

Sithulpawwa is a 2,000-year-old monastery spread over rock outcrops on the edge of Yala, roughly 25 km from Tissa. Its name translates as “hill of the quiet mind”, and for centuries it housed thousands of monks in caves cut beneath the boulders. Several caves still carry early Brahmi inscriptions, and one holds faded paintings and a reclining Buddha.

The climb to the stupa on top of the main rock is short but steep, and from the summit you look out across the Yala forest towards the sea. The approach road passes through scrub where elephants and peacocks are common, so drive it in daylight. Wear clothes that cover shoulders and knees and expect to go barefoot near the shrines. The rock gets very hot after 10 am.

Kataragama, about 18 km north-east of Tissa, is one of the few places on earth where Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and the Vedda people all worship at the same complex. The main shrine is dedicated to the god Kataragama, known to Tamil Hindus as Murugan or Skanda. You cross the Menik Ganga to reach the sacred grounds, pass the shrines of Ganesha and Vishnu, and walk on to the white Kiri Vehera stupa a short distance beyond.

Come for the evening puja at 6.30 pm, when drummers lead fruit-laden processions to the shrine and devotees smash coconuts on a stone to break obstacles. On weekdays there are also pujas at 4.30 am and 10.30 am. On Saturdays these are replaced by a single 9 am morning puja, and the 6.30 pm puja runs as usual. During the Esala festival (July or August) the town fills with pilgrims and fire-walkers. Our guide to places to visit in Kataragama covers the rest of the town, and the restaurants in Kataragama list helps if you stay for dinner.

Sella Kataragama is a smaller riverside shrine about 4 km from Kataragama town, roughly 22 km from Tissa. It is dedicated to Ganesha and to Valli, the consort of the god Kataragama, and local tradition holds that this is where the god first met her. The setting is a big part of the appeal. Temple buildings sit under large trees on the bank of the Menik Ganga, with pilgrims bathing in the shallows and monkeys watching from the branches.

Visit in the afternoon before heading to the main Kataragama puja in the evening. It is quieter than the main complex, and easier for first-timers to take in.

Kirinda is a fishing village about 10 km south of Tissa, and its temple sits on a granite outcrop right above the sea. Legend says Princess Viharamahadevi was set adrift by her father as an offering to calm the ocean, landed here, and went on to marry King Kavantissa of Ruhuna. Their son, Dutugemunu, became one of Sri Lanka’s most celebrated kings. A statue of the princess faces the water.

Climb to the stupa for the view over the coast towards Yala. The beach below is wide and wild but not for swimming, as currents are strong. Offshore lie the Great and Little Basses reefs and their lighthouses. They are diveable only in a short calm window around March and April, with operators from further west, since Kirinda has no dive centre. Kirinda also has several safari lodges and sits closer to the Yala gate than Tissa does.

Patanangala is a rocky beach inside Yala’s Block 1, and most morning safaris stop here to let passengers stretch their legs. It is one of the few places in the park where you are allowed out of the jeep. The headland is dramatic, and a memorial marks the spot where the 2004 tsunami struck the park’s bungalow area and visitors lost their lives.

There is nothing to book separately. Ask your driver to include it, and stay inside the marked area since wild animals use the beach too.

Udawalawe is about 80 km north-west of Tissa, around 1.5 to 2 hours by car, and it is the most reliable place in Sri Lanka to see wild elephants in large groups. The park’s open grassland around the reservoir makes them easy to spot, and herds of 30 or more are common in the dry months. It is a good alternative if Yala is closed, or a second safari if one morning of leopard-hunting was not enough.

Leave Tissa at 4.30 am for a 6 am start, or do it as a stop on the way to the hill country or the south coast. Our Udawalawe National Park guide has the details on gates and the elephant transit home nearby.