Wilderness to Ancient Kingdoms

DAY 101

Yala or Udawalawe

An early departure, into whichever park you have chosen, both celebrated for their leopards and for elephant herds that move, unhurried, across open grassland. By evening, you return to comfort — and by morning, to breakfast, before the day begins again.

DAY 202

Ella

Tea hills roll away on either side of the road for the better part of the climb. The Nine Arch Bridge. Little Adam's Peak. The cool descent to Ravana Falls, where the water has been finding its way down for rather longer than the road has existed.

DAY 303

Kandy

The Temple of the Tooth Relic greets the morning in low chant and the scent of incense — a place of pilgrimage for the better part of a millennium, and none the less affecting for its age. By afternoon, the Royal Botanical Gardens at Peradeniya open into an avenue of palms that dwarf everything around them, an orchid house heavy with scent, and shade enough to persuade you to slow down, at last, for a few hours.

DAY 404

Sigiriya and Pidurangala

Sigiriya rises, quite improbably, straight out of the flat jungle floor — a slab of rock over two hundred metres high, crowned by the remains of a fifth-century palace that once stood, by all accounts, rather magnificently. The climb reveals frescoes part of the way up, and near the summit, the great stone paws of a lion long since vanished. From the top, the jungle stretches in every direction, entirely unbroken. And across the way, Pidurangala offers the finest view of Sigiriya there is — best appreciated, as it happens, just as the sun begins to set.

DAY 505

Homeward, at your own pace

The return, unhurried, exactly as it began.