Sri Lanka Classic, 5 Nights

Met at Bandaranaike International, north of Colombo, and driven inland past Kurunegala to the Cultural Triangle. The stop is Dambulla: a short climb to five caves under a single overhang, painted floor to ceiling and lined with more than a hundred Buddha images, some of them fourteen metres long. Shoes come off at the top and the stone is hot underfoot by noon, so the visit is timed for the late afternoon. Then the last twenty minutes to Sigiriya and a hotel with the rock in view, early to bed for the climb. · Colombo airport to Sigiriya · overnight Sigiriya · Private vehicle, about 4 hours with the Dambulla stop

At the gate for seven, when it opens and before the heat. The water gardens, the boulder gardens, the spiral stair to the fresco gallery, the mirror wall with its thousand-year-old graffiti, and the lion's paws at the foot of the final flight; roughly twelve hundred steps in all, taken slowly, and the ruins of Kasyapa's palace on the summit with the whole dry-zone plain beneath. Down by ten, breakfast, and the drive south through Matale into the Kandyan hills. The evening belongs to the Temple of the Tooth: a Kandyan dance show first, then the 6:30 puja with the drums in the courtyard as the relic chamber opens. · Sigiriya to Kandy · overnight Kandy · Private vehicle, about 2½–3 hours

A morning hour in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya, the avenue of royal palms and the orchid house, before the road climbs. From Gampola the tea begins and does not stop: terraces on every slope, pluckers with baskets on their backs, and the Ramboda Falls beside the road. A working factory near Ramboda shows the withering, rolling and firing that turn the leaf into Ceylon tea, with a tasting at the end. Nuwara Eliya sits at nearly 1,900 metres and is cold after dark; Gregory Lake, the post office and the racecourse make a short evening walk before a fireside dinner. · Kandy to Nuwara Eliya · overnight Nuwara Eliya · Private vehicle, about 3 hours with the stops

The long day of the trip, and the most varied. Out of Nuwara Eliya past the Hakgala gardens turn-off, or by the Hatton road through the highest tea, and then a descent of nearly two thousand metres through Kitulgala's rainforest and rubber country to the coast. Lunch on the way, and the hotel at Bentota by mid-afternoon: the beach runs for kilometres either side of the river mouth and the sea here is calm in season. The evening is a walk on the sand and dinner by the water. · Nuwara Eliya to Bentota · overnight Bentota · Private vehicle, about 5–6 hours with stops

A morning on the water: the Madu River boat safari winds through mangrove tunnels and past the island temple at Kothduwa, with monitor lizards on the banks and kingfishers overhead. Back for a swim and a slow lunch. Late afternoon the car takes the coast road south to Galle, where the Dutch fort of 1663 encloses a living town of lanes, churches, a lighthouse and a mosque inside its ramparts; the walk around the walls ends at the western bastions as the sun goes into the sea. Dinner inside the fort or back at Bentota. · Bentota and Galle · overnight Bentota · Boat in the morning; private vehicle to Galle and back, about 1 hour each way

Breakfast and a last hour on the beach before the drive north to the airport by the Southern and Katunayake expressways. With a late flight the day can take in Colombo on the way: Galle Face Green, the Gangaramaya temple and the old Fort district, with lunch in the city. Flights to Chennai, Kochi and Bengaluru take well under two hours; Mumbai is about two and a half. · Bentota to Colombo airport · Private vehicle, about 2–2½ hours by the expressways