Serenity of Ceylon

You leave the coast and head inland. There is a stop on the way at an elephant care foundation, a charity that looks after domesticated elephants, where the keepers explain how each animal came to be there.

After lunch you carry on to Sigiriya. The rock is kept for the late afternoon, when the heat has gone. It is over a thousand steps past the frescoes to a fifth century citadel on the summit.

Polonnaruwa in the morning. The capital from the eleventh to the thirteenth century is the best preserved ancient city on the island, and you walk the main group: Lankathilaka, Thuparamaya, the royal palace, Rankoth Vehera and the rock cut Buddhas at Gal Viharaya.

In the afternoon you take a jeep into Minneriya or Kaudulla, whichever the elephants have moved to that week, with a tracker who knows the park.

The road to Kandy runs through Matale, where you stop at a spice garden to see cinnamon, pepper and cardamom grown and processed, and at the Aluvihara rock temple where the Buddhist canon was first written down.

In the afternoon you drive out of Kandy to three temples that most visitors never reach: Embekke, with its carved wooden pillars, Lankathilaka on its rock, and Gadaladeniya in stone.

A full day in Kandy. The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic holds the most important Buddhist relic in the country and your visit is timed around the puja, when the shrine is opened and the drummers play.

The Peradeniya botanical gardens are the largest in Sri Lanka and take a slow half day. Otherwise there is the forest reserve above the town, the market, and the view from Upper Lake Drive. The evening is the dance and drumming show.

The upcountry train takes you into the mountains, through tea estates and small stations with the valleys opening below. It is a working service, rarely quiet and rarely on time, and it is the part of Sri Lanka most people remember.

Your driver-guide meets you at Nanu Oya and drives you up to Nuwara Eliya, a hill station the British built and never quite left, cool enough in the evening to want a jacket. There is a tea plantation and factory on the way.

A long, scenic drive down out of the mountains to Colombo, through tea, then paddy, then the city.

In the afternoon you see Colombo with your driver-guide: the Pettah market streets, the old Fort quarter, the Hindu temples on Sea Street and the Dutch church at Wolvendaal. The evening is free for the restaurants or an early night before the flight.

A short drive to the airport and the flight to Male, which takes about an hour. You are met on arrival and taken to the island by speedboat or seaplane, depending on where the resort sits.

The afternoon is for checking in and doing nothing. If you want the evening on the water there is a night fishing trip, and the kitchen will cook what you catch.

Out early by boat to look for dolphins, which travel in large pods in these waters and are usually found within an hour.

The rest of the day belongs to the reef. This is among the best snorkelling and diving anywhere, and manta rays are the ones to hope for. You come back in at sunset.

Another day in the water. There are over 700 species of reef fish here, and the diving and snorkelling are as good in the shallows as they are on the drop off.

Green and hawksbill turtles feed on the reefs around many of the islands. If they are willing you swim alongside them, which needs patience and no chasing.

The resort transfers you back to Male for your flight home.