The Heart of Ceylon

Go down to the lellama at first light, the beach market where the night boats land. It is loud, wet and worth the early alarm.

After breakfast you drive south to Galle. The fort is a walled town the Dutch built on Portuguese foundations and it is still lived in, so the ramparts, the churches, the warehouses and the cafes all share the same few streets.

You follow the coast east towards Yala. Watch for the stilt fishermen on the way, who sit on poles set in the shallows, and stop at a tea estate that makes white tea, the grade that is picked by hand and never rolled.

There is a turtle hatchery further on, and the Hummanaya blowhole, where the swell forces water up through a gap in the rock. Wild elephants sometimes stand at the roadside on the last stretch. You reach camp at Yala in time for dinner by the fire.

A full day at the parks. Yala is scrub, open plain and lagoon, and it holds one of the highest leopard densities recorded anywhere, along with elephant, sloth bear, sambar and crocodile. No park guarantees a sighting on a single drive.

Bundala is the alternative for the second run, a maze of lagoons and dunes with thousands of water birds, including flamingo in season. Your tracker will tell you which one is worth your morning.

You turn inland and climb. Buduruwagala comes first, seven figures carved into a rock face a thousand years ago, the tallest over fifteen metres and still marked by the paint from its robe.

The road keeps rising to Diyaluma, which drops about 220 metres in a single main fall and is the second highest in the country. You stay near Ella, within sight of the Ravana falls.

A day on the Ella trails. The Nine Arch Bridge at Demodara is a stone viaduct built without steel and trains still cross it. Ravana falls is a short stop on the road.

Ella Gap gives you the view south through the mountains, and Little Adam's Peak is the climb everyone does, a steady hour up for the best view of the bridge and the valley. Late afternoon is the hour to do it.

The train from Ella to Kandy is the best section of the upcountry line, and quieter than the Nuwara Eliya leg. It runs through tea, forest and villages, and round passes with the valleys open below.

It is a working service, so it is rarely on time and rarely empty. You reach Kandy in the afternoon and the rest of the day is a rest.

The morning starts with a cooking demonstration on clay pots over a wood fire, and you eat what you make.

Kandy was the last capital of the Sinhalese kings. The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic holds the country's most important Buddhist relic and your visit is timed around the puja. Afterwards 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.

You leave the hills for the east coast. Batticaloa is the stop on the way. The old fort now holds government offices and is crumbling in places, and the 1913 lighthouse stands at the end of a sandbar between the lagoon and the sea.

Pasikuda is another hour on. The bay is shallow and flat for a long way out, which makes it the easiest swimming on the island.

A day with nothing in it. Pasikuda is a long curve of white sand with warm, clear, shallow water, and this is the point in the trip where most people stop taking photographs.

If lying down gets dull there is snorkelling, diving and sailing off the same beach.

You cross back into the Cultural Triangle to Sigiriya. In the afternoon you climb either Sigiriya itself, a fifth century citadel on top of a rock, past the frescoes and the lion paws, or Pidurangala opposite it.

Pidurangala is a scramble at the top rather than stairs, and it is the place to photograph Sigiriya rather than stand on it. Doing one in the afternoon and the other at dawn is the better plan if you have the legs.

Polonnaruwa was the capital from the eleventh to the thirteenth century and its ruins are the best preserved on the island. You walk the main group: Lankathilaka, Thuparamaya, the royal palace, Rankoth Vehera and the Buddha figures cut from the rock at Gal Viharaya. A bicycle is the easiest way round it.

Afterwards you drive west to Negombo for the last night, close to the airport.

Your driver-guide takes you to the airport, twenty minutes up the road. Unless your flight is very early there is time for breakfast first.