Scenic Sri Lanka

You leave the coast after breakfast and head inland. On the way there is a stop at an elephant care foundation, a charity that looks after domesticated elephants, where you meet the keepers and hear how the animals came to be there.

The drive carries on to Sigiriya, the base for the next two nights. We keep the rock itself for the late afternoon, once the worst of the heat has gone. It is a climb of over a thousand steps, past the fifth century frescoes and the lion paws, to a summit that was once a royal citadel. Take water and take your time.

Polonnaruwa was the capital of the island from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, and its ruins are in better condition than those of any other ancient city here. You walk the main group with your guide: Lankathilaka, Thuparamaya, the royal palace, Rankoth Vehera and the Buddha figures cut from the rock face at Gal Viharaya.

In the afternoon you change the car for a jeep and a tracker for a safari at Minneriya or Kaudulla, whichever park the elephants have moved to that week. Both are known for the herds that gather around the reservoirs, and you may also see buffalo, sambar deer, crocodile and a long list of birds.

The road to Kandy runs through spice gardens and river valleys. Kandy was the last capital of the Sinhalese kings and it still feels like the centre of the country, built around a lake with the hills close on every side.

The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic holds the most important Buddhist relic in Sri Lanka, and your visit is timed around the puja, when the shrine is opened and the drummers play. The rest of the day is yours for the lake path, the market or the forest reserve above the town. In the evening there is a performance of dances and drumming from different parts of the island.

This is the day of the train. You ride the upcountry line into the mountains, through tea estates and small stations, with the doors open and the hills falling away below. It is an ordinary working train, so it is rarely quiet and rarely on time, and it is still the part of the trip people talk about afterwards.

Your driver-guide meets you at the far end and drives you the short distance to Nuwara Eliya. The town was built by the British as a hill station and still looks it, with hedges, a racecourse and a golf course, and it is cool enough in the evening to want a jacket. On the way you stop at a tea plantation and factory to see how the leaf is processed.

You come down out of the hills to Yala, on the dry southeastern side of the island. The landscape changes completely in a couple of hours, from tea to scrub jungle and lagoons.

Yala has one of the highest densities of leopard anywhere in the world, though no park guarantees a sighting on a single drive. Elephant, sloth bear, buffalo, crocodile and a great deal of birdlife are all regular. You take the afternoon drive with a tracker, and stay out until the park closes.

A drive along the south coast brings you to Galle, the oldest living city in Sri Lanka. The fort is a walled town the Dutch built on Portuguese foundations, and people still live and work inside it.

You walk the ramparts and the cobbled streets with your guide, past the lighthouse, the old warehouses and the churches, with time left for the cafes, galleries and jewellers in the lanes. Late afternoon is the best time to be on the wall, when the heat drops and the whole town comes out to watch the sea.

Your driver-guide takes you back to the airport for your flight home. From Galle it is roughly two and a half hours on the southern expressway, and we set off with enough time in hand for the check-in queues. If your flight is late in the day, there is room for one more stop on the way, so tell us what you would like to see.