Sustainable Luxury – Responsible Eco Tour

You climb Sigiriya first thing, before the heat and the queues. It is over a thousand steps past the fifth century frescoes to a summit that was once a royal citadel.

In the afternoon you swap the car for a bicycle and ride out through the villages around Habarana. You stop wherever there is something happening: a family twisting coir brooms from coconut fibre, a brick kiln, a man pressing ayurvedic oils, a village dance school. The ride ends at your guide's house with a cooking lesson and lunch.

You head south towards Kandy and take a safari at Wasgamuwa on the way. The park holds around 150 wild elephants along with buffalo and spotted deer. Leopard and sloth bear are both present and both rarely seen. Wasgamuwa takes a fraction of the traffic Yala does, so you are often the only jeep at a sighting.

A four hour drive east brings you into the Gal Oya region, which has more forest than road and almost no other visitors. You are met at camp and the evening walk is led by a guide from the Veddah community, the island's indigenous people. The forest here was planted with medicinal trees by an early king, and he will show you which ones are still used and for what.

There is a cultural centre ten minutes from the camp where the community tells its own story rather than having it told for them.

The morning is a four kilometre birding walk through an organic farm and down to a lake, with a naturalist. Painted francolin and yellow footed green pigeon are the two most people come for, and the trail turns up a good deal more.

In the evening you drive an hour to the part of Gal Oya National Park that meets Senanayake Samudraya, the largest reservoir in the country, and go out on the water. This is the place where elephants swim between the islands. Crocodiles and water birds are constant. Tea is served on one of the islands on the way back.

You come down to Wellawaya, where the hills flatten into the dry zone and the whole valley is rice. Check in, eat, and take the afternoon off.

In the evening you visit Buduruwagala, a rock face carved with seven figures in the tenth century. The standing Buddha is over fifteen metres tall and still holds traces of the orange paint from the robe that once covered it.

If the season is right you join the paddy work. It is done by hand and every stage, from preparing the land to the harvest, has its own small ceremony attached.

After breakfast you walk into the village and meet the people farming it. The visit ends with a meal cooked in one of the houses, followed by tea and sweets. The evening is free, because the next two days are not.

You drive up through the tea hills to Diyaluma, the second highest waterfall in the country, with a main drop of around 220 metres and pools at the top for anyone willing to climb to them.

From there you turn south for Yala and two nights at the edge of the park.

Two safaris, one at first light and one in the late afternoon. Yala was declared a game park in 1938 and covers 965 square kilometres. Block 1 holds one of the highest leopard densities recorded anywhere, which is why people come, though no park guarantees a sighting on any single drive.

Elephant, sloth bear, sambar, spotted deer, wild boar, mongoose and several civets are all regular. Your tracker will be watching the alarm calls more than the track.

You drive west to Deniyaya, stopping at Kotapola at a tea garden that grows inside the rainforest buffer. The leaf here is picked and rolled by hand rather than machined, which changes both how it looks and how it tastes.

You walk the paths through the forest, drink from the spring and taste the grades side by side, which is the only way the difference makes sense.

A morning trek into Sinharaja, the last large stretch of primary rainforest on the island and a World Heritage Site. It is the best place in the country for endemic birds, and it rains often, which is precisely why the forest is there.

In the afternoon you drive to Negombo for the last night, on the coast and twenty minutes from the airport.

Your driver-guide takes you to the airport. Negombo is close enough that unless your flight is very early there is time for breakfast and a last walk on the beach.