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Arrive, and do nothing much

Your driver-guide meets you at the airport and drives you into the city — about an hour, longer in the evening. We deliberately schedule nothing today. Most people arrive off an overnight flight and the single most useful thing an itinerary can do is let them sleep, swim and eat well before anything begins.

North into the dry zone

Out of the city early and north through coconut country to the Cultural Triangle. We stop at the Dambulla cave temples on the way in, which works far better than doubling back for them tomorrow — the caves are at their quietest in the late afternoon and the light comes in sideways through the colonnade.

• •The five painted caves at Dambulla
• •Afternoon arrival, no rush

The rock at first light

At the gate for opening at seven. Shade on the staircases, the fresco gallery without a queue behind you, and the summit before the heat arrives. Down by mid-morning, with the water gardens walked slowly on the way out rather than hurried through on the way in — they are the most sophisticated thing on the site and almost everyone skips them. The afternoon is free, or a jeep out to Minneriya if the elephants are gathering.

• •Dawn climb
• •The fresco gallery and mirror wall
• •Optional Minneriya elephant gathering

Down to the last kingdom

A shorter drive south into the hills, with a spice garden or the Matale area on the way if you want it. Kandy sits at five hundred metres in a bowl of hills, and the change in air is immediate. We aim to arrive with enough of the afternoon left to walk the lake before the evening ceremony.

The Temple of the Tooth, and the gardens

Peradeniya Botanical Gardens in the morning, when it is cool and largely empty — sixty hectares on a loop of the Mahaweli, and the avenue of royal palms is worth the visit on its own. Back for the evening puja at the Sri Dalada Maligawa, standing near the drummers rather than in the queue. This is not a performance for visitors, and it is the most direct encounter with practising Buddhism the trip offers.

• •Peradeniya Botanical Gardens
• •Evening puja at the Temple of the Tooth

Into the tea

The road climbs through Ramboda and into high-grown tea country, gaining fourteen hundred metres over about four hours. We stop at a working estate and factory — the plucking, the withering lofts, the rollers, and a tasting at the end of it. By the time you reach Nuwara Eliya it is genuinely cold, which catches out anyone who packed only for a tropical island.

• •A working tea estate and factory
• •The climb through Ramboda

The blue train

The section from Nanu Oya to Ella is the most beautiful stretch of railway in the country and much the best way to make this journey — roughly three hours through tea terraces, cloud forest and tunnels with the doors open. Your vehicle takes the luggage round by road and meets you at the far end. Afternoon in Ella, and the gap looking south to the plain.

• •Reserved seats on the Nanu Oya to Ella line
• •Ella Gap in the late afternoon

Off the escarpment, into leopard country

An early walk up Little Adam's Peak if you want one — forty-five minutes through tea, and almost empty before eight. Then the road drops off the escarpment to the dry southern plain and the temperature climbs again. Afternoon arrival at Yala, with the evening free before an early start.

The gate at opening, then the coast

Through the gate at half past five in a private jeep, before the convoy forms. The first ninety minutes are when the cats are moving and when you may be alone with one. Back for breakfast, then west along the coast road to Galle — stopping at Weligama for the stilt fishermen or Mirissa for lunch, depending on the day.

• •Private jeep, first through the gate
• •The southern coast road

Inside the walls

A free day in the Fort. The rampart circuit takes about an hour and is best at either end of the day; between those you have a Dutch Reformed church floored with the gravestones of colonial officials, a working lighthouse, galleries in old merchant houses, and the option of a boat to look for whales in season. Or the beach at Unawatuna, ten minutes east.

• •The rampart walk at sunset
• •Optional whale watching, December to April

The road back

The expressway makes the airport about two and a half hours from Galle, so a late-afternoon or evening flight leaves you most of the morning. If your flight is at two in the morning — as many are — we will usually suggest a day room rather than sitting in a terminal.