16-Day Luxury Sri Lanka - Cultural Triangle, Gal Oya & Hill Country Grand Tour

Day 1 · Negombo

16-Day Sri Lanka Gal Oya, Highlands & Southern Coast Escape

Met at the airport and driven twenty minutes up the coast. Nothing is scheduled. The point of this night is that day two starts properly rather than at half strength.

Days 2–4 · Sigiriya · three nights

Three days in the Triangle

North to Sigiriya, with the afternoon already in Minneriya - the herds come down to the tank in the late light, and which park depends on where they have gathered that week. The next day is Anuradhapura: two thousand years of ruins, the Sri Maha Bodhi, and after dark a guided walk to look for slender lorises, which almost nobody does. Then Dambulla’s painted caves, Polonnaruwa, and rice and curry at a village house. The rock itself on the last morning.

Day 5 · Kandy

A carved stone temple, then Kandy

Nalanda Gedige on the way south - a small stone temple with Hindu and Buddhist carving on the same walls, and nobody else there. Into Kandy for the evening and a walk around the lake.

Days 6–8 · Nuwara Eliya · three nights

Three days in the high country

The Tooth Relic at midday during the Thevava, Peradeniya’s gardens, then Ramboda Falls and the Bluefield factory on the climb up. The second morning is early: Horton Plains before six, across the grassland to World’s End while the cliff is still clear. The third is Stage 22 of the Pekoe Trail - ten and a half kilometres from Kandapola to the Pedro estate with a naturalist, through tea and Tamil village land, with a cooking demonstration at the end of it.

Days 9–10 · Ella · two nights

The line, and the rock above Ella

The train from Nanu Oya - four hours through tea slopes and cloud forest with the doors open. The next day is the Demodara Loop, pol roti and black tea, and Ella Rock in the afternoon: harder than Little Adam’s Peak, three hours up and back, and the view is a different order of thing.

Days 11–12 · Gal Oya · two nights

Gal Oya

Little Adam’s Peak and Nine Arches in the morning, then east into country almost nobody drives through. The following day is the reason this journey exists: a forest walk at Rathugala with a Vedda guide, the warm stream at Peellakandura, and in the late afternoon a boat out onto Senanayake Samudraya - the largest lake in Sri Lanka - where elephants swim between the islands. Six guests to a boat, out at half past three.

Day 13 · Udawalawe

Kayaks, then the calves

West to Udawalawe and an afternoon that asks nothing - high tea on the deck and a kayak on the lake. The next morning is the Transit Home, where rescued calves are bottle-fed before being returned to the wild rather than kept.

Days 14–15 · Weligama · two nights

The surf coast

Down to Weligama, with Coconut Tree Hill above Mirissa on the way in. Two nights: a wide shallow bay, surfers to watch or join, and a Buddha Puja with oil lamps at a village temple.