Tailor Made Holidays to Sri Lanka

The Pearl of the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka, a jewel suspended like a pendant by an invisible thread from the Indian sub-continent, can trace its history back through the mists of time. Legend has it that the island was the original Garden of Eden and that Adam left an impression of his foot on the mountain known as Adam’s Peak. Pilgrims climb the steep path to the summit every year during the dry season. From the north, where once the trading town of Jaffna prospered, to the Bay of Trincomalee, through to Galle in the south, history abounds. In the 6th century B.C an Indo-Aryan Prince, Vijaya, the founder of the Singhalese people came down from northern India. Claiming descent from a lion, Singha, these ‘lion people’ settled on the island and proceeded to build impressive cities, canals, lakes and, indeed, a whole culture.

The island was first colonised by the Portuguese in the 16th, then by the Dutch in the 17th century. Their time-forgotten fort still stands proudly on the Galle Peninsula. The British arrived in the 1790s and all these cultures have left their imprint on the island, the people and their traditions. The colonial grandeur of the British period is most evident in Colombo and Kandy. The sweeping arcades and the Government buildings attest to the importance of the island in the 19th century. 

Kandy is the old capital of Ceylon and the seat of the last Singhalese kingdom. This picturesque city, nestling amongst rolling hills and set around an ancient, man-made lake, is the site of the Temple of the Tooth, the most venerated Buddhist temple in the country. Annually, during the period leading up to the full moon between July and August, one of the world’s oldest pageants, the Esala Perahera is held. At this time, a procession of hundreds of elephants caparisoned in lights, brocades and batiks and thousands of ceremonially dressed dancers, drummers and fire-eaters parade in the streets.