The Coasts and Culture of Ceylon

A fourteen night holiday that introduces you to Sri Lanka’s ancient cultural heritage, her highlands and tea growing areas and her miles of palm fringed beaches.

Arrive Colombo. You will be met on arrival in Colombo and transferred inland to Kurenegala.

You will be transferred up to the Cultural Triangle in the interior of the island. This is an interesting journey, travelling thorough rural areas and small villages. Each one specialises in a different local industry, such as cashew nuts, pineapples and reed weaving.

You will be transferred into the central wet zone of the island. On the way, you will have the chance to visit spice gardens growing a variety of spices, such as cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg. These are the places to invest in top quality Ayurvedic remedies and oils, although they do not come cheap. It was for these spices that Sri Lanka was initially colonised by the Portuguese, Dutch and British. You will also go via the Dambulla Cave Temples.

You will have the opportunity to visit the Elephant Orphanage. This is about an hours drive from Kandy and is a good chance for people to get up close and personal with a pachyderm. It is a good idea to go and have lunch by the river as after feeding, they are all brought down to bathe and to watch them from a vantage point with a cold drink is a pleasant experience.

In the evening, you will be taken to the Temple of the Tooth to see the blessing ceremony with all the fanfare, drums, trumpets and brightly coloured Monks performing their rituals.

You will also have the chance to visit the Botanical Gardens and to see a cultural show whilst in Kandy.

You will be met at the hotel and transferred to the station in time to catch the narrow gauge train to Nuwara Eliya. This is not the quickest route, but is by far the best way of doing this leg of your journey as the views are spectacular and the railway follows a different route to the often busy road.

In the afternoon, you can visit a local tea factory to see how the world’s most popular hot beverage is grown, plucked and processed before being bagged and packaged

More on Nuwara Eliya 

You will be transferred by road into the south eastern corner of the island, to Yala.

You will be transferred along the coastal road to Bentota. There are plenty of interesting shops along the way and if you look carefully, you can see them tapping the coconut trees that grow alongside the road for toddy – a highly intoxicating drink made from the fermented sap.

More on Bentota 

You will be met and transferred back to the airport in time to check in for your flight back to London with Sri Lankan Airlines.

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