Sri Lanka highlights
Southwest Coast
Sri Lanka's beautiful beaches stretch from Negombo, near the airport, all around the southwestern quadrant as far as Hambantota. The sand glitters like gold dust and the sea sparkles in zircon-bright sunlight. The water is as translucent and blue as the aquamarines and sapphires you've seen in the gem markets. The resorts offer all sorts of water sports, from snorkelling and windsurfing to fishing. The tides can be dangerous at times, so make sure you watch out for red warning flags on the beaches. The best time to visit is supposed to be from November to April.
Negombo, north of Colombo, is not the best bathing beach but has a lagoon. There, at dawn, you can watch the prawn fishermen set out to trawl where the waters of the Maha Oya flow into the sea. If rising at dawn sounds an exhausting proposition, it's just as rewarding to see the fleet return at about 10 a.m. The craft are traditional outrigger canoes and Indian-style catamarans, sail-driven log rafts called katta-maram in Tamil. Early morning or at 5 p.m., go to the lellama (auction site) near the fort at the north end of the lagoon to watch the fish being sold. You may hear Negombo referred to as "Little Rome". Most of the fishermen are descended from Catholic converts of the Portuguese colonial period, when Negombo was the centre of the cinnamon trade, and there are churches all over town. South of the lagoon is Duwa, an island celebrated for its annual passion play.
Mount Lavinia, the former British governor's residence 11 km (7 miles) south of Colombo, has been given a new lease of life as a hotel in a beautiful setting. Down the coast is Kalutara, a centre for coconut by-products such as mats and baskets and a good place to sample deliciously different mangosteen fruit. The large shrine beside the Kalu Ganga (river) is revered by Buddhists for its sacred, spreading bo-tree of the type under which the Buddha meditated. Further south you come to Beruwela and Bentota, neighbouring resorts that merge into each other. The Kechimalai Mosque, set on a headland, marks the landing spot of the first Muslim settlers in the 11th century. At the end of the holy month of Ramadan there are important festivities here. The best of the island's devil masks come from Ambalangoda, where they also produce handwoven cotton.
Beyond is the popular resort town of Hikkaduwa, a modern conglomeration of hotels, restaurants, shops and beaches. A reef encloses Hikkaduwa's shallow coral gardens, a lovely destination for snorkellers to admire tropical fish, turtles and coral formations. Just south of this tranquillity is some good surfing.Some 115 km (70 miles) south of Colombo, the historic, fortified city of Galle was prominent long before Colombo took the honours. It remains an important port for business and pleasure, and an incomparable place to soak up the old colonial atmosphere. Galle was perhaps the port known in the Bible as Tarshish, where King Solomon's ships loaded gemstones and spices. The next visit of note was in 1505 when the Portuguese arrived, by accident, in the harbour. When they heard the crowing of a cock (galo in Portuguese), they named the town, or so goes one version. Another claims the name comes from gala, which means rock in Sinhala. The Portuguese built a small fort, greatly expanded by the Dutch when they took over in the 17th century. Strolling along the top of the ramparts is one of the special experiences of Galle, especially at sunset. The most heavily fortified portion, facing north, consists of three bastions, called Star, Moon and Sun. The only surviving Portuguese defence is the Black Bastion, on the side overlooking the port.
Inside the fort are many fine old Dutch colonial buildings, such as the 17th-century Government House. The building, now a commercial property, is said to be inhabited by the unhappy ghost of a young woman betrayed by her Dutch lover. In the Dutch Reformed Church, the Groote Kerk (1755), are tombstones of Dutch and British colonial officers. Of all the colonial buildings, the nicest is the former office of the Dutch governor, built in 1684 and later converted into the charming New Oriental Hotel (known as the NOH), the oldest in Sri Lanka. Take tea on the veranda.
The Dutch colonists built their country houses beyond Galle in Unawatuna, today a quiet beach resort with good snorkelling and scuba diving. Between October and March sea turtles return to the beach here to lay their eggs. To thwart poachers and predators, a local hatchery looks after them until the baby turtles are ready to set off on their maiden voyage. Along the coast near Ahangama and Weligama you may come across stilt fishermen, sitting or standing tirelessly on all-but-submerged poles and casting their lines into the sea whose every current they know. Some locations are considered extremely productive, while others are less coveted. In any case, each stilt has its owner. Ashore, Weligama women produce superior lacework. Just outside town, a big statue carved of rock is known as Kustaraja. Legend says this depicts a king who was miraculously cured of leprosy. Nearby is a temple with a modern statue of the standing Buddha.
The big town of Matara, once an Arab trading post, has a good but often crowded beach. Bullock-drawn carriages are the most practical way of getting around the narrow streets. There are two old Dutch forts in Matara, the smaller one now a museum of ancient paintings. The local market is exceptionally lively. A few kilometres beyond Matara is Dondra, the southernmost point on the island. An octagonal lighthouse marks the spot. Near Dikwella is the biggest Buddha statue in Sri Lanka, a modern work about 50 m (165 ft) tall and hollow, to receive visitors inside the seated figure. This is part of a 250-year-old temple complex.
Further along the coast road, the resort of Tangalla has a dreamy shoreline, divided into intimate little sandy bays. The rest house here was an old hangout of Dutch colonial officials. The region produces a perfume based on citronella. Hambantota is inhabited largely by Malay Muslims who earn their living from fishing and from salt gathered in shallow pans from the sea water evaporated by the hot sun. The town was a thriving resort in British colonial days. Just beyond Hambantota, the National Park is the home of fleets of flamingoes and also, at certain times of year, a good place for spotting elephants in the wild.
But the major elephant reserve is Yala National Park, otherwise known as Ruhuna National Park. The best season is from October to December, but you never know what may turn up around a waterhole early or late in the day: buffalo, deer, wild boar, even-if you're lucky-a leopard. The bird life is spectacular, notably peacocks, pelicans, storks and spoonbills.
Kandy
Oddly, Sri Lanka's second city has few ancient monuments. Surrounded by lush, highland scenery, Kandy spreads out around an artificial lake, created in 1807 by the last king, Sri Wickrama Rajasinha. The island in the middle was his pleasure garden. On the northern shore stands the Dalada Maligawa, Temple of the Tooth, built in the 17th and 18th centuries and surrounded by a deep moat. You may not find the octagonal building impressive, but it has deep significance for Buddhists. The Buddha's tooth is Sri Lanka's most hallowed relic. It is supposed to have been rescued from his funeral pyre and later brought to the island hidden in the hair of a princess. The Portuguese, in one of the more reprehensible acts of self-righteous colonialism, claimed to have burned it; this the faithful deny. The British reinstalled and then repossessed the holy relic as part of their plan to capture Kandy. Now it reposes on a golden lotus blossom in the smallest of seven caskets, heavily guarded by monks.
The room housing the shrine or dagoba which contains the tooth is opened at 5.30 and 9.30 a.m. and 6.30 p.m.Then, to a beating of drums, clashing of cymbals and wailing of flutes, white-clad pilgrims with lotus blossoms and fragrant frangipani approach the shrine. A curtain is drawn aside to reveal only the outermost golden casket.
During the Kandy Esala Perahera festival, the island's biggest spectacle, a replica of the shrine is carried through the city. The culmination of ten days of preparation, this magnificent pageant in late July or early August features a procession of elephants, thousands of dancers and a great tusker bearing the sacred reproduction. Esala is a lunar month whose full moon falls in our late July or early August, perahera means procession.
The National Museum, east of the Temple of the Tooth, displays a fine collection of Kandyan costumes, jewellery, weapons, tools and devil masks. The Peradeniya Botanical Garden, biggest and best in the country, covers some 60 ha (150 acres). By the Mahaweli River, clumps of giant bamboo shoot up over 30 m (100 ft). There are tamarind, magnolia, jasmine and orchid trees, as well as an orchid house and spice groves.The elephants' bath-time at Katugastota Bridge is a funny and charming spectacle. The huge pachyderms lie lazily back, obligingly lifting a leg here, an ear-flap there as their mahouts wash them down, watched by scores of appreciative Kandyans and visitors.
A Tea Museum opened recently in a four-storey building of the Hanthana Estate. It's well worth a visit before you set off to explore the tea plantations, to learn all about the tea industry's history on the island.
The highlands get really high at Nuwara Eliya, at the top of a difficult zigzag road south of Kandy. In imperial days the cool climate attracted British colonial officials and tea planters. The British didn't skimp on the nostalgia and homesickness when they designed the church, post office, houses, gardens and country club of this hill station in the image of the old country. Nowadays it is popular with wealthy Sri Lankans, who enjoy the 18-hole golf course. At an altitude of 1800 m (5,900 ft) it can get quite cold at night in January and February.
Nuwara Eliya (which means "above the clouds") is surrounded by tea plantations. The industry prospered in the 1880s, after sudden failure of the island's coffee crop. Tea remains a very significant part of the Sri Lankan economy, although competition from other Asian countries is stiff, and commodity prices can be a gamble. The well-irrigated hillsides are closely packed with tea bushes pruned to a height that's convenient for the pickers, all women. The complex process of drying, fermenting and blending the tea is shown on guided plantation tours, ending, of course, with a nice cup of tea.
