Best Places

Colombo

In 1517 the recently arrived Portuguese built a fort here, which was to subsequently form the nucleus of the modern city. The Dutch expanded the fortifications and gave the fledgling city new suburbs and an extensive system of canals, though it was not until the arrival of the British that Colombo really began to take off, by now an important staging post on the Indian Ocean’s maritime routes.

In 1815, Colombo was declared the capital of Ceylon. Today's modern city, which a population of around 3 million calls home, has grown exponentially since Independence and now spreads its tentacular suburbs along the coast for the best part of 60km (37 miles).

Shop in the Pettah

Colombo’s most absorbing area is the Pettah, a tumultuous bazaar district that is still the scene of much of the city’s vibrant commercial life, its grid of narrow streets stuffed full of every conceivable type of merchandise. Many of the district’s streets are given over to specific items, with one street devoted to selling leather goods, another to household wares, and so on. Concealed among the shops and teeming streetlife are also some of the oldest and most interesting buildings in Colombo: on Second Cross Street is the Pettah’s most striking building, the Jami-ul-Alfar Mosque, built in 1909 and striped in red and white like a stupendous raspberry layer-cake, with candy minarets and arches shaped like bitemarks.

Stroll on Galle Face Green

An elongated expanse of scrubby grass called Galle Face Green provides the city with important breathing space and attracts locals in their hundreds towards dusk – crowds of cheerful idlers come to meet friends, fly kites or sample the snacks sold from mobile food-carts along the oceanfront esplanade. A handful of newish hotels lies close to the green; none, however, can match the colonial aura of the venerable Galle Face Hotel. Even if you’re not staying here, this is still the best place in Colombo to watch the sun go down, maybe while sipping a mango cocktail next to the outsize chessboard on the seafront lawn.

National Museum

The southern end of Viharamahadevi Park is home to the National Museum, an elegant white colonial structure of 1877 containing the regalia of the last king of Kandy and other treasures. The collection provides an excellent overview of Sri Lankan arts and crafts, beginning with a limestone Buddha from Anuradhapura, which sits meditating in the foyer as if undisturbed by the passage of 16 centuries; Sri Lanka’s finest collection of masks – quite unlike the stereotypical junk which is flogged at most of the island’s shops; and the highlight of the museum, the glittering crown, throne and footstool of the last Kandyan kings. 

Get aquainted with Sri Lanka's animals at Dehiwala Zoo

In Colombo’s southern suburb of Dehiwala, the extensive Dehiwala Zoo is home to a wide range of Sri Lankan and international wildlife and birdlife. Compared to the dismal zoos found in other parts of Asia, the inmates here enjoy tolerably humane conditions (apart from some of the unfortunate big cats, which remain shut up in horribly small cages pending further promised improvements). The zoo’s representative selection of Sri Lankan wildlife makes it a good place to visit before heading off to the national parks. Look out for all three types of local monkey, sambhur and spotted deer, sloth bears and leopards, as well as a wide selection of birdlife.

Visit Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara

On the northeastern edge of Colombo, the suburb of Kelaniya is home to one of the island’s most revered Buddhist temples, said to occupy the place where the Buddha paid the last of his three mythical visits to the island – a stupa marks the exact spot. The original temple was destroyed by the Indians, then rebuilt, and then demolished by the Portuguese. The current structure is an attractive colonial-era building dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, decorated with an eye-catching sequence of modern murals by Soliya Mendis, depicting the Buddha’s legendary visits to the island as described in theMahavamsa. 

Kandy

Temple of the Tooth

Perched on the lakeside at the eastern end of the town centre are the serene white buildings of the Temple of the Tooth (Dalada Maligawa). This is Sri Lanka’s most important Buddhist temple and home to one of Buddhism’s most sacred objects, the Tooth Relic of the Buddha, which attracts pilgrims from all over the island and many other places in Asia besides. It also serves as an important symbol of Sinhalese identity and pride – traditionally, whoever had the relic was believed to have the right to rule the island, giving its possession a political, as well as a religious, dimension

Peradeniya Botanical Gardens

About 6km (4 miles) southwest of Kandy

Enclosed in a loop of the Mahaweli Ganga River, the lush 60-hectare (147-acre) gardens are stuffed with a baffling array of Sri Lankan, Asian and international flora. From the entrance the stately, much-photographed Royal Palm Avenue leads down to the Great Circle at the centre of the gardens; while the Great Lawn is home to a famous giant Javan fig tree sometimes claimed to be the largest tree in the world. North of here, the gardens become wilder, with troupes of macaque monkeys foraging in the bushes and huge clusters of flying foxes dangling from the trees overhead.

Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage

About 40km (25 miles) west of Kandy

Elephants young and old are given sanctuary in a natural habitat at the massively popular Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage. The orphanage cares for almost 100 elephants, many of whom were either orphaned or injured in the wild. It’s a good idea to time your visit to coincide with either the morning or midday meals, after which the elephants are led over to the river to take a bath in the shallow waters of the Ma Oya – the unique spectacle of 90-odd elephants splashing around together in the river is one of Sri Lanka’s most entertaining and impressive sights, and not to be missed.

Galle

Galle is magical: the most perfectly preserved colonial town in Sri Lanka, and an atmospheric piece of time-warped island history.

Streets of low-slung Dutch villas are hemmed in by massive coral bastions and the waves of the Indian Ocean break just beyond. History's influence is unavoidable in Galle Fort, a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The old Dutch Fort

Over the past few years, Galle has also become one of the island’s most vibrant and cosmopolitan cities, as a sizeable influx of European expats (mainly from the UK) have moved into the old Dutch fort, buying up and restoring ageing properties and adding an unexpectedly internationalist dimension to this formerly sleepy town. The Dutch built the walls of Galle Fort to withstand enemy cannonballs. More than 300 years later, the fortifications did a sterling job of keeping the 2004 tsunami at bay.

Galle goes global

The evidence of the foreign influx is apparent everywhere: in the string of bijou shops and cafés that now line the streets of the fort; in the town’s new swathe of luxury villas and upmarket hotels; and in the steady string of cultural events, most notably the Galle Literary Festival, now bringing the city to a global audience.

Galle Fort's colonial streets

Galle divides into two parts: the bustling if nondescript new town, where you’ll find the bus and train stations; and the nearby Galle Fort, enclosed by towering bastions, which is where you’ll find the old Dutch town. The contrast between the two could hardly be more striking: as you head through the imposing walls, the pace of life changes and the centuries seem to slip away. Galle Fort seems barely to have changed in two hundred years, with low, quiet and mercifully traffic-free streets lined with old villas, churches and other mementoes of the Dutch era.

The atmospheric Dutch Reformed Church

The small Dutch Reformed Church is the oldest Protestant place of worship in Sri Lanka – dating from 1755, although the original structure was built 100 years earlier. The rather plain interior is one of Galle’s most atmospheric period pieces, its floor lined with the gravestones of former Dutch citizens and with a finely carved pulpit and organ loft and various wall tablets recording the lives (and deaths) of later British settlers.

The treasure-trove Historical Mansion Museum

This unusual shop-cum-museum showcases a vast collection of colonial-era (and other) bric-a-brac accumulated over the past three decades by its owner, Mr Gaffar. It’s also worth looking into the Olanda warehouse-shop, opposite, an old Dutch building stuffed full of colonial furniture and other bits and pieces.

The view from the ramparts

Leyn Baan Street leads down to the seafront ramparts, where you’ll find the florid Meeran Jumma Mosque, at the heart of Galle’s Muslim quarter, and the town’s picturesque old lighthouse. From here, you can walk all the way around the town’s well-preserved old stone and coral ramparts, which offer breezy sea views on one side and picturesque panoramas of the red-tiled rooftops of Galle Fort on the other. It’s particularly popular towards dusk, when half the town seems to come here to admire the spectacular sunsets, play impromptu games of cricket, or smooch under umbrellas.

Cultural Triangle

Sri Lanka's cultural triangle – stretching from medieval Kandy to the ancient kingdom of Anuradhapura to the north and Polonnaruwa to the east – is a treasure trove of some of the island’s, if not the world’s, finest ancient monuments.

The pinnacle of Buddhist art

The dry-zone plains north of Kandy were the heartlands of ancient Sri Lankan civilisation, and the ruins of the great cities which once flourished here are nothing less than staggering. The entire area is loosely referred to as the Cultural Triangle, an imaginary construct with its points at the three great Sinhalese capitals of Kandy,Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura, which encapsulates one of the world’s most extraordinary collections of Buddhist art and architecture.

Much of the region’s history is contained in the remains of Anuradhapura, capital of the island for well over a millennium and adorned by countless kings with a succession of extravagant buildings, including three of the largest stupas the world has ever seen. 

Anuradhapura

The sacred Sri Maha Bodhi 

The most crowded part of Anuradhapura is around the Sri Maha Bodhi (Sacred Bo Tree). The world’s most revered tree, the Sri Maha Bodhi was grown from a sapling of the original bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained Enlightenment in Bodhgaya in India. It is one of the oldest trees in the world and has been tended devotedly for 23 centuries, even during the long centuries after the rest of the city was abandoned to the jungle. Today it is propped up on a frame of iron crutches and protected by a golden railing swathed in colourful prayer flags offered by the pilgrims.

The Ruwanweliseya's carved elephants

A gigantic white dome denotes the Ruwanweliseya (Great Stupa). It was built by Dutugemunu, the hero king of the Mahavamsa, who was supposedly inspired by seeing a bubble floating on water – the dome itself represents heaven, or alternatively, you could see it as representing the head of Buddha. The stupa is raised above ground level on a huge, stone-flagged terrace, bound by a high wall adorned with an imposing army of near life-size sculpted elephants (nearly all of them modern replacements) standing ear to ear: the elephants seem to support the platform, just as in Buddhist mythology they hold up the earth.

Thuparama, the oldest stupa

The Thuparama is the oldest stupa in Anuradhapura, and indeed in the island. It may be small, but it is very sacred to Buddhists since it is believed to enshrine the right collarbone of the Buddha. What you see today is not ancient at all, but a reconstruction undertaken in the mid-19th century – and not even the right shape, seeing as the original was built in the slope-shouldered “heap of rice” form, rather than the present bell shape. The crowd of stone pillars that surround it like windblown palms, which would once have supported a roof, have capitals decorated with carvings of hamsas (geese, a protective bird).

The Jetavanarama monastery and stupa

The vast Jetavanarama monastery and stupa is the largest stupa in Anuradhapura, around 122 metres (400ft) in height and 113-metre (370ft) in diameter. Elaborate shrines (vahalkadas) mark each of the four cardinal points, the eastern one depicting the beautiful figures of women posed so elegantly they appear to be moving, even dancing. The stupa was the centrepiece of the great Jetavanarama monastery, founded by King Mahasena, and extensive monastic remains litter the surrounding parkland – including a finely preserved bathing pool and the unusual “Buddhist railing”, a kind of stone fence. 

The Abhayagiri Monastery Complex

On the north side of the ancient city lies the vast Abhayagiri Monastery, founded by King Vattagamini in 88 BC, which once housed as many as 5,000 monks and was the most powerful institution after the king. The monastery flourished under the patronage of King Mahasena (AD 276–303), sprouting palaces, bathing pools and sculpture of the highest standards. The main ruins of the monastery are centred on the Abhayagiri stupa, the third of Anuradhapura’s great stupas, still undergoing restoration; but don’t miss the beautiful Kuttam Pokuna (Twin Ponds), which formerly served as a bathing pool for the monks of the monastery.

Mihintale

Mihintale is revered as the place where Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka, with a fascinating string of temples and stupas scattered across a beautiful hillside. Further south, and second only to Anuradhapura, the island’s medieval capital, Polonnaruwa, is a wonderful treasure trove of ancient Buddhist monuments, from royal palaces to colossal rock-cut statues.

Birthplace of Buddhism in Sri Lanka

According to legend, it was at Mihintale – literally “Mahinda’s Hill” – that the Indian missionary Mahinda, met and converted King Devanampiyatissa in 247 BC, establishing Buddhism as the island’s state religion. Mahinda was the son of the great Mauryan emperor Asoka, sent by his father to bring word of the Buddha’s teachings to Sri Lanka. Buddhism was immediately embraced with fervour by the Sinhalese people and soon became firmly established in the island – unlike in India, its birthplace, where it would subsequently fall into terminal decline.

Mihintale, on a higher plane

All over the world, high places are given religious significance, with the result that devotees are always climbing steps. Sometimes on their knees. Mihintale is one such place, its various shrines connected by a total of some 1,840 steps that ultimately lead to the summit – steep enough to require deep breaths and a meditative pace. They were built in the reign of Bhathika Abhaya (22 BC–AD 7), although a later paved road provides a short cut up to the first level.

Polonnaruwa

Second only to Anuradhapura in the ancient history of Sri Lanka, Polonnaruwa served as the island’s capital from the 11th to 13th centuries, a relatively brief but glorious epoch that witnessed a flowering of Buddhist arts and architecture.

A contentious capital

In AD 993 the invading armies of the Tamil Cholas looted Anuradhapura and moved the island’s capital to Polonnaruwa for the next 77 years. From the outset, the new city had a cosmopolitan mix of south Indian Hindu and Sinhalese Buddhist cultures. The valiant King Vijayabahu I (1055–1110) drove the Cholas out of the island in 1073, but retained Polannaruwa as his capital. Forty years of bloody civil war followed his death, until, in 1161, Parakramabahu I captured Polonnaruwa and assumed control of the whole island. Regarded as the last great king of Sri Lanka, Parakramabahu embarked on a lavish series of building works at his new capital and King Nissanka Malla, his nephew and successor, further embellished and expanded the city. However in about 1293, Sri Lanka was once again invaded by mercenaries from South India, and Polonnaruwa was abandoned to the jungle.

Polonnaruwa's strategic importance

In its prime, the city stretched for many kilometres along the eastern side of the majestic Parakrama Samudra reservoir, its monasteries and sumptuous palaces and temples, both Buddhist and Hindu, protected by 6km (4 miles) of strong encircling walls. Its importance as a secure outpost for armies gave it the name Kandavuru Nuvara (Camp City).

Places to visit in Polonnaruwa

Polonnaruwa Museum

Most of the ruins of Polonnaruwa are protected within a specially fenced-off archaeological site north of the modern town. Tickets to the site have to be bought from the excellent Polonnaruwa Museum, well worth a visit for its insightful displays on life in the ancient capital, and some fine exhibits including a number of superb Chola bronzes recovered from the site.

The Quadrangle

At the heart of the ancient city, the Dalada Maluwa (Terrace of theTooth Relic), popularly known as the Quadrangle, was the centrepiece and sacred precinct of ancient Polonnaruwa, home to the Tooth Relic and its most important cluster of religious shrines. The Quadrangle is dominated by the flamboyant Vatadage, a superbly decorated circular shrine and perhaps the most ornate building in Sri Lanka: its outer walls are carved with friezes of lions, dwarfs and lotuses, and, at each of the four entrances, with elaborate moonstones and guardstones (depicting nagaraja – king cobra figures with seven-hooded heads). 

The Lankatilaka

The impressive walls of the Lankatilaka image house soar to a height of 16 metres (55ft), enclosing a large but headless statue of the Buddha who stands squashed inside the high, narrow space within. A section of the walls outside is adorned with finely carved reliefs of flamboyant multi-storey houses topped with domes – not a portrait of ancient Polonnaruwa as is sometimes claimed, but a fanciful representation of the celestial abodes (vimanas) of the gods. 

Gal Vihara

The pinnacle of rock-carved art in ancient Sri Lanka, the Gal Vihara is home to four magnificent Buddha statues hewn out of a granite cliff-face by unknown artists. The highlight is the majestic 14-metre (46ft) reclining Buddha – a figure of such enormous but serene beauty that it inspired centuries of Sinhalese art without ever being matched. The sculptor was working in a medium that to some extent dictated his output. Dark strata in the rock appear as a veil of ripples washing over the delicately carved facial features and figure of the Buddha as he slips into nirvana, lending a beautifully fluid texture to the mass of stone. 

Minneriya and Kaudulla national parks

The area around Polonnaruwa is one of the best in which to spot Sri Lanka’s legendary elephants, with Minneriya and Kaudulla national parks being the places to head for. Both parks are centred on extensive tanks where elephants congregate in increasingly large numbers towards the end of the dry season, particularly during the famous “Gathering” at Minneriya National Park. The two parks are linked by an important “elephant corridor”, designed to allow the animals to move from one park to the other as the fancy takes them.

Sigiriya, the Lion Rock

In the middle of the area lies Sigiriya, where a usurper defied engineering laws to build a royal palace in the sky on top of a giant rock – Sri Lanka’s single most extraordinary sight.

The unforgettable rock fortress

The towering rock outcrop of Sigiriya (Lion Rock) is one of Sri Lanka’s most spectacular natural landmarks: a majestic, sheer-sided outcrop of reddish gneiss rising 200 metres/yds above the surrounding plains and embellished with the extraordinary remains of one of medieval Sri Lanka’s most remarkable royal palaces.

Sigiriya's palace in the clouds

The rock has long attracted settlers. A community of reclusive monks lived in the caves around the base of the rock as far back as the 3rd century BC, though it was not until the 5th century AD that Sigiriya rose to sudden and spectacular prominence in Sri Lankan affairs. The patricidal King Kassapa chose the almost inaccessible summit as the unlikely setting for his new royal palace, a courtly paradise of elegant pavilions set amid gardens and pools. The rock was transformed into an immense recumbent lion by the addition of a brick-built head and foreparts, of which only the artfully sculpted paws remain. The impact of the Lion Rock, as it is called, must have been awesome since even its remnants beggar belief. Kassapa’s palace in the clouds lasted just 18 years, though its remains have drawn visitors ever since.

Places to visit in Sigiriya

The Water Gardens

Framing the main, western approach to the rock, the well-preserved Water Gardens are like a tiny piece of Versailles transported to ancient Sri Lanka, with carefully tended lawns dotted with symmetrically arranged ponds, water channels and diminutive fountains (although all of these tend to dry up during periods of low rainfall).

The Boulder Gardens

The Boulder Gardens present a striking contrast to the classical symmetry of the Water Gardens, comprising a small swathe of picturesque forest, with winding pathways twisting between huge boulders and through quaint rock arches. Many of the boulders are scored with long lines of notches; these would originally have held supports for miniature wooden pavilions (long since vanished) which once stood on almost every boulder. The Boulder Gardens are where the monks of Sigiriya lived, and numerous mementoes of this ancient religious community can still be seen amongst the various rocks and cave shelters. 

Sigiriya Damsels

An incongruous pair of Victorian-era spiral metal staircases lead up to a sheltered recess in the rock and the home of Sigiriya’s single most celebrated sight: the so-called Sigiriya Damsels. Commissioned by King Kassapa in the 5th century, this exquisite mural, perhaps the largest ever attempted, is painted onto the sheer rock face and features 21 beautiful, bare-chested women, swathed in a layer of fluffy cloud from the waist down, shown scattering flower petals or offering trays of fruit. The paintings are quite unlike anything else in Sri Lanka, whose artists have usually preferred to concentrate on the highly stylised depiction of Buddhist religious themes. 

The Mirror Wall

Another of Sigiriya’s unique sights is the highly polished Mirror Wall, plastered with a mixture of burnished lime, egg white, beeswax and wild honey, and covered with a dense spider’s web of ancient graffiti left by visitors to the rock over the past 1,500 years. The graffiti – something akin to an enormous medieval visitors’ book – include numerous short poems and other literary fragments recording early visitors’ impressions of the rock, and, particularly, a great many tributes to the heavenly beauty of the nearby Damsels. The oldest graffiti date back to the 7th century.

The Summit

Heading up to the summit, the rickety-looking colonial-era metal staircase, cantilevered off the face of the rock, looks in places as if it is about to sail straight off into mid-air. And really, only those with a rock-solid head for heights will fail to feel at least a frisson of vertigo on this final section of the ascent. After the narrowness of the steps up though, the summit seems surprisingly spacious. The top of the rock shelves steeply, covered in a confusion of foundations and remains which were once part of Kassapa’s palace. At the lowest end of the summit, a series of terraces, which were once possibly gardens, offer wonderful views.

Dambulla

Incredible cave temples at Dambulla

More or less at the centre of the Cultural Triangle, the imposing 160-metre (52ft) Dambulla Rock houses the most impressive and venerated Buddhist cave temples in Sri Lanka, festooned with a marvelous array of sculptures and murals. The temples were originally created by King Valagambahu I in the 1st century BC, although the site was repaired and further embellished by the kings of Kandy during the 17th and 18th centuries. The temples, halfway up the rock itself, are reached by a steep climb up a sequence of concrete steps, offering superb views over the plains and rocky outcrops of the Cultural Triangle, including magical views of Sigiriya in the distance.

The huge Aukana Buddha

The stately Aukana Buddha is the most perfectly preserved ancient statue in Sri Lanka. Aukana means “sun eating”, and the statue is best seen at dawn, when the low light shines directly into its face. Standing 13 metres (43ft) high, the imposing image was carved with supreme assurance out of a single rock. The Buddha stands erect, with his heavy right hand raised in the posture of blessing, while his other hand delicately touches his shoulder, as if holding his pleated robes in place. It is only when you lower your gaze to the massive feet that a crick in the neck remind you of the vastness of this statue.