SRI LANKA

By Gillian Aram

As we all know, the definition of a successful family holiday is when the teenagers are happy. So happy is my thirteen-year-old son after our days motoring around Sri Lanka with our driver Ajith, that he even wants to go and stay with him, so that he can hang out with Ajith’s two teenage boys in the ‘teardrop of heaven’ that is Sri Lanka. I almost feel the same way (going back to UK traffic jams, to a driver-free life without Ajith, suddenly looks rather bleak) and say goodbye to him very sadly;  it’s personal connections like these that tip even the most magnificent adventures into once-in-a-lifetime highlights. 

Dazzling Diversity

If there was a check-list for the perfect trip, Sri Lanka would tick all the boxes. In all my years of travelling, I have never so enjoyed a country where in the course of just a couple of days, you can be looking for leopards in the jungle one day, then poking around ancient ruined cities the next morning, before a comfortable drive up through stunning country sees you settling back into the stuffed sofas of an Edwardian tea plantation for a nice cuppa and an incredible sunset. 

This, my third trip to Sri Lanka in a lucky lifetime, has seen me spotting leopards on all but one of our game drives in Wilpattu and Yala National Parks. The most dramatic sighting is when we see a resting she-leopard spotting a family of wild boar, then watch her get up quietly and stalk the frolicking young boarlets until finally she sees one out on a limb, shoots into the undergrowth and out of sight, but accompanied by a panicked soundtrack of squealing, sets herself up for a nice pork dinner by picking it off. So it’s not just what you see on a Sri Lankan safari but what you hear… very different from the savannah, scrub or veldt of African safaris, the Ceylonian equivalent is often more foresty and tangled, tracks twisting away into green foliage ahead. The forest has its own sound system – a network of spine-tingling warning signals between deer, between monkeys, and between birdlife, that thrills your senses and sets every hair up on the back of your neck in adrenalised anticipation of the sighting of a predator. 

Feast for the Senses

Our senses are set alive every day; sights and smells when we are exploring the shops and impossibly photogenic winding spice-scented alleys of the fortress town of Galle in the south; the tastes of a cuisine that is as much about the freshness of delicious salads as it is about coconut-fragranced curries; an extra-dimensional soul-sparkle moment, having climbed to the peak of Sigiriya Rock at 6am for sunrise; the resplendent sound of the crisp Raj-era vowels of Bernard, aged 78, who shows us around the Ceylon Tea Factory. Having worked in the tea industry for over sixty years, he has opinions as strong as his brew of tea, sharing with us the conspiratorial view that things ran just that little bit better under British rule. 

This may be true of some aspects of Sri Lanka – like the charming chaos of the train system, with its beautiful but occasionally unreliable routes between Kandy and the tea plantations area – but we are in good hands with Natural High’s ground agents. With their long-established ground network (Daminda and his wife Anne have organised bespoke trips for over 15 years, using handpicked guides and gems like Ajith our driver) we see the best, eat the best, shop the best and even have the best access: like at the Leopard Trails Tented Camp in Yala, one of the few potentially crowded safari parks on the island, where our jeep is allowed a different entrance and, therefore, a quieter route through the park. 

Culture Vulture

For my son, as much to his surprise as to mine, it is the Cultural Triangle and staying at Uga Ulagalla and Water Garden Sigiriya that hooks him in more than anything else. It is, he explains, the freedom and adventure of clambering onto a bicycle and making his own discoveries, from picturesque ruins to an elephant shuffling lazily around a bend in the road. Even the boutique luxury and perfect beaches of Aditya can’t – quite – compare.

For me, my happy place, if I have to choose one above another, is relaxing in the beautiful gardens of our restored tea plantation bungalows in the Ceylon Tea Trails, having walked and kayaked around Castlereagh Lake. For a moment, I fancy myself a Colonial-era ma’am, before opening my eyes to a very modern, ice-cold cocktail.