Kandy, Peradeniya Gardens and Tea Factory Day Tour from Colombo

Kandy held out as an independent kingdom for three centuries after the coast fell to European powers, protected by the ring of hills around it, and it was only ceded to the British in 1815. That history is concentrated in the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic beside the lake, where the relic that once conferred the right to rule is kept. The temple works on a rhythm of daily pujas, and the drumming at the shrine door is worth timing your visit around if you can.

The drive up from Colombo takes about three and a half hours, climbing gradually through Kegalle and Mawanella where the road is lined with fruit and cashew stalls. There is a breakfast stop at Mawanella before the last climb into the hills.

After the temple, your driver takes you to a viewpoint above the town. Kandy reads better from above than from street level: you can see how the lake, built by the last Kandyan king in 1807, sits in the bowl of hills with the temple on its northern shore.

The Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya occupy a bend in the Mahaweli river on land that belonged to Kandyan royalty long before the British formalised the gardens in 1821. Sixty hectares hold an orchid house, an avenue of royal palms, a cannonball tree, and a Javan fig whose canopy covers most of a lawn on its own. An hour is enough for the main paths; longer if you like plants.

The last stop is a tea factory at Pilimathalawa, on the plantation slopes west of Kandy. You follow the leaf from the withering troughs through rolling, oxidation, firing and grading, and taste the results at the end. It explains a lot about why tea from different elevations on this island tastes so different. Allow eleven hours from pickup to drop-off, with around five of them in the car.