THE ISLAND DASH

Day 1 & 2: Colombo

COLOMBO City tour

The legacy of an old colonial garden city still remains intact hidden away in silhouettes of new, still rising sky scrapers flicking between affluence and poverty. The streets scattered from upscale markets and boutiques to tiny shops where the headstrong scrape off a living. The cosmopolitan side filled with perfumed atmospheres and smooth exteriors, made more inviting by music and well-groomed staff exchanging tokens of the luxurious for a swipe of plastic. A worthy destination that requires a little bit of exploration to find great local food, vibrant little shops and cafés full of character.

Day 3: Colombo to Kandy

Peradeniya Royal Botanical Garden

Leave aside plenty of time for a peaceful stroll along Peradeniya’s imposing avenue of royal palms. Dating as far back as the 1300s, the gardens were once reserved strictly for Kandyan royalty is one of the most magnificent botanical gardens in all of Sri Lanka. Home to over 4000 species of plants and a century old giant Javan fig tree, its roots spreading across 1.800 sqm.

Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage

Become one with a herd of gentle giants with warm hearts, feel the sheer size of these magnificently deathly tuskers turn your bones to jelly.Pay a visit to the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage en route to Negombo. Hailing from a land where animal and human life has been intertwined throughout the ages, the orphanage provides a seventh heaven for orphaned babes and injured elephants.

Day 5 & 6: Nuwaraeliya

PEDRO tea estate

Taste a delicate swirling cup of tea nestled between lush green hillsides streaked with tea bushes and stellar views. A uniquely informative and compelling historical experience into the origins of your morning cuppa by Pedro Tea Estate founded in the 1800’s.

Lovers Leap

A mighty torrential downpour of white water, hissing and screaming off granite ledges. Lover’s leap often associated with tales of romantic tragedy, stands over 30 meters tall feared by superstitious locals is a reflection of the blissfulness and pain that brings about love.

Hakgala Garden

A chunk of the Himalayas brought down in the jaw of a monkey god. Drink in the aromas of late blooms of Hakgala, a temperate hill-country garden rich in colour; iridescent blues and greens, blade-like leaves, clumps of willows and shaggy trees, mingling low-country lotus’ and water lilies in simple serenity with sophisticated English roses and endemic orchids home to a variety of wild life

Haputale Adisham Bungalow

A beautiful Benedictine monastery built by tea planter Sir Thomas Lester Villiers. Re created in the same manner as hs English country cottage gardens. Today Adisham is one of only 18 monasteries in the world belonging to the Sylestine Congregation, a suborder of the Benedictine fraternity founded in the 13th Century.

Day 7: Negombo & Departure

Taste the salty wind, that tang that floods the mind with fishing fleets with corded nets of sun-bleached blue hanging out to dry. Negombo, one of the largest commercial cities in Sri Lanka, has been an important trading port for both the Dutch and the Portuguese for centuries past. Take a boat into the lagoon or visit the Dutch fort built in 1672.