Why there'll never be a better time to visit Sri Lanka

A VALUE CITY BREAK

We stop to eat in Pettah, a district famous for its street food where we are almost the only foreigners. I’m initially wary about the toasted egg sandwich I’m given, but the searing hotplate it’s cooked on means it’s safe. The Land Rover also takes us to Colombo’s two old lighthouses, which now overlook Port City, a square of reclaimed land jutting two miles out to sea. It will soon house more skyscrapers but meanwhile offers Colombo a beach front.

The city already has its share of towers, many of them five-star hotels offering knock-down rates. During my stay, the Movenpick (which boasts another rooftop bar) had slashed published rates from around $300 to $120. Colombo’s hidden gems, though, are its boutique properties, including the very zen converted villa Zylan and nearby Tintagel, a 1930s mansion where Charles and Camilla stayed in 2013. Both were woefully under-occupied with rates less than regal.

It’s a similar story when I take to the hills near Kandy, traversing a plunging V-shaped valley in which a river gushes over rocks interspersed with towering eucalyptus trees. Even through the monsoonal mist, it’s uplifting.

We climb to almost 2,000 metres where it’s clearer and where Madulkelle, a purpose-built boutique hotel, sits among the glow of young green tea plants. The hotel is seemingly at the top of Sri Lanka and from my deluxe tent, I see the sunrise over the Knuckles Mountain Range. The terrain means you need to be agile to stay here, and I am breathless when I arrive in the restaurant where we are the only guests.

Tea picking is not a career choice for Sri Lanka’s young and the hotel’s French owner has made it his mission to teach locals new skills. One, Kumar, takes us trekking through the plantation and shows us guava, coffee and more eucalyptus, cultivated by British colonisers to make railway sleepers and dry tea.

There is another British import, a pine copse that smells delightful but the mountains around us are dotted with native cedar-like paramara trees and we spot kingfisher-shaped Asian green bee-eaters. We descend following a stream, disturbing a huge Garadiya rat snake that shoots off. At nearly two metres long, it’s alarming, but I’m assured, harmless.

TEA COUNTRY TRAIL

Our two-hour trek is a great introduction to Sri Lanka’s rural interior, but there is a more substantial offering with the opening of the 300km Pekoe Trail that begins near the Ceylon Tea Museum outside Kandy. The trail’s attraction is that it is not one long hike; it is shaped like an inverted question mark, meaning you can stay in one place and tackle many of the 22 stages.

We begin at stage one and pass Hantana Mountain Range, where Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Bridge on the River Kwai were filmed. Signposting, using QR codes, is in place here and will be throughout by the official opening in July. The EU-funded initiative hopes to persuade locals to open small businesses providing refreshment and accommodation and as we walk, I get the impression they are genuinely excited to see visitors in such a remote spot.

The landscape is dramatic, with scarlet flowered-African tulip trees used as plantation markers and white Buddhist stupas emerging from the immense greenery. There are few mosquitoes and, while we encounter no snakes, one species does emerge from the greenery: leeches. I remove them from my legs, having foolishly declined the loan of special socks, but lunching later at the gorgeous Coffee Bungalow hotel I’m embarrassed as I rise from the table to find a large bloodstain on my stomach where one has feasted. It’s unpleasant, but would never deter me from tackling more of the Pekoe.

I was introduced to the trail by one of its biggest exponents, Thushni de Silva from Experience Travel Group, who sees it as a new attraction for Kandy. She spent lockdown developing tours in anticipation visitors will return soon.

“We decided to keep busy and keep our spirits up, so when it does come back, we will be better than before,” she says. “A lot of people want to help Sri Lanka, but they think they will use up the resources. They don’t realise the best way to help Sri Lanka is to enjoy Sri Lanka.” She is correct; there has probably never been a better – or more important - time to visit.

Book it: Experience Travel Group has an eight-day tour staying at Coffee Bungalow; Amba Estate, a sustainable social enterprise in the hills above Ella; and Zylan Villa in Colombo. The price is £2,690pp including flights, private chauffeur guide throughout and two half-day Pekoe Trail hikes with private guide. experiencetravelgroup.com