We climbed Sigiriya at seven, before the heat. The spiral stair into the fresco gallery of the cloud maidens, the lion's paws at the base of the final ascent, and the summit where a king built his palace in the fifth century on top of a two-hundred-metre rock. The water gardens below make sense only from up there.

Kandy held the Temple of the Sacred Tooth at the evening puja, drums echoing through the dark wooden halls and the queue filing past the gold reliquary. The lake misted over at dawn, the white temple doubled in the still water, the old hill capital cool and green after the dry plains.

Nuwara Eliya at altitude was cool enough for a jumper. The tea estates striping the hills, a factory tour through wither and roll and fire, and the first flush poured on a misty veranda. The road up climbs through Ramboda's waterfalls and switchbacks, the temperature dropping the whole way.

Bentota was the warm landing at the end. The turtle hatchery, the Madu River mangroves, the wide beach and the river behind it. After the rock and the temple and the tea, doing nothing on the south-west coast for a day felt like the trip's reward.