Kandy and the Hill Country

Kandy sits in a bowl of hills around an artificial lake, and it is the last place the Sinhalese kings held before the British took the island in 1815. The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic is the reason most people come; the evening puja, when the drummers start, is the hour to be there rather than the middle of the day. Behind Kandy the road climbs. Within two hours the temperature drops several degrees and the vegetation changes completely — tea replaces jackfruit and palm, and the hillsides take on the clipped, corduroy texture that photographs so well in low sun. Nuwara Eliya still carries its colonial hill-station architecture, sometimes awkwardly. The train from Kandy to Ella is the celebrated leg, and it deserves the reputation, though the views are on the right-hand side heading south and the reserved seats sell out well in advance.