After the hectic tours of Colombo, you will be spending as many as four days in the Hill Capital of Kandy, so named as it is nestled high up in the central hills of Sri Lanka. Once the capital city of the country, Kandy is now looked upon as a treasure-trove of culture and heritage. 

Opened in 1998, the Victoria Golf & Country Club is ranked as one of the world’s most beautiful golf courses, and was designed by Donald Steel & Co. Set in the cool climate of the central hills to take advantage of the undulations of the land; the scenery at this golf course is on par with the best in the world. With the Knuckles Mountain Range in the backdrop, and the vast Victoria Reservoir in view, as well as some amazing bird and animal life that live in the area, you would feel like you are golfing in a dream world. The course itself is a 73 par 6933 yard 18-hole championship golf course, with narrow fairways, a natural dog-leg, and subtle hazards, which combine to make it a challenging course. It is maintained to USPGA standards, and is well complemented by an equestrian centre, swimming pool, and tennis courts, making it part of a larger high-end residential development complex. Watch out for the 6^th hole, which as a tee position that is 100 feet above the fairway, making it the most spectacular par four in the country. The other holes have their quirks as well, but we will let you find them out for yourself! The Victoria Golf and Country Club is a 45 minute drive from Kandy city via a scenic drive through the hills.

The city of Kandy itself is postcard-worthy everywhere you look. The most striking feature in Kandy, and the most visited attraction in the city, is the Temple of the Tooth Relic (Dalada Maligawa), a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This temple is the most sacred location for Buddhists all over the world, as it contains a piece of tooth extracted from amidst the ashes of the Buddha’s funeral pyre over 25 millennia ago. The tooth is a symbol of power in the country, having being under the patronage of Sinhala kings from the time it was smuggled to the island in the 4^th century to 1815, when the Sri Lankan Royal line was abolished by the British. The tooth has survived despite adverse conditions and has been moved from one capital city to another throughout Sri Lanka’s history. At its presumed final resting place in Kandy, where it was brought in the late 16^th or early 17^th century, it lies under maximum security inside a golden casket specially created for it. The city of Kandy is best known internationally for the annual procession known as the Kandy Esala Perahera, a colourful spectacle that brings together hundreds of cultural items, including whipcrackers, drummers, dancers, fire-twirlers, and acrobats, all of which pale in comparison to the many well-adorned elephants that take part in the procession. The casket carrying the sacred tooth relic is carried by an especially well-behaved tusked elephant, as has been the tradition since records have been around. Sri Lankan elephants are especially suited for this task, as they have a flat back that allows the casket to be placed there without it toppling over. The procession is held every year to invoke blessings and an offering to the gods asking for favourable weather for the year to come. The temple contains several museums and shrines that details its history.

You will stay overnight in a luxurious hotel in Kandy (B & B).

After breakfast in Kandy, embark on a scenic train ride from Kandy to Nanu Oya, and get driven to the city of Nuwara Eliya. Higher up than Kandy, Nuwara Eliya is consistently the coldest city in the country owing to its elevation. Also known as Little England for its climate and architecture left behind by the British, Nuwara Eliya is home to the second oldest golf club in Sri Lanka, and one of the oldest in Asia. The Royal Nuwara Eliya Golf Club was established in 1889 at the foot of Mount Pidurutalagala, the highest peak in the country. This 18-hole course gives you a moderate 6075 yards at a par of 71. The fairways are long and narrow, and are bordered by tall pines and dense shrubbery. The course contains many water hazards, and the trek from the first hole to the 18^th takes players on uphill and downhill treks. This means that good positional play is required.

The area surrounding the golf course is adorned by some of the finest tea plantations in Sri Lanka. Tea (Camellia sinensis), originally from China, was brought to Sri Lanka as a cash crop by British planters in the 19^th century as an experiment. The combination of perfect weather conditions, fertile soil and mineral-rich air meant that tea had found its perfect habitat. No visit to Nuwara Eliya is complete without a visit to a tea plantation. You will get a chance not just to visit the plantation, where you will see women in brightly coloured clothing plucking tea leaves, but also to the factory where the tea is processed to its final form. The flavour and appearance of tea varies according to climactic conditions, topography, fertiliser, and the manufacturing process. Tea grown in Sri Lanka maybe a deep shade of reddish brown (Black Tea) or it may be a light shade of yellow (Golden Tea). Which teas leave the factory for mass consumption and which teas don’t make the grade is decided by a skilled set of trained individuals – tea tasters. Watching tea tasters go about their job is quite a surreal experience. They will use a large spoon to noisily slurp the tea into their mouths to ensure that the tea is mixed with a good quantity of air so that the flavour spreads equally across the taste receptors on the tongue. Afterwards, the tasters will spit the tasted tea into a spittoon, and repeat the process with the next sample. You will get a chance to try this method out for yourself. What will your taste buds tell you? Can you tell one from the other? 

You will stay overnight in a luxurious hotel in Nuwara Eliya (B & B)

After breakfast in the cool hills of Nuwara Eliya, you will be driven southeast to Yala for a wildlife experience that is hard to beat.

 Yala National Park is Sri Lanka’s second-largest national park and is the most visited owing to its richness in wildlife and its close proximity to the sacred city of Kataragama. Consisting of dry and mixed evergreen forests, bodies of water, scrublands, brackish lagoons, riverine forests, and open grasslands, the Yala National Park is home to a large variety of mammals, including spotted deer, barking deer, chevrotains, Sambhur deer, wild boar, several species of primate, water buffalo, jackals, hares, and the occasional Sri Lankan sloth bear. Yala National Park is also one of the best locations in the country in which to see Sri Lankan elephants in the wild. It is the best destination in the world to see wild leopards. The Sri Lankan leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya) is a sub-species of the Asian leopard, and has adapted quite well to the conditions available for them in the country. The largest mammalian predator in Sri Lanka by a long way, Sri Lankan leopards are majestic to look at, although elusive and hard to see owing to their camouflage-like spots. Yala National Park is said to be the only national park in the world to have a leopard density of more than one leopard per square kilometre. Although this may sound sparse in human terms, it has to be understood that leopards are highly territorial and are protective of what’s theirs. 

Yala National Park is also a haven for bird watchers. More than 200 species of birds have been recorded at the Yala National Park, including the rare black-necked stork (the largest bird in the country), painted storks, green bee-eaters, Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl (endemic, and Sri Lanka’s national bird), peacocks, and a wide variety of birds of prey, including eagles, hawks, and owls. 

Your experiences at the Yala National Park will be in the confines of a specially made 4WD Safari Jeep, with the services of an experienced guide or naturalist, who, with their many years of experience, will be the best to point out the different wildlife that you will see in the national park. You will have several Safari experiences – in the early mornings and late afternoons – during this tour, so if you miss something once, you will invariably get another chance.

You will stay overnight in a Safari Camp in Yala with all meals provided.

After breakfast in Yala, you will leave the camp to go south and take a scenic drive along southern coast. Your destination is the city of Galle, the largest in southern Sri Lanka, and a hub of business, culture, and transportation in the Southern Province. Galle is thought to be the biblical seaport of Tarshish, from where King Solomon imported ivory, peacocks, and other valuable items. The city’s port has been used throughout history for trade and fishing, and is to this day an important seaport of Southern Sri Lanka. 

The most striking feature of the city of Galle is the 17^th Century Dutch Fort, which served as a defensive structure to protect the south from invaders. Originally built at the same location but on a smaller scale by the Portuguese in the 16^th century, the Dutch rebuilt the fort in 1663, having taken over the city by force in 1640. The Dutch East India Company exerted dominance over the waters and coastline of the country by building several such forts. Galle is the best-preserved out of all of these forts. Fortified using solid granite and decorated ornately using materials from all over the world (even their home country of the Netherlands), the Dutch Fort is an early symbol of globalisation. The fort has three bastions known as “Sun”, “Moon”, and “Star”.  Although this UNESCO World Heritage Site still bears the marks of its military past, today, it is a city within a city. As many as a thousand people live within its walls, and Galle’s courthouses are located within it as well. Schools, shops, places of worship, and a lighthouse, along with some trendy restaurants, rustic boutiques selling colourful souvenirs, several museums, and even a beach are features of the Fort. Spending more than one day exploring the fort is recommended. 

You will stay overnight in a Luxury hotel in Galle (B & B).

After breakfast at Galle, you will be driven back to the Bandaranaike International Airport, where you will depart the island.