Sri Lanka in May

Ancient capital with massive stupas, sacred Bo tree, and sprawling ruins.

Sri Lanka's energetic capital - colonial quarters, temple treasures, seafront promenades, and the island's best food.

Sri Lanka's most famous wildlife reserve - the best place to spot leopards.

The proud capital of Tamil Sri Lanka - grand kovils, a star fort, palmyrah groves, and legendary crab curry.

Sri Lanka's surf capital - a laid-back east-coast bay with world-class waves.

One of the world's finest natural harbours with pristine beaches and diving sites.

A long ribbon of white sand north of Trincomalee, with calm turquoise water and Pigeon Island offshore.

Sacred mountain with a pilgrimage trail and sunrise views across the Central Highlands.

Sri Lanka's great multi-faith pilgrimage town, sacred to Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Veddas alike.

A riot of sacred colour on the Kandy–Dambulla road - one of Sri Lanka's most spectacular Hindu gopurams.

Colombo's beloved ocean-front lawn - kites, street food, and the whole city gathered for sunset.

Colombo's most famous Buddhist temple, with the serene Seema Malaka pavilion floating on Beira Lake.

Sri Lanka's bird paradise - lagoons and mangroves alive with nesting waterbirds, plus uncrowded leopard country.

King Dutugemunu's great white dagoba - the most beloved stupa in Sri Lanka and a wonder of the ancient world.

An ancient lake-side temple town of great white dagobas - the classic base for Yala and Kataragama.

Sri Lanka's largest national park - a wilderness of natural lakes, leopards, and sloth bears without the crowds.

Anuradhapura's great northern monastery - once home to 5,000 monks and a stupa that rivalled the pyramids.

The home of Sri Lanka's spectacular devil-dance masks and traditional mask-carving workshops.

Polonnaruwa's supreme masterpiece - four colossal Buddhas carved from a single wall of granite.

The safari crossroads of the Cultural Triangle - a village lake, catamaran rides, and every park within reach.

Anuradhapura's rock temple of famous carvings - home of the celebrated 'Isurumuniya Lovers'.

The oldest historically documented tree on Earth - grown from the very Bo tree beneath which the Buddha awoke.

The most reliable place in Sri Lanka to see wild elephants - hundreds live around the great Udawalawe reservoir.

Trincomalee's laid-back village beach - golden sand, calm seas, and beach-shack dinners under the stars.

Sri Lanka's tallest waterfall - a 263-metre thread of white falling through pine forest near Kalupahana.

A waterfall shaped perfectly like a sacred Bo leaf - Sri Lanka's most symmetrical cascade, minutes from Ratnapura.

The Jaffna peninsula's favourite swimming beach - shallow, calm water fringed by whistling casuarina trees.

The last king's ornamental sea - Kandy's mirror, ringed by a walking path and crowned by the Tooth Temple.

A medieval capital ringed by giant animal-shaped rocks - climb Elephant Rock for sunset over the city and its lake.

The stupa marking the Buddha's first visit to Sri Lanka - the island's oldest place of Buddhist worship.

The 'Sea of Parakrama' - a 12th-century reservoir so vast it made a king's boast literal, lapping at Polonnaruwa's ruins.

Arugam Bay's wild backyard - dawn canoe safaris among mangroves, elephants, and crocodiles.

Visit the indigenous Veddha people and learn about traditional forest knowledge.

A majestic 12-metre standing Buddha carved from a single granite cliff in the 5th century.

The hill country's mildest address - a planters' town of orchards, colonial hotels, and perfect walking weather.

A laid-back lagoon city of Dutch forts, singing fish, and untouched east-coast beaches.

Colombo's lakeside evening park - fountains, food stalls, and plant markets on the Diyawanna Oya.

A 14th-century shrine whose carved wooden pillars are counted among the finest woodwork in the world.

Sri Lanka's only boat safari park, where elephants swim between islands on a vast jungle-ringed reservoir.

A scenic ridge walk overlooking Kandy Lake and the surrounding hill country.

The finest bathing architecture of the ancient world - twin stone ponds that served Abhayagiri's monks.

A majestic 14th-century temple rising from bare rock, blending Buddhist shrine and Hindu devales under one soaring roof.

A pristine, sheltered bay near Trincomalee whose glittering sand gave it its name - run by the Air Force and spotlessly kept.

Sri Lanka's grandest museum - the throne and crown of the Kandyan kings in a white Italianate palace of 1877.

A calm, shallow lagoon beach favored by families - rarely crowded.

One of Sri Lanka's two marine national parks - snorkel with blacktip reef sharks and sea turtles.

The most beautiful building of medieval Sri Lanka - a circular relic shrine of moonstones, guardstones, and perfect geometry.

Polonnaruwa's greatest stupa - a golden-pinnacled brick mountain in the ancient city's northern quarter.

Pettah's candy-striped marvel - a 1909 mosque so distinctive that sailors used it to recognise Colombo's harbour.

The 'Sea of Bintenna' - an ancient tank with a unique rock-cut sluice, dug by a giant in legend.

Colombo's green heart - flame trees, a golden Buddha, and the white Town Hall rising over the lawns.

A 13th-century rock citadel with Sri Lanka's most beautiful ancient staircase - Sigiriya without the crowds.

The cave monastery near Matale where the Buddhist scriptures were first written down 2,000 years ago.

Sri Lanka's oldest surviving wooden bridge - a 16th-century roofed crossing built without a single nail.

Seven colossal figures carved into a jungle cliff - including Sri Lanka's tallest standing Buddha.

A drowned valley of tea and mist near Hatton - Sri Lanka's most beautiful reservoir and its finest bungalow country.

The ancient port where the sacred Bo sapling landed in 288 BC - a serene seaside temple on the Jaffna coast.

One of Asia's oldest zoos - a leafy Colombo institution of walk-through aviaries, big cats, and butterfly gardens.

A windswept coral island off Jaffna where wild ponies roam among baobabs and Dutch ruins.

A roadside cave temple near Ella hiding a 12-metre unfinished Buddha carved into the cliff.

Claimed as the first Buddhist stupa in the world - built by seafaring merchants on a hill above the north-east coast.

A cool-climate mountain garden of roses and cloud forest beneath Hakgala rock, steeped in Ramayana legend.

Colombo's stately memorial to 1948 independence - a stone assembly hall on lion-guarded steps, ringed by jogging lawns.

The great star fort of the north - Portuguese-born, Dutch-perfected, war-scarred, and reborn as Jaffna's sunset promenade.

The white phoenix of Jaffna - once among Asia's great libraries, burned in 1981 and rebuilt as a symbol of resilience.

King Dhatusena's 5th-century inland sea, whose canal to Anuradhapura falls just one foot every mile.

The 'Temple on the Hill' at Aluthgama, crowned by a 48-metre seated Buddha gazing over the west coast.

A hillside of colonial stories behind the Tooth Temple - 195 graves and a caretaker who knows them all.

Seven warm wells with a Ravana legend - Trincomalee's ancient bathing ritual, bucket by bucket.

White-water rafting through lush forests on the rain-fed Kelani River.

The cliff-top abode of Shiva above Trincomalee harbour - one of the island's five ancient Ishwarams.

The heart of Sri Lanka's turtle conservation coast - nurseries, night nesting walks, and hatchling releases.

A cliff-top forest hermitage above the Kumana wilds, crowned by a rare cylindrical dagoba and vast jungle views.

A mighty 126-metre cascade in the Maskeliya hills, framed by legend and hydro history.

The panoramic viewpoint above Haputale where Sir Thomas Lipton surveyed his tea empire.

A remote park of reservoirs, rock outcrops, and elephants - the wild heartland of the Vedda people.

A perfect circle of ancient stone pillars crowning a rock - the loveliest vatadage in Sri Lanka, and the least visited.

The sacred mountain where Buddhism arrived in Sri Lanka in 247 BC - 1,840 steps to a summit of stupas and views.

One of the five ancient abodes of Shiva, tied to the Ramayana's ending - and host to a spectacular festival.

The grandest Hindu temple in Sri Lanka - golden gopurams, thunderous pujas, and a 25-day festival like no other.

Sri Lanka's railway story in one yard - vintage steam locomotives and rolling stock at the top of the Kandy incline.

The moated 12th-century capital of Parakramabahu the Great before Polonnaruwa - ruins, legends, and a princess's tower.

Sri Lanka's most important sea-turtle nesting beach, where five species come ashore at night.

The cave temple where silver ore funded the great stupas - with golden Buddhas and a shrine floor of Dutch tiles.

A mysterious mountain of ruined forest monasteries, rising abruptly from the dry-zone plains near Habarana.

The most serene face in Sri Lankan art - a 4th-century meditation Buddha that consoled Nehru in prison.

A relic stupa on the wild Mahaweli floodplain, where pilgrims and wild elephants share the sacred ground.

The holiest shrine in Sri Lanka - home of the Buddha's tooth relic and heart of the Kandyan kingdom.

Colombo's birding secret - an ancient tank and paddy wetland where jacanas and kingfishers commute past the suburbs.

A historic royal forest rising behind Kandy's Temple of the Tooth, laced with shady walking trails.

A 98-metre plunge into a jungle amphitheatre near Ginigathhena - wilder and quieter than its tea-country cousins.

The 'rice-sand' beach of the north-east - a remote cove near Pulmoddai where the sand grains look like polished rice.

A century-old tea factory turned museum above Kandy - machinery, Lipton lore, and a tasting with a view.

The hermit mountain of Polonnaruwa - two millennia of forest monks on a great rock east of the Mahaweli.

Sri Lanka's second-highest waterfall, with natural infinity pools you can swim in at the very lip.

An ancient pool the size of six Olympic pools - the industrial-scale waterworks of the Abhayagiri monks.

A pink quartz mountain rising from Asia's largest ironwood forest - one of Sri Lanka's strangest, loveliest places.

The 'black water pond' - serene monastery ruins around a dark forest pool near Dambulla, with wildlife for company.

A temple on a rock above a wild beach, where Queen Viharamahadevi landed - and the gateway to Yala's coast.

A 116-metre plunge in the gem country near Pelmadulla - among the tallest waterfalls in Sri Lanka.

A graceful small stupa ringed by vatadage pillars - the quiet sister among Anuradhapura's giants.

Polonnaruwa's brick cathedral - 17-metre walls funnelling to a colossal headless Buddha.

A serene 11-metre limestone Buddha in the forests of Moneragala - the tallest free-standing ancient statue on the island.

A 2,000-year-old temple in the dunes of Pottuvil - where east-coast tradition says a queen came ashore.

A small sacred island shared by a great Hindu kovil and one of Buddhism's holiest Sri Lankan shrines.

A mysterious stone shrine at the island's very centre, blending Buddhist and Hindu art like nowhere else.

A royal bath carved as a blooming lotus - Polonnaruwa's prettiest small wonder.

The last beach before the wilderness - dunes, lagoons, and empty surf where the east-coast road ends.

Geoffrey Bawa's island parliament floating on the Diyawanna - the modern capital's defining view.

The site of the world's worst rail disaster - memorials to the 2004 tsunami's victims beside the Galle road.

The northernmost tip of Sri Lanka - a lighthouse, a fishing town, and the end-of-the-island marker.

A jungle mountain of a thousand ruins near Ampara - believed to hold the ashes of Mahinda, who brought Buddhism to the island.

The royal pleasure gardens of ancient Anuradhapura - rock pools, bathing pavilions, and the enigmatic 'Stargate' carving.

A dramatic 30-metre waterfall framed by jungle, near Ella.

Sri Lanka's first drive-through safari park - lions, elephants, and open enclosures near Hambantota.

Asia's finest botanical garden - 147 acres of royal palms, orchids, and giant trees in a bend of the Mahaweli.

The seven-storey palace of Polonnaruwa's greatest king - massive brick walls and a carved council chamber.

Home of Polonnaruwa's finest frescoes - and the enigmatic 'thrice-bent' Buddha that names it.

The gold standard of elephant care - orphaned calves raised wild and released, watched from a distance at feeding time.

The 'Buddhist kovil' of Trincomalee - a rare ancient temple venerated by Sinhala and Tamil devotees alike.

Sri Lanka's tallest dam - a 122-metre concrete arch flung across the Mahaweli gorge, with a spectacular viewpoint.

A remote riverside park famed for large elephant herds and one of the island's healthiest sloth bear populations.

Home of Sri Lanka's biggest seated Buddha - 50 metres of serene concrete with a walk-through 'hell tunnel' below.

A 68-metre plunge in the wet hills above Ratnapura - gem country's forest waterfall.

A Ramsar wetland of ancient cascade tanks between Chilaw and Puttalam - heronries, mangroves, and morning bird clouds.

Negombo's dragon-mouth temple - walk through the jaws into halls of vivid murals and a six-metre Buddha.

A 26-metre white Buddha overlooking Kandy - an iconic modern shrine.

The Dutch conquest's first prize in Ceylon - a lagoon-moated fort where cannons still watch the singing waters.

Colombo's beloved suburban temple - a sacred Bo tree of ancient lineage and one of the city's grandest peraheras.

Rolling green hills of tea estates where you can pick, process, and taste Ceylon tea.

The east's forgotten Solosmasthana - a vast brick stupa marking the Buddha's meditation on his final visit.

An 18th-century cave temple across the river from Kandy, holding the finest Kandyan-era murals in existence.

The causeway gateway to Jaffna - salt lagoons, war memorials, and the isthmus every army in history had to hold.

A Dutch island fortress between Kayts and Karainagar - once a prison, now the north's most unusual dinner reservation.

A 14th-century stone temple on a rock summit - the South Indian-styled jewel of the Kandyan three-temples loop.

A 7th-century tank with sunset views, toque macaques, and the quiet back door to Polonnaruwa.

The garden that changed the world economy - where Asia's first rubber trees were planted in 1876, near Gampaha.

A UNESCO biosphere reserve near Habarana offering reliable year-round elephant safaris.

Once the third-tallest structure on Earth - a mountain of 93 million bricks raised in the 3rd century AD.

Pasikuda's wilder twin - a vast, near-empty arc of east-coast sand backed by palm groves.

Jaffna's old port town - a colonial lighthouse, calm harbour beach, and the north coast reopening to the world.

Legendary freshwater springs beside the northern sea, prized for healing baths and tied to ancient temple lore.

A sacred riverside temple near Colombo, believed to have been visited by the Buddha and adorned with celebrated murals.

Sri Lanka's longest bridge - 396 metres over Koddiyar Bay's mouth, with lagoon views and hot wells beyond.

The milk-white stupa of the sacred city - where tradition says the Buddha met the king of Kataragama.

The A5's famous tea stop - factory tours, estate views, and the legendary chocolate cake at 1,700 metres.

South Asia's tallest tower - a 351-metre lotus bud over Beira Lake with the island's highest observation deck.

A forest of 1,600 stone pillars - all that remains of a nine-storey monastery roofed in bronze.

The quiet elephant corridor between Yala and Udawalawe - big herds, big reservoir, almost no jeeps.

The deep south's thermal pools - a renovated bathing garden in the scrub near Sooriyawewa, beloved by safari-goers.

The manor of the 'Kolonne King' - a labyrinthine 17th-century walawwa of courtyards, carvings, and tall tales.

The hottest springs on the island - steaming wells in the elephant country between Kandy and Ampara.

The chief shrine of the god Saman, guardian of Adam's Peak - Ratnapura's great temple and its September pageant.

A century-old iron giant over the Mahaweli - the two-storey bridge where trains still rumble the top deck.

King Dutugemunu's first great stupa - built, the story says, to repay a forgotten chilli.

Badulla's ancient heart - one of the sixteen holiest shrines, founded on a visit by the Buddha himself.

A golden hilltop temple west of Kandy with 360° mountain views - Sri Lanka's most photogenic modern shrine.

Jaffna's fabled 'bottomless' well - fresh water above, salt below, and a Ramayana arrow-strike origin story.

The pavilion of stone lotus stems - Polonnaruwa's most original architecture, built for a king to hear chanting.

The Tudor-brick darling of 'Little England' - an 1894 post office still stamping letters under its clock tower.

The oldest building in Colombo Fort - a 17th-century hospital reborn as the city's favourite courtyard of restaurants.

One of Asia's largest natural rock shelters - home to 37,000-year-old prehistoric Sri Lankans.

A tiny carved masterpiece - the wayside rest hall whose timber beams rival Embekka's fame.

A famous sanctuary for orphaned elephants, best known for the herd's twice-daily river bathing.

A brand-new district rising from the sea beside Galle Face - promenades, events, and Colombo's future skyline.

The Mahaweli's mightiest reservoir - a vast dam and eagle country on the wild road from Kandy to Mahiyangana.

A spice baron's Edwardian fantasy mansion above the Kalu Ganga - teak, stained glass, and a poignant story.

Colombo's stupa on stilts - a harbour-mouth dagoba raised on arches so arriving ships see it first.

The easternmost tip of Sri Lanka - an empty cape of surf and light where the island's day begins.

The 'unfinished' twin of the Avukana Buddha - a colossal rock-cut statue in deep countryside solitude.

A 2,300-year-old stupa enshrining the Buddha's forehead relic, deep in the paddy country south of Trincomalee.

Sri Lanka's holiest Catholic shrine - 400 years of pilgrimage to a jungle church that sheltered generations.

A 2,200-year-old monastery rising from the wilds of Yala - pilgrims, monks, and leopards share the rock.

Colombo's miracle church - a harbourside national shrine where every faith comes on Tuesdays.

A remote rock temple where the sacred Bo sapling rested on its journey - carved Buddhas on a wilderness outcrop.

The first stupa ever built in Sri Lanka - raised in the 3rd century BC over the Buddha's collarbone relic.

A beautifully kept Commonwealth cemetery near Uppuveli - resting place of the fallen of the 1942 Indian Ocean raid.

Boulder-cave hermitages of Anuradhapura's earliest monks, with inscriptions two thousand years old.

Matara's tunnel temple - a 39-metre Buddha above an underground maze of twenty thousand comic-strip murals.

Colombo's grand Dutch survivor - a 1749 church whose floor is paved with the tombstones of colonial governors.

A colossal unfinished stupa mound near Buttala - one of the largest ever attempted, wrapped in a tale of warring brothers.