Two thousand years,
and still in use

A troop of toque macaques studied continuously for fifty years, living among the ruins of a medieval capital.

Twelve hundred steps to a fifth-century palace on a two-hundred-metre column of rock. Go at six, before the heat and the coaches.

The relic itself is never shown, but the drums begin at six and the queue moves through a building that has held it since 1595.

Dutch ramparts, Portuguese foundations and a working town inside the walls. Best in the last hour before the lighthouse lights.

Leaf to cup on a working estate, with the pluckers on the slopes at dawn and a tasting of grades that never leave the island.

Lunuganga and Number 11, the garden and the townhouse where Geoffrey Bawa worked out how Asia should build for its own climate.

A medieval capital spread over several kilometres of shaded parkland, which is why everyone who enjoys it does it on two wheels and does it early.

The rock opposite Sigiriya, climbed in the dark for the one view the lion rock cannot give you — itself.

A private session with master drummers and dancers inside a walauwa, rather than a hotel show with a buffet.

Aged coconut spirit, tasted properly in a Dutch colonial room after dark. Sri Lanka's answer to rum, and older.