A tour of Sri Lanka’s beautiful north

Visitors to Sri Lanka tend to stay in the south of the island, or explore the tea plantations and ancient Buddhist sites in its central highlands.

Few venture to the north of the country, where civil war raged for 26 years until the insurgent Tamil Tigers were finally defeated in 2009. Yet this region is now safe, said Harriet Compston in The Sunday Times – and it is “calmer and less frenetic” than the south, with far fewer “glossy villas, shabby-chic restaurants or beach-hunting tourists”.

On a recent 11-night trip with andBeyond, I made a circuit with a driver-guide, starting midway up the west coast in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, and heading first for Jaffna, at the island’s northern tip. Halfway through the seven-hour drive to Jaffna, we stopped at Wilpattu National Park, where there’s a “charming” safari camp, Leopard Trails. The park has the country’s highest concentration of leopards, and walking on trails through “twisting tree tunnels” and past “eerie” lakes, I saw seven of the big cats, as well as a sloth bear.

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Next came Jaffna itself, a “gentle” little city surrounded by “flamingo-lined” lagoons and “verdant” mangroves. The hotel I stayed in, the Jetwing Mahesa Bhawan, is an “art-filled” villa with four “elegant” bedrooms and a “delightful” swimming pool. Jaffna has lively markets, a “spectacular” old fort and ancient temples, including at the archaeological site at Kantharodai. Yet more “otherworldly” are the islands nearby, where wild horses gallop among swaying palms. Driving down the east coast, we stopped at Trincomalee, a beautiful historic city that sits on one of the world’s finest natural harbours.

My hotel, the Uga Jungle Beach resort, is set beside an “almost deserted powdery beach”, among paddy fields where elephants “trumpet”. On the drive back, I spent a night at the lovely Ulagalla Resort, which is encircled by forest, and also visited Anuradhapura, one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in Asia, renowned for its “enormous” brick stupas, temples and bathing pools.