Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is small enough to cross in a day and varied enough to fill a month. The Cultural Triangle in the north-centre - Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Sigiriya - holds a civilisation that built in stone when most of Asia was still building in wood. The hill country around Ella and Nuwara Eliya produces tea at altitude in a landscape so green it seems artificially lit. The south coast has the beaches; the east coast has the beaches that the south coast has not yet reached. The food, largely unwritten about in the west, is one of the great regional cuisines - the coconut milk, the curry leaves, the black pepper that made this island worth sailing half the world for.

Our guide is being written from the ground up, with the time this place deserves.

We are still gathering the notes that make a guide worth keeping: hill country tea estate stays, Galle Fort's back lanes, Cultural Triangle timing and the fish market kitchens on the east coast where the catch determines the menu before dawn.