Yala. [Photo by Ben Lerwill/China Daily]

Galle Fort may be firmly rooted in the past, but the place was very much alive. Tuk-tuks puttered along the street, local children smacked footballs at each other, expats sipped on cocktails outside old-world hotels. I found a rooftop restaurant serving up classic vegetarian curries and wallowed in the luxury of having nothing to do but relax and eat. The food in Sri Lanka is often sensational, benefiting from the various culinary influences imported by everyone from the Arabs and Malays to the Indians and Portuguese. Coconut milk, garlic, chilies and fish all figure prominently.

Just as Sri Lankan cuisine is diverse, so too is Sri Lankan religion. Theravada Buddhism is the most prominent faith, with Hinduism, Christianity and Islam all figuring significantly too. And days later, as Yatawara and I moved gradually east towards Yala, the country's varied sights, smells and sounds made themselves felt－orange-robed monks stood outside roadside temples, fishermen perched on wooden stilts offshore in search of a few rupees, families wandered through beach settlements of surf shacks and laid-back restaurants.

Things haven't always been so relaxed, of course. Sri Lanka has borne witness to some torrid events in recent decades. Not only was it sucked into a long and brutal civil war, a conflict which finally halted in 2009, it was also one of the countries worst hit by the devastating Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. The south coast was particularly tragically affected, although the animal inhabitants of Yala－which sits adjacent to the ocean shoreline－managed a near-miraculous collective escape.

"It seems as though they sensed the tsunami before it arrived," explained Sarath, a safari guide at the national park. "The waters came inland for more than a kilometer, but when they receded we found just a tiny number of animal carcasses. They had all headed away from the coast before it hit."