Enclosed neatly by the Horton Plains and the undulating tea plantations of south-central Sri Lanka, Nuwara Eliya was once a kernel of Englishness. Colonised by British merchants and explorers alike, this town of stepped bungalows and pruned golf courses still exudes a certain Home Counties charm; evident in those cardinal-red phone boxes on the street corners and the Victorian facades of the hotels. But native Sri Lanka pokes its head in too, with three wheelers and the filigreed Seetha Temple signalling lively sub-continent charm and mysterious Hinduism respectively.

Today, active Nuwara Eliya tour guides offer travellers to this corner of the isle everything from leisurely strolls around lakes, gardens and waterfalls to arduous hikes to the World’s End at the Hortons Plains National Park and the lookout points of Single Tree Mountain (think some serious panoramas of central Sri Lanka). With that come golf tee offs, tea tasting to rival Darjeeling, and one undeniably pleasant and cooling mountain climate to boot.