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On the south-east coast, Yala National Park is one of Sri Lanka's smaller national parks but it offers the best chance of spotting leopard. Indeed, with somewhere between 35 and 50 individuals, it has one of the highest concentrations of leopard in the world. The Sri Lankan leopard is a separate sub-species, large and appearing browner than its African counterpart, but every bit as majestic, and lithely graceful in its motion.

The Park also has an amazing profusion of birds, and it is not hard to identify thirty to fifty species of bird during a game drive here. If you are lucky, you might well spot a Black-necked Stork – one of Sri Lanka's most endangered species (less than twenty breeding pairs remain, all in the south-east of the island), and the tallest native bird standing between 1.2 and 1.5m high. Driving slowly along the park tracks you will see herds of elephant foraging amongst the small trees and shrubs, groups of buffalo wallowing in grey mud-holes, spotted deer grazing on open stretches of grass, families of wild boar scurrying across in front of your vehicle, packs of Grey Langer monkeys swinging through the trees, and perhaps a lone crocodile lying motionless by a water-hole waiting for a potential breakfast treat to come and risk a drink.

The park has a striking beach-side memorial to the deaths of 47 people in Yala when the tsunami hit in December 2005. Being here, at the monument on the beach, makes the inconceivable event seem a little more comprehensible.

Eighty kilometres along the coast lies Tangalle, a small town celebrated for its sweeping bays and beautiful sandy beaches. Just to the west of town on a large plot of land fronting the sea stands The Last House – the last residential project of Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka's most famed architect (indeed, perhaps one of the country's most famous non-political figures). Built about ten years ago, it has clean, simple lines, wonderful open verandahs and framed views of the sea just fifty meters away. The house was seriously damaged by the tsunami; although the main structures were not destroyed, most of the furnishings, shutters and doors were washed away. The only thing not lost was a large Buddha painting that was found still hanging on the wall, aslant, on its hook.