Nature comes to life on park safari

Island offers many charms after the war's end

Spoiler alert: I didn't see any leopards. There. I've said it. I'd come on safari to Yala, the Sri Lankan national park renowned for having the world's highest concentration of leopards, but despite spending upward of 10 hours rumbling through the park's forests and grasslands in a jeep, I didn't see a single spotted big cat. Not a tail. Not a whisker. You'd think at least one of the creatures might have sensed a nice photo opportunity and padded into a clearing for a few seconds. No. Leopards are many things, I learned, but they're not marketing-savvy.

Here's another spoiler though: I was far less bothered than I thought I would be. Yala is located on Sri Lanka's south coast, and it says much about the region that when you're here, details like a lack of obliging leopards seem fairly trivial. The coastline is lined with surf beaches, palm trees and sun-splashed villages. Its main settlement, Galle, is a bona fide UNESCO-listed wonder. And Yala itself is nothing if not a busy place - the park teems with all sorts of other exotic inhabitants, from elephants, sloth bears and peacocks to jackals, crocodiles and sea eagles.