The highland railway between Kandy and Ella is rated among the world’s most beautiful rail journeys – stone viaducts over jungle gorges, cliff edges with valley floors hundreds of metres below, and tea estates so close that the leaf is visible through the open window. We arrange reserved window seats and treat the train as the destination it is, not a transfer between two stops. The change in climate as it climbs from tropical lowlands to the cool highlands is itself a sensory experience.