This trip included morning hikes to the Sigiriya Rock Fortress, riding bikes on country roads beside lotus ponds, monitor lizards and kingfishers, playing cricket with locals, taking the train up mountains and into the country’s mountainous center, learning how orange pekoe tea and ayurvedic oil is made, and being graciously welcomed into Sri Lankan’s kitchens.

Every night in the city of Kandy in August, as part of a full moon village procession, between 50 to 80 elephants, draped in batik and jewels, lit up costumes, all with enormous tusks process for nearly four hours through the city accompanied by every man in a 50-mile radius, dancing, drumming and tossing fire. Halfway in, an elephant with the largest tusks carries the Buddha’s tooth. This event has taken place since the 5th century, when a woman came to Sri Lanka with the tooth tucked in her hair.