Learn Sri Lanka before you go

10 phrases to learn

In Sinhala, with two Tamil greetings. Capital letters show the stressed part. Tap the heart to practise a phrase later.

At the table

• Most Sri Lankans eat rice and curry with the right hand, mixing a little rice with each curry using the fingertips. Every restaurant will bring a spoon and fork if you ask, but it is worth trying the local way.
• Use your right hand to eat and to pass or receive food, money and gifts. The left hand is used for washing and is not used for eating.
• Sri Lankan food can be very spicy. To ask for a milder dish, say 'særa aduwata', which means 'less strong'.
• On Poya days, the full moon holiday each month, the sale of alcohol and meat is forbidden and many shops close, so plan ahead.
• At the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in April, the first meal of kiribath is eaten at an auspicious time chosen by astrologers, and families visit each other with plates of kavum, kokis and other sweets.
• Snack shops and bakeries sell 'short eats', such as patties, Chinese rolls and pastries, bought by the dozen for tea time, parties and journeys.

Local tips

Dishes to try

• Rice and curry (Bath curry): The national everyday meal, eaten at lunch in homes, offices and roadside eateries. White or red rice is served with a spread of small curries: fish, chicken or beef, lentils, jackfruit, beans, pumpkin or aubergine, plus a sambol, a pickle and papadams. Each curry has its own colour and taste, from mild and creamy with coconut milk to dark, roasted and fiery.
• Parippu (dhal curry) (Parippu): A mild, golden curry of red lentils cooked with turmeric, onion, green chilli and coconut milk, then finished with fried mustard seeds, curry leaves and onion. It is served with rice and curry, hoppers and bread, and is often the first curry children learn to love.
• Pol sambol (Pol sambola): A fresh coconut relish of grated coconut, red onion, chilli, lime juice and salt, often with a pinch of Maldives fish, a smoked and dried tuna. It is bright red, spicy and sour, and appears beside rice, hoppers, string hoppers and bread at almost every meal.
• Mallung (Mallum): Finely shredded green leaves, such as gotu kola, cassava leaves or water spinach, tossed briefly in a hot pan with grated coconut, shallots, green chilli, turmeric and a little Maldives fish. It is eaten at almost every rice and curry meal and is how many families get their daily greens.
• Kiribath (milk rice) (Kiribath): Rice cooked in coconut milk until it sets, then flattened on a plate and cut into diamond shapes. It is eaten on the first day of each month and for every happy beginning: weddings, a new job, a new house and, above all, as the first meal of the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in April. It is served with lunu miris, a fiery onion and chilli paste, or with jaggery.
• Hoppers and egg hoppers (Appa, biththara appa): Bowl-shaped pancakes made from a fermented batter of rice flour and coconut milk, cooked in a small round pan so that the edges are thin and crisp and the centre soft. For an egg hopper, an egg is cracked into the middle and cooks in the steam. Hoppers are eaten for breakfast or dinner with pol sambol, lunu miris and curry.
• String hoppers (Indi appa, idiyappam): Small nests of thin rice-flour noodles, pressed through a mould onto little woven mats and steamed. They are eaten in stacks for breakfast or dinner with a thin coconut-milk curry called kiri hodi, a dhal curry and pol sambol.
• Pittu (Pittu, puttu): Cylinders of rice or wheat flour layered with grated coconut and steamed in a bamboo or metal tube. Pittu is a favourite breakfast of Sri Lankan Tamils and is eaten with coconut milk, sambol and a spicy fish or chicken curry, crumbled and mixed together with the fingers.

Cities to see

• Colombo (capital): Galle Face Green, a seafront park laid out in 1859, The busy markets of the Pettah, Gangaramaya Temple and the colonial buildings of the Fort district.
• Negombo: Fishing boats and a busy fish market, Churches, giving it the nickname 'Little Rome', The Negombo Lagoon.
• Kandy: The Temple of the Tooth Relic, The Esala Perahera procession with elephants in July and August, The Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya.
• Nuwara Eliya: High-grown tea and tea factories, Colonial buildings and a cool climate, Nearby Horton Plains and its World's End cliff.
• Ella: The Nine Arch Bridge, Walks up Little Adam's Peak and Ella Rock, The hill country train ride.
• Galle: Galle Fort and its ramparts, Dutch colonial streets and churches, Nearby beaches and whale watching at Mirissa.

Landmarks and the city map are on the Sri Lanka trip