I arrived in the midday heat through a scrum of duty-free shops bizarrely composed of electrical goods. The dishwashing machines particularly amused me. I was soon to relax at my first hotel, the Wallawwa (www.thewallawwa.com). The island’s capital, Colombo features a number of iconic colonial-era hotels with the charm and romance of a bygone era. This one is 250 years old and now nine years into its renovated state. It has the feel very much of a house rather than a hotel and even calls itself ‘my house near Colombo’. It’s a great hideaway and resting spot being a mere 15-minute drive from the airport.

The next morning I set off for Ratnapura, the home of Sri Lankan jewellery, in the search for gems. The island has one of the widest varieties of precious stones with blue sapphires, star sapphires, rubies, garnets, moonstones, aquamarines, and topazes being just a dazzling handful.

In cutting across the island, I got to recognise the pattern of jungle encroaching on villages that then spilt out onto streets. The neon shop signs of the towns were already familiar to me from other Asian visits as were the locals as they went about their lives, sometimes a whole family to a bicycle.

I had a wonderful drive through stunning, diverse landscapes. One moment there were hills and jungle, the next paddy fields where strikingly thin and brilliantly white ibis birds pecked at worms and appeared in blissful harmony with their neighbours, the buffalo who even have the distinct word ‘gokuradiya’ for their action, meaning ‘the water in a hole made by its hoof.’

And so onwards and down south I ventured, onto the fishing town of Tangalle and the coast that meets the Indian Ocean, directly beyond which the next land is Antartica.

For along this strip of coast was the new Anantara resort (www.anantara.com). Anantara means ‘without end’ in Sanskrit echoing the hotel’s spirit of freedom, movement, and harmony. As a complex it has been thoroughly thought through. It’s cleverly landscaped and there’s something for everyone. Buggies take you to tennis courts or you can bicycle instead. Lounge chairs are actually fixed into two lengthy infinity pools proferring panoramic views over the ocean. And it’s mercifully mosquito free. Peace haven or ‘piece of heaven?’ It’s certainly pampering and tranquil.

After a five-minute tuk-tuk ride I had reached Amanwella (www.aman.com/resorts/amanwella), a meticulously stunning hotel, discretely tucked away in a cove. Amanwella means ‘peace and beach’. It’s a signature Aman hotel enhancing what’s already in the environment with the lines and colours, spaces and angles of the buildings. And it’s got that classy quality that makes me look for details as I crave aesthetic satisfaction. I found myself stopping in my tracks to appreciate fully the brilliance of the design.

The writer Leonard Woolf described Tangalle with great precision: “The evening air is warm and gentle. An enormous sky meets an enormous sea. The stars blaze in the sky and blaze in the sea … there is no sound in this melodrama of a tropical night except a faint lapping of the sea, and now and then a shivery stir of palm leaves”. And it’s true that here at Amanwella there is a real paradise. The golden beach, curving for half a mile in a gentle arc, is flanked by two rocky headlands. The water is certainly crystal clear and the sand is fabulously fine and powdery.

It may help to tell you that down on the South coast, it’s hot from December to March.  In April and May the monsoon rains and stormy seas come, and the scene shifts to the heat of the East coast, around Arugam Bay. Then people move back to the South coast again. In the summer months it can get a little more humid and rainy but there are some beautiful sunsets and the central part of the southern half of the island (known as the ‘tea country’) tends to be cooler than the coastal regions.

On I go, past the famous temple at Dikwella and the large sprawl that is Matara, past the beautiful half-moon bay at Mirissa and the already developed Weligama. Finally up inland to Lake Koggolo and onto my next hotel, the Kahanda Kanda (www.kahandakanda.com). 15 minutes inland and 5 miles from Galle, this style-conscious hotel looks down from its prominent bluff, a hilltop perch, over a dense 12-acre tea plantation. An entrance of steep steps is punctuated with glazed brown gourds and then follows along a saffron wall. Most of the movement within the complex is along or across this wall and the colour, along with the abbreviation KK, is the hotel’s slick brand and motif. The long pool runs along the entire length of the villa reflecting the wall as well as the sky. There are lily ponds with male and female statues to provide a cultured ambience. It’s all designed to be reassuringly familiar for a principally British clientele with scattered Country Life magazines in the high-beamed lobby-cum-library.

I took the most wonderful of all local walks down through a village where I felt all of the island’s innocence and timeless charm. Dogs sit out by day to protect the houses and lie on the road at night to enjoy the tarmac’s warmth. A row of houses awaits the sound of Für Elise that heralds the bread truck or was it for ice cream? A multi-coloured school bus goes by. Schoolgirls in their white uniforms have thick platted hair that descends beyond the top of their legs. A washerwoman by the stream thinks twice about agreeing to be photographed beside her laundry. Elderly ladies parade in pairs beneath their vivid-coloured parasols. Old men stick their legs out at right angles on old colonial bicycles that cause them to adopt staunch, upright postures.

I was next to experience the period charm of a bygone era, at the Amangalla Hotel (www.aman.com/resorts/amangalla). I can strongly recommend the best book I have read about the island, called Elephant Complex by John Gimlette. I learnt that the Hotel was the old officers’ mess, a Dutch colonial building within the ramparts of Galle’s historic fort. Built in 1684, it was later converted into first the Oriental and then the New Oriental Hotel before its current reincarnation. And while clearly the supreme standard of an Aman hotel must have given the building quite some makeover, I sensed nonetheless its residual authenticity. It’s full of character with triangular stairwells, wonky tiles, and those Portuguese terracotta tiles that I much prefer to the red roofs of the more modern Sri Lankan structures.

As soon as I stepped outside the hotel I felt immersed in the extraordinary colonial outpost that is Galle. It was the lure of the highly profitable trade in spices and gold that had drawn the Europeans. First the Portuguese in the 16th century and then the Dutch and English in the 17th. The name Galle is attributed to a Portuguese mariner who was first to spot the natural harbour in 1505, when they were blown off course heading for the Maldives. He is said to have seen a cockerel and shouted out from his crow’s nest, “galla buonvista”, Portuguese for “a cockerel, what a beautiful sight”.

With fourteen massive bastions, a grid system of streets, and original Dutch bungalows, it has a different vibe from the Sri Lanka I had come to know and love. Quiet at night and a tourist trap by day for shoppers keen to haggle for gems, as well as find traditional designs such as makara (a mythical animal, lion, swan, elephant, and lotus) along with ritual masks, lacquer ware, batik and handloom textiles, lace, and wood carvings.

Just outside the fort I felt compelled to pop in on what for me is one of thirty odd Meccas around the world, namely a Test Cricket ground. Unusually underdeveloped with at least half the ground lacking seats, it still allows for spectators to look on for free from the ramparts above. It’s bang next to the famous fruit market with its yards upon yards of bunches of bananas.

In 1850 there used to be a 45-minute pigeon post from Galle to Colombo, flying at some 85mph, established by The Observer newspaper. Even with the new motorway it was bound to take me a little longer to reach the capital. Transport has its own challenges even now with the right of way always open to question. So renting a car would not be my suggestion. Tuk-tuks are fun to take and breezy especially on the minor roads. While dishing out advice, I stress you just have to respect the midday intensity of the sun and likewise the savage currents of the Indian Ocean.

I was to spend my last night at the lovely boutique hotel called Maniumpathy (www.maniumpathy.com). It’s tucked away in its own little world, off the main road and secure behind a grand façade and porch. It features lattice artwork and has columns lifted to prevent the threat of the monsoon floods. The interior houses an old-fashioned dining room with a lovely long ebony table and a sitting room that is cosy and convivial. Teak, jac, and mahogany are also much in evidence. ›

I picked up a copy of the Sinhala dictionary, the island’s most spoken language. It has some wonderful vocabulary, especially those alluding to physical characteristics such as ‘kadadat’ meaning to possess only half of your original teeth; ‘khuranásá’ for one having a nose like a horse’s hoof; ‘tivili’ for a person with three dents in his belly (from fatness), and my favourite ‘miyulesa’ for a woman with the eyes of a deer.

Unlike other popular tropical destinations, Sri Lanka remains relatively untouched and unspoilt. The war is finished, the tsunami is now well past, and the highways now connect the island efficiently. With tourism rates projected to explode over the next few years, now is the perfect time to visit. ‘Ayubowan’ is their word for every form of greeting stretching from ‘good morning’, ‘good afternoon’, ‘good evening’, ‘good night’ to‘good-bye’. Ayubowan!

Adam Jacot de Boinod worked on the first series of the BBC panel game QI for Stephen Fry. He is a British author having written three books about unusual words with Penguin Press.