Being smitten with India, it took some persuading to get me to Sri Lanka, and by the time we reached our hotel - the Bayroo on the west coast beach resort of Beruwela - I was beginning to question the wisdom of that decision. It had been 33 hours door (Scotland) to door, involving a Monarch charter with leg room that must rate as torture under the Geneva Convention and a baggage handler's dispute.

In theoretical personal security terms, our timing couldn't have been more inept, coinciding with the explosive build-up to the recent presidential election. That's what you get when you pay minimal attention to local politics. Crawling down the main north-south road through villages congested and electric with open-air election rallies, our rep let us know, in the most diplomatic way possible, that we'd be bypassing Colombo (deemed off limits nowadays by the Foreign Office) and advised us that public transport was also not recommended for "security reasons". Frankly, we were beyond caring by the time we collapsed in bed.

Come morning, things looked brighter: a breakfast of the most luscious pineapple, papaya, passion fruit and lemony bananas with buffalo milk yogurt and palm treacle providing a foretaste of the copious good food that was to come. It gave us the energy to change our room, too, selecting one with French windows on to mature gardens scented with frangipane and jasmine trees, vivid with hibiscus.

With a setting this perfect, 14 nights can slip by blissfully. All tourist hotels have a police guard, front and back, and that combined with security warnings makes the less adventurous stay put.

But stepping out of that psychological straitjacket is both easy and rewarding. All you have to do is hire a driver-guide and do your own thing. The obvious loop is south to the old Dutch town of Galle, inland to Sri Lanka's gem capital Ratnapura, up to airy green Nuwara Eliya, north to lakeside Kandy, going on to the ancient Buddhist cities and back to the coast.

Cinnamon is the spice that put Ceylon on the trader's map and the best place to find it is among the cinnamon gardens north of Galle. Cinnamon trees grow all around and you can nibble on a fresh leaf or use the leaf stem - as Sri Lankans do - as an aromatic toothpick. The air around Mitiyagoda is pungent with the scent of cinnamon leaves, distilled to make an essential oil (use it for everything from headache to cold feet) and you can see the bark peeled and rolled into sticks before being sun-dried.

You have to be self-disciplined not to be sidetracked by this village's other speciality - gems - and one stone in particular, the rare blue flash moonstone. Sri Lanka is world famous for the quality of its gems, though it's the sapphires that are most prized. You can pick up a bargain, or you could get fleeced.

Haggling over gems is a thirsty business and the ideal place to chill out is the New Oriental Hotel in Galle, where nothing much has changed since 1684, when it was built as the governor's headquarters for the Dutch Fort, now a World Heritage Site. Sri Lanka still has the most delightfully faded former colonial hotels such as the Queen's Hotel (Kandy) and the Galle Face (Colombo).

The staff at the New Oriental pad around in bare feet and serve a pukkah lime soda and the ultimate colonial club sandwich complete with layers of buttery fried egg, bacon and mustard. You soon realise that although the staple food in Sri Lanka is vast mounds of rice served with a changing repertoire of diversely-spiced curries, this sort of colonial food is actually very Sri Lankan, too.

The road to Ratnapura, like so many in Sri Lanka, climbs through the island's "low country" with its beautiful rice terraces. These are still ploughed by water buffalos in some places and there is always a full complement of egrets and kingfishers. But this road is also dotted with gem mines whose only visible manifestation is a coconut frond and wood construction over what looks, from a distance, like a well.

Ratnapura itself is Sri Lanka Gems PLC, a busy market town lined with dark offices where dealers huddle over magnifying glasses.

The tourist, you'll be told, is better advised to shop in the glittering gem emporiums of Kandy, which hold public liability insurance against fraud. But when you get to Kandy, you'll probably be taken up with its romantic lakeside setting and seeing the legendary Temple of the Tooth.

The inner sanctum is straight out of Indiana Jones, a golden, gem-studded casket said to contain the Buddha's tooth, set on an altar of blue lilies, guarded by monks in saffron robes. Being a proper town, Kandy is a great place to walk around and see non-tourist life without gathering a retinue of touts. Its food market is fabulous, piled high with unfamiliar ingredients such as banana flowers, manioc leaves and luffa .

But if you are in search of Little England, all signs point to high-altitude Nuwara Eliya. A playground for Sri Lankan socialites, the hotels are notoriously old world. The Hill Club, for example, is a baronial pile fit for a Perthshire glen and only recently opened its doors to women. For lovers of saggy leather armchairs and kitsch, it's a must-see.