Hambantota and the Mirijjawila botanic garden

Hambantota is the main town of Sri Lanka's south-eastern coast, between Tangalle and Tissamaharama. It marks the point where the green, wet coast gives way to the dry zone, with thorny scrub, open lagoons and salt pans. The town has a long history as a port and trading centre, with Malay and Muslim communities among its oldest families.

In recent years Hambantota has been transformed by large projects, including a deep-water port, an international cricket stadium, a convention centre and nearby Mattala airport. Many of these see little use, and the town remains quiet. For visitors, the older sights and the landscape are the real interest.

The Mirijjawila Dry Zone Botanic Garden, a few kilometres west of Hambantota town, opened in 2013 as Sri Lanka's first botanic garden devoted to dry-zone plants. It covers a large area of landscaped beds, cactus and succulent gardens, medicinal plants and native dry-zone trees, with paths and shaded rest areas.

The garden is a calm, open place to learn about the plants that survive the long dry season of the south-east, and is popular with local families at weekends. Allow one to one and a half hours, and visit early or late in the day, as shade is limited.

Hambantota's salt pans lie behind the coast near the town, where seawater is let into shallow pans and left to evaporate in the sun. In the dry months, workers rake salt into white heaps, and in the evening the pans can take on pink and gold tones. Birds such as flamingos and waders sometimes feed in nearby lagoons.

The Martello tower, a round British-era fortification near the harbour, is one of the town's few colonial buildings. Hambantota's old town, with its mosques and markets, gives a sense of the long trading history of this coast.

The writer Leonard Woolf served as Assistant Government Agent in Hambantota from 1908 to 1911, before returning to England, where he married Virginia Woolf. His years in the south inspired his novel The Village in the Jungle, published in 1913, a harsh and moving portrait of village life in the dry zone.

Woolf's diaries from Hambantota describe the salt industry, the local people and the landscape in detail. Readers interested in colonial history will find the novel a good companion to a drive through the region.

The road between Tangalle and Hambantota is lined with stalls selling buffalo curd in clay pots, served with kitul treacle, a syrup from the kitul palm. It is a classic southern treat, eaten as a dessert or snack, and many drivers stop for a pot on the way to Yala.

Curd is set in the clay pots, which give it a slightly earthy flavour. Look for busy stalls with fresh stock, and eat it cool. Some stalls also sell honey and fresh fruit.

Hambantota fits best as a stop on the drive between Tangalle and Yala, with an hour in the botanic garden and a curd stop on the way. For more time, add Bundala National Park, just east of town, or the Kalametiya lagoon to the west.

Lankan Stays & Trails often includes Hambantota's garden and a curd stop on transfers to Yala, turning a long drive into a day of short, varied stops. Travellers interested in Woolf can add a look at the old town and the Martello tower.