What to pack for Sigiriya and for Ella

Sigiriya sits at around a hundred metres on the dry-zone plain, where the middle of the day is consistently hot and the rock itself radiates stored heat. Ella sits at roughly a thousand metres, where evenings are cool enough to want a layer and mornings can be genuinely chilly.

As a working rule, air temperature falls by roughly six degrees Celsius per thousand metres of altitude, so the gap between the two is several degrees day and night. Nuwara Eliya, higher again at roughly 1,900 metres, extends the same pattern and is cold by tropical standards.

The packing error almost everyone makes is treating Sri Lanka as uniformly hot. Travellers arrive with beach clothes and spend a cold evening in the hill country wearing everything they own.

Breathable long sleeves rather than bare shoulders. They protect against sun on a climb with almost no shade, and they double as temple-appropriate dress, which saves carrying a separate outfit.

Proper shoes with grip rather than sandals. The stone on the lower staircases is uneven and worn smooth in places, and the metal stairways higher up are steep. Flip-flops are a genuinely poor choice on roughly 1,200 steps.

A hat, sunscreen and more water than you expect to need. There is no shade anywhere useful on the rock, and the descent is thirstier than the ascent. A small daypack that leaves your hands free for the handrails is worth more than a shoulder bag.

A light fleece or jumper is the item most often left behind and most often wanted. Evenings at roughly a thousand metres are cool, and accommodation in the hill country frequently has no heating because it is not needed often enough to install. Blankets are provided and are usually sufficient once you are in bed.

Long trousers for the evening serve the same purpose and are more comfortable than shorts on a cool verandah. Something warmer to sleep in than you would choose for the coast is worth the space, particularly if Nuwara Eliya is on the itinerary.

A light waterproof is sensible in any month. The hill country catches cloud year round, which is an altitude effect rather than a monsoon one, and the same jacket doubles as a windproof layer on the Ella ridges and at Lipton's Seat before dawn.

Shoulders and knees must be covered at Dambulla Cave Temple, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy and every other working religious site. This is not negotiable and is enforced at the entrance, so a scarf or sarong carried permanently in the daypack solves it without planning.

Shoes and hats come off before entering temple precincts. At Dambulla that means walking barefoot across a stone courtyard that becomes very hot underfoot by the middle of the day, which is genuinely painful and entirely avoidable: carry socks, which are not considered disrespectful.

Avoid clothing with Buddha images or motifs, including tattoos that are visible. This causes real offence in Sri Lanka and has occasionally caused travellers serious difficulty, so cover any such tattoo rather than assuming it will pass unnoticed.

Insect repellent, particularly at dusk in the dry zone and around water. Mosquito-borne illness including dengue exists in Sri Lanka, so repellent is a practical item rather than a comfort one, and long sleeves in the evening help.

A power bank, because early starts at Sigiriya and long train journeys both drain a phone being used for photographs. Sri Lanka uses a mix of socket types, so a universal adaptor is more reliable than a single-standard one.

Finally, pack light overall. A trip covering both anchors involves four or five hotel changes and a train where you carry your own luggage along a platform, and a bag you can lift easily is worth more than any individual item in it. Lankan Stays and Trails routinely sees travellers using around half of what they brought.