Dambulla Cave Temple

A rock rising a hundred and sixty metres out of the plain, with more than eighty caves recorded around it. Five of them hold the temple. Inside: a hundred and fifty-three statues of the Buddha, three of Sri Lankan kings, four of gods including Vishnu and Ganesha, and two thousand one hundred square metres of painting across the cave ceilings and walls.

The murals follow the Buddha's life. Mara's temptation is here, and the first sermon. The rock is the ceiling — the paint follows every fold and bulge of it, because the painters had no choice.

It is the largest and best-preserved cave temple complex in the country, and a World Heritage Site since 1991. What stays with you is not the scale but the ceiling: you spend the whole visit looking up, and come out with a sore neck and the distinct sense of having been somewhere older than you are.