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Picture: Image Bank

Visiting the stone imprint involves a long climb up the steps of an ancient volcano to Adam’s Peak, named after another legend that says this was where Adam planted his first footstep after being thrown out of heaven.

Adam’s Peak is relatively easy to book locally as an add-on or to include in tailor-made itineraries, but the 2,243 metre climb is not for the faint-hearted. If clients want to make the three-hour ascent by sunrise they will need to set out at 2am.

At the start of the climb there are hawker stalls piled with refreshments, joss sticks and offerings for Buddha, but the wide path swiftly becomes narrow and steep. Climbers are soon panting up steep concrete steps before reaching a small Buddhist temple at the top.

Once there, chanting visitors throng the temple. The overall experience is quite spiritual and I wondered how many before me had pressed their head to that stone.

Sri Lanka has plenty, more accessible, ancient ruins and architecture for clients to enjoy. Most of these are in the Cultural Triangle, an area of Sri Lanka’s interior that contains five of the country’s seven UNESCO heritage sites. The area encompasses Kandy, the two ancient capitals of Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura, the ornate cave temple at Dambulla and the rock fortress at Sigiriya.

Odyssey Experience product manager Jenny Morris said: "Sri Lanka’s ancient culture spans some 25 centuries, with royal and sacred cities, Buddhist temple caves and seven UNESCO World Heritage sites. All this is combined with an amazing setting of rich biodiversity, flora and fauna."

Somak Holidays product executive Mercy Okuley said: "Kandy has got a lot of hills but you get incredible views of the temples and ruins. The shopping is also good."

Kandy is a friendly old colonial town an hour north of Adam’s Peak. It is the former royal capital of Sri Lanka and is rich in ancient sites.

The rock fortress of Sigiriya, built by King Kassapa in 478AD, lies further north from Kandy. It’s another climb to the top, but at only 200 metres it’s shorter and slightly less vertigo-inducing.

The first flight of steps is built in the form of a huge lion and from below the rock castle sticks up out of the jungle canopy like a craggy thumb. Incredibly, it is the size of several football pitches. The views are impressive and the fortress features many ancient and fragile paintings protected from daylight by large shrouds.

Polonnaruwa is close to Sigiriya and can be incorporated into a busy day trip. While I was there a large crowd of locals emerged from a temple, walking behind a monk dressed in a red robe.

They paraded slowly to another nearby temple and congregated within the ruins. Surrounded by a jumble of pillars and broken walls, they then knelt in front of three disfigured Buddhas while a priest led them in low chanting prayer.

The reverence of these pilgrims brought the ruins to life for me and for the rest of the day I walked with an even greater sense of awe among the remaining temples.

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