The land of beautiful Sri Lanka
For a small island, Sri Lanka has acquired a lot of names - Serendib, Ceylon, Teardrop of India, Resplendent Isle, Island of Dharma, Pearl of the Orient - an accumulation which reveals its richness and beauty, and the intensity of affection which it has evoked in visitors. For centuries it seduced travellers, who returned home with enchanting images of a langourous tropical isle of such deep spirituality and serenity that it entered the Western imagination as a Tahiti of the East.
This, sadly, is the same island which, for the past 15 years, has been traumatised by a ferocious ethnic and religious conflict that has punctured the most willful exoticism and burned Sri Lanka into Western minds as the Northern Ireland of the Indian Ocean.
However, the truth is that this conflict is mainly confined to the North and East of the island, and has not affected tourism in the rest of the island (i.e. about 80% of the island). Strangely enough not a single tourist has ever been harmed, (not to mention been killed or injured) by this internecine warfare.
