lankaescapes.com

The New york Times reveals "The 31 Places to go in 2010"  - January 10, 2010

22^nd September 2009….. The UK travel advisory to Sri Lanka has been further relaxed this week. The Minister of Tourism Promotion Hon Faiszer Musthapha met with the British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Dr Peter Hayes last week to discuss the further relaxing the travel advisory. Commenting on this new development the Hon Minister said, “This is indeed a significant step forward for Sri Lanka tourism’s future. Post-conflict

“ Not often is it that men have the heart, when their one great industry is withered, to rear up in a few years another as rich to take its place, and the tea fields of Ceylon are as true a monument to courage as is the lion at Waterloo” – Conan Doyle. By 1880, the hitherto thriving coffee industry in Ceylon had been ravaged to virtual non-existence by the blight. Nearly quarter of million acres of coffee plants were uprooted and the tea (Camellia Thea) plant was accorded its pride of place instead. Thus began the great Ceylon tea industry.This tea saga of Ceylon begins with tea seeds and young tea plants of the Assam jat imported from the Botanical Gardens in Calcutta, being experimentally planted in the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens near Kandy in 1839. In addition, a handful of more enterprising coffee planters too had cleared the odd half acre and planted it with tea. Being chiefly concerned with lucrative coffee, planters in general had no time for tea and those experimental plots too were forgotten in time for some thirty years. However, tea did grow. Moreover, it was noted that tea grew well in the hills of Ceylon.

Sri Lanka is a country rich in culture and history and the people of Sri Lanka love to find reasons to celebrate. We have highlighted some of the festivals, so that you can sample the Sri lankan culture during your visit January - The colorful Thai Pongal Festival celebrated by the Hindu devotees of Sri Lanka is celebrated on 14 of January

The houses are adorned in colourful kolam, intricate drawings done on the floors using flour. Special Pujas (prayer ceremonies) are held in Kovils to worship the Sun God. It is customary to cook the Pongal meal and share it with neighbors, especially non-hindus

SRI LANKA'S HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL HERITAGE covers more than 2,000 years. Known as Lanka--the "resplendent land"--in the ancient Indian epic Ramayana, the island has numerous other references that testify to the island's natural beauty and wealth. Islamic folklore maintains that Adam and Eve were offered refuge on the island as solace for their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Asian poets, noting the geographical location of the island and lauding its beauty, called it the "pearl upon the brow of India." A troubled nation in the 1980s, torn apart by communal violence, Sri Lanka has more recently been called India's "fallen tear."

Sri Lanka claims a democratic tradition matched by few other developing countries, and since its independence in 1948, successive governments have been freely elected. Sri Lanka's citizens enjoy a long life expectancy, advanced health standards, and one of the highest literacy rates in the world despite the fact that the country has one of the lowest per capita incomes.

In the years since independence, Sri Lanka has experienced severe communal clashes between its Buddhist Sinhalese majority-- approximately 74 percent of the population--and the country's largest minority group, the Sri Lankan Tamils, who are Hindus and comprise nearly 13 percent of the population. The communal violence that attracted the harsh scrutiny of the international media in the late 1980s can best be understood in the context of the island's complex historical development--its ancient and intricate relationship to India's civilization and its more than four centuries under colonial rule by European powers.

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