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A tear-drop falling from the southern tip of peninsular India, suspended on the blue-green waters of the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka was known over the centuries, as 'The Pearl of the East’, 'Swarndvip’ (Golden Isle) and 'Serendib’ - the root of the word 'serendipity’ – the faculty of making happy discoveries by accident – names which, though rather grandiose, are not too far from the truth.

Sri Lanka has always epitomised the exotic – a place where the earth opens up to yield precious bounty of 'pigeon blood' rubies and bright green emeralds, of yellow and blue sapphires as big as rocks and sloping tiers of rubber, tea, coffee and spice plantations on hillsides. Although tiny, Sri Lanka is one of the world’s major tourist destinations, with enough spice gardens, temples, elephants and tea plantations to hold its own against the rest of the Far East.

Sri Lanka is also known as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean.

Savour a cup of Sri Lankan tea which is the largest exporting commodity here.

Before 1972 Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon.

Sri Lanka boasts of an elephant orphanage, with over 80 elephants- Every year the trained elephants display their skills at a special program. So flock to the country to witness it yourself!

Cinnamon, the fragrant spice, is said to have originated in Sri Lanka and was discovered by the Egyptians.

Interestingly Sri Lanka is regarded to be one of the first countries in the world to have a woman as a democratically elected Prime Minister.

Historically Speaking

Sri Lanka’s past is steeped in lore and legend. It is believed that the first Sinhalese arrived on the island from the Indian mainland sometime around the 5th or 6th century BC, displacing the original inhabitants, the Veddahs. The Sinhalese established their kingdom, with its capital at Anuradhapura, and set up diplomatic links with the Indian Emperor Ashoka. It was these ties that brought Buddhist missionaries to Sri Lanka, and led to mass conversions during the 3rd century BC. Anuradhapura remained the epicentre of the Sinhalese kingdom till 10 AD, but was unfortunate enough to suffer continuous invasions by Indians from across the Palk Strait.

Anuradhapura was succeeded as the capital by Polonnaruwa (in the south-east), and then by various cities, as Sri Lanka (or Ceylon, as it was called at the time), came under the eagle eye of traders and colonists from Portugal, attracted to the spice trade and fired by a missionary zeal to spread their religion. They, in turn, were eventually replaced by the Dutch (late 17th century), and spent 140 years trying to capture the trade on the island. The British, who managed to gain supremacy over all of Ceylon, including Kandy that had withstood all foreign invasions, eventually displaced the Dutch. The British subjugated Ceylon in 1796, and ruled it from Madras in India till 1802, when the island became a Crown Colony.

The British set up a massive road and rail system throughout the country and paved the way for extensive plantations of tea, spices, coconuts and rubber. To work on these plantations, they imported Tamil labour from South India – the friction between the Tamilians and the Sinhalese continues to tear apart the country till today.

In 1948, after an independence movement akin to that of India, Ceylon became independent under D S Senanayake. The decade following independence was rather tumultuous with mass riots, ethnic conflicts and the declaration of a state of emergency. In 1960, the world’s first woman Prime Minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike came to power, but her government and the regimes that followed were unable to stem the Sinhalese -Tamil strife or the rapid downslide of the economy.

In the 1970s, the ethnic conflict gained greater momentum with the formation of the Tamil United Liberation Front. This heralded an era of mudslinging on both sides, and more tragically massacres and widespread riots in 1983. In 1987, Indian Peace Keeping Forces were called into Sri Lanka against popular sentiment to assist the suppression of the Tamil guerrilla outfit – the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam but the IPKF pulled out in 1990.

Although the signs of peace between the Sinhalese and the Tamils seemed quite bright during the early part of the 1990s, violence has again erupted over the past couple of years, with continuous warfare raging in Jaffna and northern Sri Lanka. Southern parts of the island, especially the area around Colombo, however, are at present comparatively peaceful.

Habitat

Though a small country - it measures a modest 353 kilometres from north to south, and 183 kilometres across at its widest, Sri Lanka has everything one could want from a tourist destination – forests, mountains, beaches, lakes and the rivers. Coastal plains surround the central highlands, while the northern and north-central plains, which extend upto the northern tip of the country, are comparatively dry. At the extreme north west of Sri Lanka is Mannar Island joined to the mainland by a bridge, which is almost connected to India by a chain of sandbanks and islets, known as Adam’s Bridge. Sri Lanka’s highest mountain is Piduratalagala (2524 mt), although equally, and perhaps better, known, is Adam’s Peak (2224 mt). The country’s longest river is Mahaweli, which has its source near Adam’s Peak and its mouth in the sea near Trincomalee.

Flora and Fauna The southwest part of the island country is wet tropical – typical rainforest vegetation, evergreen and teeming with wildlife. The central and northern hill country has grasslands, rhododendrons and other mountain trees – usually covered with orchids. The rest of the island is much drier, with sparser tree cover and grasslands.

Although a tiny bit of land, Sri Lanka is rich in wildlife. It has more than 80 mammal species, including elephants that seem to be virtually everywhere, leopards, deer, wild boar and smaller mammals. There are a whopping 450 species of birds, of which 200 odd are migratory and another 21 or so unique to Sri Lanka. Fish and reptiles also abound in the waterways of Sri Lanka and in the surrounding seas. Beware, though: crocodiles are to be found in some of the rivers!

Fortunately, Sri Lanka has done a fair deal towards preserving its wildlife: around 25% of the country is still under forest cover and about 10% of the country’s land area is protected - in fact, the world’s first wildlife sanctuary was Sri Lankan: it was established in the 3rd century BC through an edict issued by the king Devanampiya Tissa. Today, the Sri Lankan government recognises more than a 100 protected areas, including Wilpattu -the largest park in Sri Lanka, Yala (East and West), Horton Plains, Bundala Sanctuary, and the Peak Wilderness Sanctuary.