Category Archives: tourism

April 23, 2019 · 2:07 pm

Security Failures and Security Implications from the Jihadist Terror in Sri Lanka, Easter Sunday 2019

Jeffrey Gettleman, Mujib Mashal and Dharisha Bastians, in New York Times, 22 April 2019, where  the title is  “Sri Lanka Was Warned of Possible Attacks. Why Didn’t It Stop Them?“

The confidential security memo laid it all out: names, addresses, phone numbers, even the times in the middle of the night that one suspect would visit his wife.In the days leading up to Easter Sunday’s devastating suicide bombings that killed at least 321 people in Sri Lanka, the country’s security agencies had been closely watching a secretive cell of the National Thowheeth Jama’ath, a little-known radical Islamist organization that security officials in Sri Lanka now say carried out the attacks and may have received help from abroad.

Arrests made

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March 10, 2019 · 1:09 am

Asha De Vos forges Paths for Women and All

Charumini de Silva, in Daily FT, 8 March 2019, where the title is “Let capacity not gender define you: Asha de Vos”

Marine biologist, ocean educator and Blue Whale Project pioneer Dr. Asha de Vos believes that women should focus on their capacity to define themselves and not let their gender limit their potential.

Ocean Educator and Blue Whale Project Pioneer Dr.Asha De Vos

Delivering the keynote address at the ‘Ring the Bell for Gender Equality’ event, organised by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in partnership with the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) to mark International Women’s Day, de Vos shared a powerful message on the importance of leading a purpose-led life while preserving natural resources.

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March 4, 2019 · 6:58 am

Shipwrecks as Tourist Allure around Sri Lanka

Randima Attygalle, in SUNDAY TIMES SPOTLIGHT, 8 July 2018, with this title

With hundreds of shipwrecks found around the coast, the country can be a divers’ paradise, say experts who call for measures to protect these wrecks from illegal salvagers and the dynamite fishing mafia… Randima Attygalle reports

Battery Barge: From shipwreck to sleeping beauty. Pic courtesy Dharshana Jayawardena Continue reading →

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January 24, 2019 · 8:51 am

Jim Corbett National Park in Northern India

Jim Corbett National Park, India ….

Known as Hailey National Park when it was first established in 1936, this nature reserve in northern India was renamed in honour of Jim Corbett. A British hunter who felled many Bengal tigers and leopards in India in the early 20th century, Corbett later became a wildlife conservationist. He worked to establish the country’s first national park as a place of protection for its dwindling number of big cats and other endangered species. Today the park covers more than 200 square miles full of dense forests, grasslands, rivers, lakes and naturally, wildlife both great and small

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January 7, 2019 · 11:13 pm

“Putting The World To Write” …. in Galle

An INVITATION to a Writing Event with a Title that is Right

Talk, Tea & Book Launch Wednesday January 16th …. 3- 5 pm Jetwing Lighthouse

The first Galle Literary Festival was launched in 2007 amid the chaos of the Civil War. Despite the bitterness of that war, the festival projected the country onto the arts stage as a serious global literary force and attracted many big literary heroes from around the world, which it continues to do, up to this day, where the tenth anniversary is going to be the most exciting festival yet. There is no better location for it to be held in and around the Galle Fort, a UNESCO world heritage site and modern bastion of protection, both physically as in the tsunami of 2004 and ideologically, for all kinds of people from all kinds of religious backgrounds, all working together for the good of the fort, its people and its visitors.

Donald Trump and …

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December 23, 2018 · 5:44 am

A Pictorial Treat: Mannar Unbound as a Journey through History and Nature

“Mannar Unbound is an invitation for you to delight in the images and history of the region. Importantly, it is also a call for you to empathize with the beauty of the natural world and to contribute towards ensuring that Mannar’s aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems remain free from damage and exploitation as far as possible. It is perhaps an ironic conclusion for a book of photography that its authors hope that future generations may continue to appreciate the natural world without having to resort to photographs as their only witness.”

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November 27, 2018 · 12:11 am

SSS: Scenic SKYE in Scotland

Quiraing, Isle of Skye, Scotland

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October 28, 2018 · 12:10 am

Two Novel Tourist Lodges hit the Headlines via Awards

Item n Sunday Island, 28 October 2019, with this title “Cape Weligama And Wild Coast Tented Lodge in Conde Nast Traveller 2018 reader awards”

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The premier global luxury travel magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, has unveiled the winners of its Readers’ Choice Awards, the longest-running and most prestigious recognition of excellence in the travel industry. The 31st annual Awards ranked the best hotels, resorts, cities, islands, airlines, airports, and cruise lines in the world. Nearly half a million readers rated their travel experiences to provide a full snapshot of where and how we travel today.-https://www.cntraveler.com/readers-choice-awards/asia/asia-top-resorts

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October 12, 2018 · 8:52 am

Where a Drunken Binge generates a Beach Hotel in Tangalle

News Item in Daily News, 10 October 2018, with this title “Newlyweds on honeymoon in Tangalle buy their own hotel”

Gina Lyons and Mark Lee from London, decided to purchase a rustic hotel after drinking rum on the beach while on holiday – and have renamed it ‘Lucky Beach Tangalle’ A pair of newlyweds got so drunk on their honeymoon they bought their own hotel.

Gina 33 and Lee, 35, wed in June 2017 and went on a three week backpacking honeymoon to Sri Lanka in December.During their trip, the London-based couple checked into a rustic hotel on the beach and immediately hit it off with some of the staff members there. On their first night, they took to the beach with several bottles of rum and drank with one of the hotel’s bartenders, where they were told the current lease on the hotel was almost up.

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September 20, 2018 · 10:54 am

Brits and Romanians in Ardent Heritage Work in Romania: The Mihai Eminescu Trust

THE ORIGINS OF THE TRUST  …. http://www.mihaieminescutrust.org/home

The past and the future
Are two sides of one page;
He who learns them will discover
A beginning’s found at the end of an age.
Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889)

The Mihai Eminescu Trust was formed during Ceaușescu’s dictatorship, to help persecuted dissident academics by smuggling in books and journals so that they could keep abreast with the civilisation they had once shared. Our clandestine contacts took us to strange places. In 1987 I visited the lonely mountain hut of Constantin Noica, a much-revered sage who told me the ancient villages around him were facing the imminent threat of “systematisation”—obliteration by bulldozing—to make room for factories and concrete apartment blocks.

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