COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Foreign visitors to Sri Lanka have been singing its praises since the days of Marco Polo. From sacred Buddhist ruins and magnificent sculptures to gorgeous beaches and the verdant hills of the tea estates, this is an island that has much to offer in a relatively small area. Wandering mendicants, monks and pilgrims attest to spiritual inclinations amid the resplendent attractions; unlike tourist sites such as Angkor in Cambodia or Borobodur in Indonesia, here ancient religious complexes are still embedded in the fabric of the local community.
One searches in vain for superlatives that do justice to this earthly paradise, yet few tourists visit because of the nearly two decades of civil war that have claimed more than 60,000 lives. A lull in fighting last year between the government and the Tamil Tigers, known by their acronym LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), led to an encouraging recovery in tourism, but this came to an abrupt halt in July when the LTTE carried out a suicide attack on the international airport north of the capital, Colombo.
Recent developments, though, offer some hope for a brighter future. Last month the new government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose United National Party narrowly unseated President Chandrika Kumaratunga's People's Alliance in the December elections by promising peace to the war-weary nation, signed a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire with the LTTE. People's desire for an end to the conflict is palpable and was expressed with alacrity and sincerity in random conversations with locals met on a recent visit.