A travel columnist for Funchal Notícias returns to Sri Lanka 32 years after his first visit, at a time when the country is very different from the height of its armed conflict.
Since the end of the civil war in 2009, areas once inaccessible or dangerous have opened to tourism, with near-deserted beaches, well-preserved ancient temples and lush nature. The itinerary includes Colombo, the capital, and Kandy, as well as the so-called Cultural Triangle, the tea mountains and the north and east of the island.
The piece also recalls the roots of the conflict between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority, which led to the founding of the Tamil Tigers in 1976 and a war that ended in May 2009.
