{"id":86041,"date":"2013-05-07T03:17:51","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T21:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=86041"},"modified":"2013-05-11T00:26:38","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T18:56:38","slug":"sri-lanka-island-in-the-storm-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lanka-island-in-the-storm-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka: Island In The Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\">Ruaridh Nicoll<\/a><\/span> &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_86043\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lanka-island-in-the-storm-2\/ruaridh_nicoll_140x140\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-86043\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-86043\" class=\"size-full wp-image-86043\" title=\"ruaridh_nicoll_140x140\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/ruaridh_nicoll_140x140.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/ruaridh_nicoll_140x140.jpg 140w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/ruaridh_nicoll_140x140-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 140px) 100vw, 140px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-86043\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ruaridh Nicoll<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Sri Lanka has the hotels, the food, the climate and the charm to\u00a0offer the perfect holiday, says Ruaridh Nicoll. It&#8217;s just a pity about the increasingly despotic government.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;so are you a Buddhist?&#8221; I ask the driver.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No, I am Hindu.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Oh, so you&#8217;re a Tamil?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am a Tamil,&#8221; the driver says, and then shouts: &#8220;BUT I AM NOT A\u00a0TERRORIST!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka\u00a0is\u00a0<em>the<\/em>\u00a0travel destination of 2013, at least according to the travel industry. After decades of war, peace is opening up the northern reaches of the wondrous isle off the tip of India. British Airways has just created a route to Colombo via the Maldives. Set against this (although not affecting visitor numbers) is\u00a0Sri Lanka&#8217;s increasingly brutal government. The\u00a0Rajapaksa\u00a0family is tightening its grip. The Tamils are cowed. Even\u00a0Sarath Fonseka, the former general credited with beating the Tigers (and accused of killing 40,000), has found his bid for political power stymied.<\/p>\n<p>Read more in \u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/travel\/2013\/may\/05\/island-storm-trip-sri-lanka\">The Observe<\/a>r<\/span>\u00a0UK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":86043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sri Lanka: Island In The Storm - 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