Tours are available to travellers on a holiday with Ampersand Travel , which offers a range of itineraries to Sri Lanka. Eight-night holidays cost from £1,920, including flights, accommodation, plus car and driver.• 020 7289 6100, ampersandtravel.co.uk

Tell your story

" There is some special about this beautiful Island. You find mountains higher than Norway's highest Mountain Gahopiggen. You walk upto pme pf them in the middle of the night among pilgrims from 4 different religions. The island is green from the palm trees to the ocean, throughout the junglebelt up to thetea plantations at 2000 metres above sea level. This is where King Solomon allegedly got his sapphires and peacock feathers from. Papaya and pepper grows in the wild and paradise birds fly over leopards and wild elephants. And it is all surrounded by endless white beaches and palm trees and slow waves where five of the world's seven ocean turtle species lay their eggs. The price level is very low. Trains and buses leave often, to almost everywhere. - Sverre Tom Radoy was meant5 to work as an aid worker in Sri Lanka. Check his book - Travels in Sri Lanka - Norway's tropical island.

quote by Arthur C Clarke on Small Miracle

" The island of Ceylon is a small universe; it contains as many variations of culture, scenery, and climate as some countries a dozen times its size. But if you are interested in people, history, nature, and art - the things that really matter - you may find, as I have, that a lifetime is not enough." (Clarke in The View from Serendib, 1977)