How Sri Lanka is putting its troubled past behind with warm hospitality

'When in Sri Lanka, choose trains', says the author

At any given time, seven friends standing in a row trying to blow their noses in unison would have made for a comic scene. But there, on a palm-lined beach in Unawatuna, Sri Lanka, our earnestness was extreme and surely convincing.  

Our scuba suits, tighter than our skins, were reminders that we had to unlearn the ways of land-dwellers. The nose-blowing technique is one of the keys to surviving a quick trip underwater. Maybe it was the language barrier or just the giddy enthusiasm of first-time divers, but an important rule had been omitted in the briefing session: do not touch