• 001 - the logo.jpg
  • 002 - Hiroshima sunset.jpg
  • 003 - Auschwitz-Birkenau ramp.jpg
  • 004 - Chernobyl contamination.jpg
  • 005 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 006 - Berlin Wall madness.jpg
  • 007 - Bulgaria - monument at the bottom of Buzludzhy park hill.jpg
  • 008 - Ijen crater.jpg
  • 009 - Aralsk, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 010 - Paris catacombs.jpg
  • 011 - Krakatoa.jpg
  • 012 - Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, Hanoi.jpg
  • 013 - Uyuni.jpg
  • 014 - DMZ Vietnam.jpg
  • 015 - Colditz Kopie.jpg
  • 016 - Glasgow Necropolis.jpg
  • 017 - Hashima ghost island.jpg
  • 018 - Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 019 - Arlington.jpg
  • 020 - Karosta prison.jpg
  • 021 - Kamikaze.jpg
  • 022 - Chacabuco ghost town.jpg
  • 023 - Eagle's Nest, Obersalzberg, Berchtesgaden.jpg
  • 024 - Kursk.jpg
  • 025 - Bran castle, Carpathia, Romania.jpg
  • 026 - Bestattungsmuseum Wien.jpg
  • 027 - Pripyat near Chernobyl.jpg
  • 028 - Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 029 - Pyramida Lenin.jpg
  • 030 - Falklands.jpg
  • 031 - Majdanek.jpg
  • 032 - Soufriere volcano, Montserrat.jpg
  • 033 - moai on Easter Island.jpg
  • 034 - Sidoarjo.jpg
  • 035 - Hötensleben.jpg
  • 036 - Natzweiler.jpg
  • 037 - Polygon, Semipalatinsk test site, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 038 - Srebrenica.jpg
  • 039 - Liepaja, Latvia.jpg
  • 040 - Vemork hydroelectric power plant building, Norway.jpg
  • 041 - Enola Gay.jpg
  • 042 - Pentagon 9-11 memorial.jpg
  • 043 - Robben Island prison, South Africa.jpg
  • 044 - Tollund man.jpg
  • 045 - Marienthal tunnel.jpg
  • 046 - Aso, Japan.jpg
  • 047 - Labrador battery Singapore.jpg
  • 048 - Artyom island, Absheron, Azerbaijan.jpg
  • 049 - Treblinka.jpg
  • 050 - Titan II silo.jpg
  • 051 - dosemetering doll, Chernobyl.jpg
  • 052 - Holocaust memorial, Berlin.jpg
  • 053 - Komodo dragon.jpg
  • 054 - cemeterio general, Santiago de Chile.jpg
  • 055 - Tuol Sleng, Phnom Phen, Cambodia.jpg
  • 056 - West Virginia penitentiary.jpg
  • 057 - ovens, Dachau.jpg
  • 058 - Derry, Northern Ireland.jpg
  • 059 - Bulgaria - Buzludzha - workers of all countries unite.jpg
  • 060 - Sachsenhausen.jpg
  • 061 - Tiraspol dom sovietov.jpg
  • 062 - modern-day Pompeii - Plymouth, Montserrat.jpg
  • 063 - Pico de Fogo.jpg
  • 064 - Trinity Day.jpg
  • 065 - Zwentendorf control room.jpg
  • 066 - Wolfschanze.jpg
  • 067 - Hiroshima by night.jpg
  • 068 - mass games, North Korea.jpg
  • 069 - Harrisburg.jpg
  • 070 - Nuremberg.jpg
  • 071 - Mostar.jpg
  • 072 - Tu-22, Riga aviation museum.jpg
  • 073 - Gallipoli, Lone Pine.jpg
  • 074 - Auschwitz-Birkenau - fence.jpg
  • 075 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 076 - Atatürk Mausoleum, Ankara.jpg
  • 077 - Banda Aceh boats.jpg
  • 078 - AMARG.jpg
  • 079 - Chacabuco ruins.jpg
  • 080 - Bucharest.jpg
  • 081 - Bernauer Straße.jpg
  • 082 - Death Railway, Thailand.jpg
  • 083 - Mandor killing fields.jpg
  • 084 - Kozloduy.jpg
  • 085 - Jerusalem.jpg
  • 086 - Latin Bridge, Sarajevo.jpg
  • 087 - Panmunjom, DMZ, Korea.jpg
  • 088 - Ijen blue flames.jpg
  • 089 - Derry reconsilliation monument.jpg
  • 090 - Ebensee.jpg
  • 091 - Mödlareuth barbed wire.jpg
  • 092 - skull heaps in Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 093 - Nikel.jpg
  • 094 - Fukushima-Daiichi NPP.jpg
  • 095 - Tital launch control centre.jpg
  • 096 - Dallas Dealy Plaza and Sixth Floor Museum.jpg
  • 097 - Auschwitz I.jpg
  • 098 - Stalin and Lenin, Tirana, Albania.jpg
  • 099 - Malta, Fort St Elmo.jpg
  • 100 - Peenemünde.jpg
  • 101 - Tarrafal.jpg
  • 102 - Kilmainham prison, Dublin.jpg
  • 103 - North Korea.jpg
  • 104 - Mittelbau-Dora.jpg
  • 105 - St Helena.jpg
  • 106 - Stutthof, Poland.jpg
  • 107 - Merapi destruction.jpg
  • 108 - Chueung Ek killing fields, Cambodia.jpg
  • 109 - Marienborn former GDR border.jpg
  • 110 - Mig and star, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 111 - Nagasaki WWII tunnels.jpg
  • 112 - Hellfire Pass, Thailand.jpg
  • 113 - Kiev.jpg
  • 114 - Grutas Park, Lithuania.jpg
  • 115 - Zwentendorf reactor core.jpg
  • 116 - two occupations, Tallinn.jpg
  • 117 - Trunyan burial site.jpg
  • 118 - Ushuaia prison.jpg
  • 119 - Buchenwald.jpg
  • 120 - Marienthal with ghost.jpg
  • 121 - Murmansk harbour - with an aircraft carrier.jpg
  • 122 - Berlin Olympiastadion.JPG
  • 123 - Bastille Day, Paris.jpg
  • 124 - Spassk.jpg
  • 125 - Theresienstadt.jpg
  • 126 - B-52s.jpg
  • 127 - Bledug Kuwu.jpg
  • 128 - Friedhof der Namenlosen, Vienna.jpg
  • 129 - Auschwitz-Birkenau barracks.jpg
  • 130 - mummies, Bolivia.jpg
  • 131 - Barringer meteor crater.jpg
  • 132 - Murambi, Rwanda.jpg
  • 133 - NTS.jpg
  • 134 - Mauthausen Soviet monument.jpg
  • 135 - pullution, Kazakhstan.JPG
  • 136 - palm oil madness.jpg
  • 137 - Berlin socialist realism.jpg
  • 138 - Okawa school building ruin.jpg
  • 139 - Pawiak, Warsaw.jpg
  • 140 - flying death, military museum Dresden.JPG
  • 141 - KGB gear.JPG
  • 142 - KZ jacket.JPG
  • 143 - ex-USSR.JPG
  • 144 - Indonesia fruit bats.JPG
  • 145 - Alcatraz.JPG
  • 146 - Chernobyl Museum, Kiev, Ukraine.JPG
  • 147 - Halemaumau lava lake glow, Hawaii.JPG
  • 148 - Rosinenbomber at Tempelhof, Berlin.jpg
  • 149 - Verdun, France.JPG
  • 150 - hospital, Vukovar, Croatia.JPG
  • 151 - the original tomb of Napoleon, St Helena.JPG
  • 152 - Buchenwald, Germany.JPG
  • 153 - Bhopal.JPG
  • 154 - Groß-Rosen, Poland.jpg
  • 155 - at Monino, Russia.jpg
  • 156 - blinking Komodo.jpg
  • 157 - inside Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 158 - Mount St Helens, USA.JPG
  • 159 - Maly Trostenec, Minsk, Belarus.jpg
  • 160 - Vucedol skulls, Croatia.JPG
  • 161 - colourful WW1 shells.JPG
  • 162 - Zeljava airbase in Croatia.JPG
  • 163 - rusting wrecks, Chernobyl.JPG
  • 164 - San Bernadine alle Ossa, Milan, Italy.jpg
  • 165 - USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.JPG
  • 166 - Brest Fortress, Belarus.JPG
  • 167 - thousands of bats, Dom Rep.JPG
  • 168 - Hohenschönhausen, Berlin.JPG
  • 169 - Perm-36 gulag site.JPG
  • 170 - Jasenovac, Croatia.JPG
  • 171 - Beelitz Heilstätten.JPG
  • 172 - Kremlin, Moscow.jpg
  • 173 - old arms factory, Dubnica.JPG
  • 174 - Pervomaisc ICBM base, more  missiles, including an SS-18 Satan.jpg
  • 175 - Cellular Jail, Port Blair.jpg
  • 177 - control room, Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 178 - Podgorica, Montenegro, small arms and light weapons sculpture.jpg
  • 179 - Vught.jpg
  • 180 - Japanese cave East Timor.jpg
  • 181 - Ani.jpg
  • 182 - Indonesia wildfire.jpg
  • 183 - Chacabuco big sky.jpg
  • 184 - Bunker Valentin, Germany.JPG
  • 185 - Lest we Forget, Ypres.JPG
  • 186 - the logo again.jpg

Sri Lanka

  
The "Island of Gems", and indeed a true gem for tourism too. Sometimes described as India in miniature – and without the faults. That's not quite true, of course, as Sri Lanka has its faults too, but a certain affinity with India is obvious, in culture, cuisine and colonial history.
 
In addition, the country was plagued by an ongoing internal conflict, the decades-long war between the northern liberation army of the Tamil Tigers and the government forces. This used to make travel to certain parts of the country too risky for tourists. But that has changed meanwhile. The government side won the decisive battles in 2008-2009 and the defeated Tamil Tigers now seem to be history – whether for good or not, remains to be seen, but the situation does appear quite stable now.
  
In fact, the end of the civil war and the opening up of the areas formerly closed-off to tourism, namely northern and eastern parts of the country, have also given intrepid dark tourists a fascinating new territory to explore. This is hence given its own new separate entry here:
  
  
  
I haven't been able to check out these sites myself yet. I will have to return to the country before long to do so (meanwhile I'm relying on reports by others and on photos I've seen). When I travelled to the country for the first time in December/January 2006/2007, the conflict was still an uneasy defining characteristic of the country, even though the southern half, where I went, was mostly quite safe. However, there were also Tamil Tiger terrorist attacks in those parts of the country. In fact at that time terrorism entered a new phase in that the strategy of targeting mainly the military and/or politicians was changed to what sadly is the prevailing tendency in terrorism worldwide these days: targeting innocent civilians. In early January 2007 two regional buses were bombed and dozens killed. It was a depressing development – and a depressing sight: on our way back to the airport in Colombo we passed the charred wreck of one of those buses. But as I said - these threats now seem to be over and even the north has opened up for travellers and has remained peaceful since the end of the civil war.
 
A few years earlier, Sri Lanka was also in the headlines for a very different kind of tragedy, a natural one – indeed the worst natural disaster in living history: the tsunami of Christmas 2004, which hit the entire Indian Ocean region. In Sri Lanka, damage was naturally worst along the eastern and southern coast. A couple of memorial sites have sprung up, including the two picked out below, but there are more, including various monuments and a couple of museum exhibitions (photos mostly).
 
  
  
   
These dark sites will for most tourists remain mere side trips or short stopovers, though. Most visitors are here to savour the natural, culinary and cultural delights of this marvellous country.
 
The colonial legacy is still particularly palpable in the highlands where tea plantations dominate the scenery. Culturally, Sri Lanka has a wealth of ancient sights to offer that is breathtaking. The "8th wonder of the world", the temple rock of Sigiriya is just the most famous highlight.
 
And the cuisine – well, for those who, like me, like it spicy, fresh and vegetarian, Sri Lanka is paradise and easily trumps any other cuisine in the world (cf. food & drink). That alone is reason to travel to this lovely country. It's also an opportunity to pick up some of the famed spices – cinnamon in particular. The Sri Lankan variety is the real thing – and far superior to that cassia crap from Indonesia or China that is mostly sold as 'cinnamon' in the West and that too many people erroneously believe is what cinnamon is like …
 
To get to Sri Lanka as a tourist there really isn't an alternative to flying. There's only one international airport, north of Colombo, infamously known as the worst part of the entire Sri Lanka tourist experience – although it's not quite as bad as it sounds … Many flights go via the Maldives or Dubai.
  
Travelling as a tourist within Sri Lanka is easiest, safest and least time-consuming by car – not self-driven, as navigating would be near impossible for foreigners. But together with a driver/guide. It's not as expensive as it sounds. For me it also had the added bonus that at the various places we stayed at our driver/guide successfully convinced the cooks that my wife and I really wanted the genuine Sri Lankan cuisine at the full original spice-level ... as in Thailand, they otherwise naturally assume that all Westerners need it watered down and bland; it takes some persuading to get them to believe otherwise …
  
You can of course save money by using public transport (mainly buses and tuc-tucs, also a few train lines) but that can be time-consuming and uncomfortable.
 
For accommodation, you can again get away cheaply in basic guest houses, but there's also a wonderful range of extremely cool places at comparatively affordable rates.  
 
The experts I can recommend are the UK-based specialist operator Experience Travel Group (sponsored page). They can tailor any kind of trip for you – and they know the best places to stay in, some of which you wouldn't come across on your own. Some of the places organized by them ended up in my all-time favourite hotels/accommodations list!  
 
 
  • Sri Lanka - SigiryaSri Lanka - Sigirya
  • Sri Lanka 01 - KandalamaSri Lanka 01 - Kandalama
  • Sri Lanka 02 - sunset over Kandalama tankSri Lanka 02 - sunset over Kandalama tank
  • Sri Lanka 03 - on top of SigiryaSri Lanka 03 - on top of Sigirya
  • Sri Lanka 04 - jungle view from top of SigiryaSri Lanka 04 - jungle view from top of Sigirya
  • Sri Lanka 05 - monkeys at SigiryaSri Lanka 05 - monkeys at Sigirya
  • Sri Lanka 06 - Plonnaruwa, Rankot VeharaSri Lanka 06 - Plonnaruwa, Rankot Vehara
  • Sri Lanka 07 - Buddhas galore at DambullaSri Lanka 07 - Buddhas galore at Dambulla
  • Sri Lanka 08 - the road below DambullaSri Lanka 08 - the road below Dambulla
  • Sri Lanka 09 - Gal Viharaya seated Buddha and monkeysSri Lanka 09 - Gal Viharaya seated Buddha and monkeys
  • Sri Lanka 10 - closed stairway to heavenSri Lanka 10 - closed stairway to heaven
  • Sri Lanka 11 - pleaSri Lanka 11 - plea
  • Sri Lanka 12 - Kandy, Temple of the ToothSri Lanka 12 - Kandy, Temple of the Tooth
  • Sri Lanka 13 - the last regal elephant, now stuffedSri Lanka 13 - the last regal elephant, now stuffed
  • Sri Lanka 14 - palm trees in Kandy botanical gardensSri Lanka 14 - palm trees in Kandy botanical gardens
  • Sri Lanka 15 - tea plantation country near Nuwara-EliyaSri Lanka 15 - tea plantation country near Nuwara-Eliya
  • Sri Lanka 16 - Knuckles mountainsSri Lanka 16 - Knuckles mountains
  • Sri Lanka 17 - wobbly bridgeSri Lanka 17 - wobbly bridge
  • Sri Lanka 18 - tree house and paddy fieldsSri Lanka 18 - tree house and paddy fields
  • Sri Lanka 19 - paddy fields from the airSri Lanka 19 - paddy fields from the air
  • Sri Lanka 20 - seaplaneSri Lanka 20 - seaplane
  • Sri Lanka 21 - dragonflySri Lanka 21 - dragonfly
  • Sri Lanka 22 - Yala monitor lizardSri Lanka 22 - Yala monitor lizard
  • Sri Lanka 23 - elephantSri Lanka 23 - elephant
  • Sri Lanka 24 - elephant rock, YalaSri Lanka 24 - elephant rock, Yala
  • Sri Lanka 25 - coastal dwelling near GalleSri Lanka 25 - coastal dwelling near Galle
  • Sri Lanka 26 - Indian OceanSri Lanka 26 - Indian Ocean
  • Sri Lanka 27 - glorious foodSri Lanka 27 - glorious food
  • Sri Lanka 28 - lillies and bananas still lifeSri Lanka 28 - lillies and bananas still life
 
  
   
   
   
   

© dark-tourism.com, Peter Hohenhaus 2009-2023

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