“I am really mad,” says Ena de Silva. It is the kind of timeless mad that enchants you. That you obsess over during a four-hour drive back home from Matale to Colombo. At 88, she is one of the youngest people you could ever meet, seeming to have the heart and soul of a twenty- year-old.

Since the millennium Sri Lankans have been bitten by the travel bug- outbound traffic from Sri Lanka has almost doubled. Recent statistics show that 43 % Sri Lanka’s outbound traffic is to Bangkok and other destinations in South East Asia. With Lankan travellers now looking beyond Bangkok for their family vacation, Thai tourism authorities have introduced two new destinations in Thailand close to the capital Bangkok.