For a small island, Sri Lanka has garnered a lot of names - Serendib, Ceylon, Teardrop of India, Resplendent Isle, Island of Dharma, Pearl of the Orient - an accumulation which reveals its richness and beauty, and the intensity of affection which it has evoked in visitors.For centuries it seduced travellers, who returned home with enchanting images of a languorous tropical isle of such deep spirituality and serenity that it entered the Western imagination as a Tahiti of the East