I hardly find any contact, be it people contact, or cultural contact, or tourism between the various South Asian ( SAF ) countries even though we all have common history, food, religion etc and were all influenced by Colonial hegemony.

So this thread is for forumers to discuss & share their thoughts from thier own country, showcase to Sri Lankans what their country has to offer to Sri Lankans, or ask questions about Sri Lanka itself and for Sri Lankan forumers to showcase or discuss about Sri Lanka that is South Aisa specific be it in the region of :

Tourism
Travel
History
Economy
Cultural ties
Religion etc
Sports ( ahem..cricket )
Photos

This is more like a ONE STP THREAD.. where your country aswell as your querries about Sri Lanka can be put forward. If you are interested in a more specific detailed interest then you can always browse through the several topic specific threads in the forum for better understanding.

This is not necessarily for South Asians only, its for everyone but the emphasis is for this region's forumers to bring people closer. I will also make it a point to advertise this thread in other forums and see if we can get more participation too.

Note : Please note, tihs thread is not for political or military discussion or heated argument but more to encourage peopel contact, cultural and historic ties.

let me start by posting the UL route map..

http://son.stellatravel.com.au/fileupload/files/media/971/images/SriLankan/New%20route%20map.jpg

* old route map* now the code share with Emirates is gone and a few distinations dropped... but what is evident is... there are hardly any flights between SL and Bangladesh, Nepal or Bhutan, Myanmar etc

Just wnna say Hello to start with :)

one thing... I think it would be great to start a skybar in "South Asia" instead of individual country threads

Just wnna say Hello to start with :)

one thing... I think it would be great to start a skybar in "South Asia" instead of individual country threads

and hello to you :cheers:

well, we did have a South Asian forum long time ago, but it didnt work well. We also now have a Asian Skybazaar, and it is hardly active.

Most forumers are happy to stick to thier country forums.

Anyways this thread is not really a South Asian thread, but more of a thread for others to interact with Sri Lankans about Sri Lanka, cultural ties of Sri Lanka with your country, or to share information about your country to Sri Lankans. So I think the thread s in the right forum ! :)

* old route map* now the code share with Emirates is gone and a few distinations dropped... but what is evident is... there are hardly any flights between SL and Bangladesh, Nepal or Bhutan, Myanmar etc

Notably most of the destinations which UL fly to have a large Sri Lankan expatriate community like Saudi Arabia or Italy. Maybe it isn't viable to fly to Nepal or Bhutan yet or there isn't enough fleet to service those routes as well. Bangladesh might be viable since there is a large population but I'm not sure.

Notably most of the destinations which UL fly to have a large Sri Lankan expatriate community like Saudi Arabia or Italy. Maybe it isn't viable to fly to Nepal or Bhutan yet or there isn't enough fleet to service those routes as well. Bangladesh might be viable since there is a large population but I'm not sure.

you are ofcoure right. But here are some realistic options to connect more South Asian destinations with Colombo. ie. Colombo-Delhi-Lahore. Colombo-Kolkata-Dhaka. Colombo-Dhaka-Shanghai. I am not sure if India and Bangladesh allows UL to transit though. But there already is a route from Colombo to Karachi vie Mumbai..

you are ofcoure right. But here are some realistic options to connect more South Asian destinations with Colombo. ie. Colombo-Delhi-Lahore. Colombo-Kolkata-Dhaka. Colombo-Dhaka-Shanghai. I am not sure if India and Bangladesh allows UL to transit though. But there already is a route from Colombo to Karachi vie Mumbai..

Yes, that could be a good idea, there is a Bangladeshi airline called "Best Air" which apparently launched flights to Colombo and Male last year.

http://www.bestairbd.com/news.html

I don't know if they are still flying to Colombo and the reason they stopped if they did but now there could be a market for Colombo-Dhaka route for UL or Colombo-Male-Dhaka.

Some tourism stats that makes this thread more relevent...

Asia continues to be the single largest source of tourism to Sri Lanka for the second consecutive year amounting to about 39.5% of all tourists.

Asia - 39.5%
Western Europe - 38.1%
Eastern Europe - 6.7%
North America - 5.5%
Australasia - 4.9%
Middle East - 3.8%

In 2008, India continues to be the leading producer of tourism to Sri Lanka with 85,238 arrivals, accounting to 19.4% of the total traffic.

http://www.sltbstatistics.org/Hand%20billa%20copy.pdf

thanx for opening such thread, will try to post soon :)

Nice initiative. Now I have a question for any forumer from india that might post here.

How feasible would it be to drive from the southern corner of india into nepal and through nepal into tibet (if we manage to get the access there that is) and finally onto china. I'm specially interested about the security situation in the indian states near nepal, since we've being hearing some disturbing stuff.

Thanks in advance.

Namaste Srilanka..:)

right so what kind of food do they eat in sri lanka? what are the major political parties? what kind of entertainment is their?

Namaste Srilanka..:)

right so what kind of food do they eat in sri lanka? what are the major political parties? what kind of entertainment is their?

right Jodhpur banna, are you trying to run for elections in Sri Lanka next time ? :D ;)

Nice initiative. Now I have a question for any forumer from india that might post here.

How feasible would it be to drive from the southern corner of india into nepal and through nepal into tibet (if we manage to get the access there that is) and finally onto china. I'm specially interested about the security situation in the indian states near nepal, since we've being hearing some disturbing stuff.

Thanks in advance.

drive ?? its a loong way.. omg. But yes some people do do that but personally I dont think that would be a good idea. Ideally I would suggest you travel by a mix of buses and trains, sit back and enjoy the countryside as it passes. Driving might be too strenuous especially in a foreign country !

..and the roads are crazy and dangerous in the mountains of India & Nepal, I can assure you from my recent trip to Kashmir.

can anyone say apart from flight charges how much it will cost to cover all places in srilanka(inc stay,food etcc)

drive ?? its a loong way.. omg. But yes some people do do that but personally I dont think that would be a good idea. Ideally I would suggest you travel by a mix of buses and trains, sit back and enjoy the countryside as it passes. Driving might be too strenuous especially in a foreign country !

..and the roads are crazy and dangerous in the mountains of India & Nepal, I can assure you from my recent trip to Kashmir.


No I don't mean alone, that would be insanity :lol: We've (4 people) wanted to drive through asia for a while now since it'll probably give us a better chance to explore the countries taking our own sweet time.

When I was about 10 or so, my family rented this suv type vehicle and travelled quite a distance around india and that was great. (the other 3 also has similar fond memories of road trips) Granted that there was a local driver to get us from one point to the other without getting lost, but I still think it'll be fun to drive through at least India and Nepal.

Also natarajan1986,
You can do that easily under 100$ a day, Someone else could be more exact.

No I don't mean alone, that would be insanity :lol: We've (4 people) wanted to drive through asia for a while now since it'll probably give us a better chance to explore the countries taking our own sweet time.

When I was about 10 or so, my family rented this suv type vehicle and travelled quite a distance around india and that was great. (the other 3 also has similar fond memories of road trips) Granted that there was a local driver to get us from one point to the other without getting lost, but I still think it'll be fun to drive through at least India and Nepal.

Also natarajan1986,
You can do that easily under 100$ a day, Someone else could be more exact.

hmm, interesting idea on paper but I am not sure how feasible it will be. I am not sure if there are long term car hires which you can rent at one city and return in another.. unless you are thinking of buying a car and reselling it at the end of the journey ! India is not yet US lol

But yes the route can be amazing and possibly cheaper than train travel if it is 4 of you ! how long holiday have you got ? looking by it a lot, you must be one of those lucky few who can take long vacations !

right Jodhpur banna, are you trying to run for elections in Sri Lanka next time ? :D ;)

:lol:

oooh fusi banna I'm not too sure if sri lankans would like an indian political figure... but yeah political parties help a lot in understanding a country...

:lol:

oooh fusi banna I'm not too sure if sri lankans would like an indian political figure... but yeah political parties help a lot in understanding a country...

There are two major parties, Sri Lanka Freedom Party and United National Party. Then there are many other smaller parties, Tamil parties, Muslim parties, a few communist parties and a green party for the environment.

okay what about celebrities? are cricketers the most famous or actors?

@Fusionist:

You mentioned in Bangladesh sub-forum that the service quality has dropped off and that UL is experiencing a lot of operational issues and had to drop some routes in its network. Do you know any specifics? I'm curios since that doesn't appear to be a natural progression of an organization. Many airlines, particularly in south and southeast Asia got started under the stewardship of an established airline but when the "training wheels" came off, they did not stumble, rather went on to do nicely on their own. Two examples come to mind: Thai International under the tutelage of SAS and Garuda, under the the wings of KLM. Although, Garuda managed to shoot itself on its feet while back and trying to recover, since.

So what is going wrong at UL? Hasn't the management learned the tricks of the trade while working with EK? Don't they have some mature and efficient personnel who were trained by EK?

Deleted

Aryan Cargo plans foreign connections (http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_aryan-cargo-plans-foreign-connections_1319409)

Aryan Cargo Express, a dedicated cargo airline, will begin international operations from the first quarter of 2010. Initially, the company would operate within Asia and Europe with four Airbus 310-300F aircraft before moving on to using Airbus 330-200F planes. Aryan will treat the Saarc countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Afghanistan) as one market, providing connectivity within the bloc with Southeast Asia, China, West Asia, the CIS and European countries in the first phase.

Right now, GR Gopinath's Deccan 360 is the only other dedicated Indian cargo airline in an industry dominated by multinational companies such as Blue Dart and DHL. As India recovers from an economic slowdown, domestic air freight has been growing in double digits year-on-year since May, compared with a contraction between October last year and March, according to data released by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).

Overseas freight has also started growing marginally since August. AAI expects local cargo movement to grow by 5% this fiscal and overseas cargo by 2%. Although the civil aviation ministry has granted licences to a clutch of firms to ferry air cargo since 2007, none have started services as an unprecedented global financial crisis and recession in developed markets dampened demand. The only exception was Deccan 360, which began operations earlier this year.