Better late than never.
I spent this New Year and russian Orhodox Christmas at beautiful Sri Lanka (Ceylon) island. Some photos from this travel are posted on my Flickr account. Weather was really great (but unsually rainy for this time of year on the south-west side of island) - especially if you compare it with Moscow weather in January (60 degrees difference ;-).
This time we visit nearly every part of this wonderful country - from Nuware Eliya to ex-capital Kandy, to Dambula, to the 8th wonder of the World in Sigiriya (btw the famous The Bridge on The River Kwai that Anton Antich visited this year is actually was filmed at this place ;-).
But the real motive for this post is the difference that free education and medical help have for ordinary people. May be you didn't know, but Sri Lanka is Democratic Socialist Republic and for this matter they have free of charge education (inc. and medical help for all people. And it works - I'm comparing impressions with our travel to Goa (the richest state in India after all) and from my point of view ordinary people are much happier, there're no such obvious diversity and economic growth is visible. And even after terrible tsunami that happened last year (down this railroad) they didn't give up and are building their small businesses - and I wish them good luck.