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I wasn't sure if Sri Lanka was a separate country or more of an Indian province, sort of like Italy's Sicily. I'd always wanted to go to India and odds were that the little tear-shaped island dangling off its southern tip would have that kundalini, curried, eight-armed Kama Sutra sort of vibe. I also liked the Peter Falkian stumbling-onto-the-answer feel that the name Colombo suggested.

That's how I fancied myself -- an adventurer with no more adventures in his bag, a detective with no case and no clue. Sitting in my cubicle, clicking the airline Web site, it was clear that the farther away I could be carted, the better. And so I tapped in my credit card number and off I was on a vast journey to the Land of Ceylon.

As the trip approached, I dutifully researched. The tourist and travel agency literature touted rugged beaches, bug-eyed saber-toothed wooden masks, huge temples carved into cliffs, fishermen silhouetted against the sunset pulling in the day's nets, bright-smiling sun-blackened children holding up colorful trinkets. The usual come-ons, inviting me into a postcard world filled with postcard times and postcard people.

I skimmed some history. It turned out Sri Lanka was indeed its own country. Settled by the Sinhalese, it was soon swept down Buddhism's middle path. Then the Portuguese set up a spice trade and put the island in an economic deadlock. The Dutch helped expel them, only to be colonized, along with everyone else, by the British. The Arabs called Sri Lanka Serendib, from which we get serendipity. How, um, serendipitous that this was my destination.

But soon a dark side to the little island reared its bug-eyed saber-toothed head. As countries mature, one ethnic group always seems to be left in history's dustbin. In Sri Lanka's case, it was the Hindu Tamils. Fed up with unjust laws and inferior rights, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam had been formed. When the LTTE secessionists massacred an army patrol in 1983, they kicked off a wave of looting, mob attacks and eventually, internment camps and ethnic cleansing. Since then, the country had never really settled down. The northern segment is officially at war. I'd booked my vacation to a war zone.

As with any paranoia, I began to see connections where none existed. The Internet is especially useful for finding these psycho-mirages. The more news-group articles I skimmed, the more it seemed as if LTTE separatists staged car bombings so regularly you could set your watch to them. An excerpted chapter from a book titled "Fielding's The World's Most Dangerous Places" told me to avoid men with dark amulets around their necks, dispatched to stab and maim hapless Americans. One posting:

"I thought it would be a peaceful paradise. On my first day I was almost killed in a shootout in Colombo. On the second day I was robbed at gunpoint by an army deserter. Then on the fourth day there was a bomb explosion near my hotel that killed several people. On the fifth day I had canceled my visit and was on a plane back to sanity."

Oh, stop being such a granny, I told my clenched chest. Chin up, you're a New Yorker! The foreboding newsgroup post, my voice of reason assured, sounded more like a Schwarzenegger plot than reality. It must have been planted by an anti-government citizen with rebel sympathies, intent on scaring off precious tourists. Right?

But what about the other messages assuring me in sunny, gooey speak how utterly safe I'd be, how perfect and beautiful every last thing in Sri Lanka was? Weren't those a little too friendly? Wouldn't those have been written by pro-government flunkies eager to suck away my dollars with no cares about whether I lived or died?

This did not bode well -- adventure was great, I was all for it, but this was not the brand of serendipity I had in mind. I tried changing my ticket, just in case. I even tried canceling and getting back most of my dough. But like most good deals, the airline pact was inflexible. I could write it off as a loss or face the sitar music.

And so, off to Colombo I was carted.

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