Kalkudah & Pasikudah Sri Lanka
These spectacular back-to-back beaches, 34km north of Batticaloa, present as stark a juxtaposition as you could imagine.
On one side of a narrow peninsula, the breathtaking white sands of sickle-shaped Passekudah beach are being developed as a kind of mini-Cancun, a government-driven 'Special Economic Zone' with 14 luxury hotels ultimately planned to ring the bay. Fishermen have also been ordered to move their boats away from the main beach. Sure, it's a glorious stretch of sand, but for the next few years the immediate surrounds are a mess, resembling a building site, as edifices in various stages of construction emerge from scrubland.