Can Laura become Miss Sri Lanka?

Laura, from Laughton en le Morthern, will be Ms England in the beauty pageant  final on Sunday.

Twenty ambassadors from across the globe have been touring Sri Lanka to experience charity dinners, street parades, street food markets and cultural events before the final grand pageant.

Organisers hope the event will promote Sri Lanka as a tourist destination and aim to make the beauty contest a regular event.

Laura (28) is already a former Miss Intercontinental England and last year was one of the five winners of Miss Scuba UK.

She travelled to Sri Lanka on February 7 to take part in the Miss Tourism Sri Lanka contest.

Laura said: “We’ve been touring different regions within the country and taking part in activities provided by the sponsors of the event, giving us the opportunity to see the country and also an opportunity to mix with the other contestants, women from all over the world. 

“My time in Sri Lanka began in Colombo with a welcome meeting with the officials and discussion of the itinerary for the following two weeks. The next day the competition got started when we had our first mini pageant, Miss Photographic. We all had professional hair and make-up and dressed in our swimwear provided by sponsors.

“The best photograph will win a prize on the night of the final. That evening a media conference was held at the Hilton, our host venue for the final. 

“The next day we visited Nuwara Eliya which is known as Little England, probably due to the influence of colonial architecture and vast tea tree estates.

“The plush green rolling hills reminded me of the Peak District but on a larger scale, and was of course much warmer.

“I also spotted an old horse racing track.

“In Nuwara Eliya we stayed in a new hotel called The Blackpool Hotel. The weather was cooler there as it’s high up in the hills. The hotel organised many activities for us including learning about tea right from tea plucking to the making of tea, and tea tasting.

“The hotel is heavily involved in the community employing locals and getting fresh ingredients from local businesses and donating to the local schools.

“We visited the oldest school in Nuwara Eliya to donate some books to their library on behalf of the hotel. The children were very excited to meet us and even did a welcome song on our arrival.

“On our final night we had a cheese and wine tasting evening with live musicians and we were all given a personalised gift including a shawl with our name printed on it.

“At each hotel we have had a spectacular welcome with music or dancing and the hospitality and warmth shown to us by the Sri Lankan people has been second to none.

“On another day we arrived in Kandy at Hotel Tree of Life. It seemed to be a very eco-friendly nature resort. I had a cookery class by the poolside.”