Sri Lanka Part I

Once upon a time, we went to Sri Lanka for spring break. Ken's dad came with us, and looking at our odds of 3 adults for 5 kids, we felt pretty excited about the whole thing. However, as always seems to happen on these family vacations, things started to go wrong as soon as we arrived at the airport. Our flight was delayed and there was A LOT of confusion about the fact that 3 members of our party were named "William." We ended up not leaving until around midnight. Two of the kids were asleep before we even left.

See that look of uncertainty - yep, I was starting to have some doubts about the whole thing...

BUT, things started to look up after we landed! Our oh so nice and helpful guide found us, and we were immediately impressed by all of the beautiful green vegetation surrounding us (well, things didn't immediately turn sunny for all of us - poor Owen wants to know what we've dragged him into…)

The first day in a country is always thrilling I think. There are so many exciting new sounds, smells, and sights. We grew to love seeing these tuk tuks, and kept count of how many different colored ones we saw during all of our many car trips.

Traffic was a pleasant kind of orderly chaos - seemed like someone was always driving towards us in our lane, and weaving in and out of traffic - cars, buses, tuk tuks, motorcycles, bikes and pedestrians. But our drivers managed it with such ease and confidence that I rarely ever feared for our lives :)

We started our trip in Negombo, a fishing village right on the coast.

This is our villa Ken found for us, right on a lagoon. Plenty of space, beautiful landscaping, and a pool!

The kids like to watch the wildlife in the lagoon.

That first day felt long, since some of us didn't sleep on the plane all night, and then it was morning when we arrived in Sri Lanka. I walked into a bedroom to drop off a suitcase and found Tyler and Hailey like this

Nothing a swim couldn't cure!

The kids were fascinated by the mango and coconut trees, and also all of the little fish ponds around our villa.

Our first night, there was a HUGE thunderstorm. It was exciting for the first minute, then as the power kept flickering and Owen climbed out of the pack and play in fear and all the kids huddled together wondering what this strange thing called "heavy rains" was and the second level of the villa completely and absolutely flooded, some of the novelty wore off. Lucky for us, we have unquenchable adventure spirits. And unlimited towels. And things worked out :) This picture is of the trees in the lightening.

The mornings were always bright and sunny. We went to one of the fish markets along the beach, and saw them drying out all kinds of fish. It smelled like nothing I can describe, but was interesting to see!

Tyler was afraid Owen would touch the fish - he shouldn't have worried, Owen wasn't so sure about all these people calling out to him and telling him to come see them :)

Lots of colorful produce! Some we recognized, some we didn't… Our guide Sudu was great about having us try them and telling us their names.

The boys in front of some jack fruit.

Hailey making friends.

Tyler wanted to know how much everything was. He had some money in his pocket from Grandpa, just burning a hole!

We took a ride on a local train. It was hot, bumpy, and fun. Some of the houses were built almost right on the track! It seemed we could just stick our hands out the windows and touch them, probably because in most cases we could have...

Hailey made a friend. She did that a lot :)

Owen waved to every cow, tuk tuk and person he saw. He LOVES trains right now, and couldn't get over his excitement at actually being on one.

From there, we went on a river safari. The trees were beautiful. We also spotted lots of water monitors, which look kind of like crocodiles. Some of them were pretty big, and they were fast swimmers.

The boys, on the look out for water monitors.

Tyler and Will each got a chance to drive the boat too!

Each evening, it was nice to unwind at the villa, let the kids run around, and eat amazing dinners prepared by our cook. Yep. A personal cook. It truly was a vacation for me :) The kids weren't so sure about all the curries, but I tell you, it was magical.

I didn't take any other pictures of the food, but this was a traditional Sri Lankan breakfast I asked our wonderful cook to make for us, at the suggestion of our driver, and it was delicious. There was always lots of fresh fruit too.

More traffic shots - a bullock delivering firewood.

Rice paddies.

A coconut factory, where they take apart coconuts and make them into things. They use every part of the coconut!

Our first Hindu temple! It was interesting, with lots of statues and bright colors, although the ceremonies they were having involved lots of incense which made it hard for the kids to want to stay inside for very long. And we were in bare feet and the pavement was blistering hot, so we had a quick look around :)

Picture with Sudu, a great guide!

Owen was mostly fascinated by all of the cows. Here, he had just spotted one coming our way.

We needed something cold to cool us down, so Ken found some drinks for the kids. Fresh apple juice with Neapolitan ice-cream anyone?! I passed...

Owen wanted to sit with Sudu and our driver. Probably because they let him get away with more things than we did!

Everyone loved Colby. They were fascinated with his chubbiness, his smiles, and his pale skin. Colby just loved that people were holding him :)

The excitement, as we headed off on our first ever jungle safari, was almost palpable. We ended up being out for 4 hours, and not even Owen complained. Everyone was too busy trying to spot the hard to find leopards. While we didn't up seeing any, we still saw plenty to keep us happy.

Sudu was AMAZING at spotting animals, and stopped us next to this hawk eagle eating a recently caught snake. We were right next to him, and probably watched him for about 10 minutes in absolute silence as he made quick work of the unfortunate snake. So cool.

Lots of bright birds.

This is what the path looked like.

Our first wild elephant sighting!

Deer

We had some rain, but then in cleared off for a magnificent sunset.

One morning, we woke up to find some teenage boys climbing up the trees and shaking down coconuts. The kids rushed to help collect them. I thought it was cool until they told me that they do this after it rains, then gather the fallen ones because the scorpions get knocked out of the trees. Get your shoes on kids! And if you are wondering, yes, I found one, but when we were out and about. I love nature…

We wanted to experience a tuk tuk ride, so we got one to go to the beach. Well, we got two, but we crammed into this one for a picture :)

On our way to the beach, we asked the tuk tuk driver to stop at a hair salon so that all the boys could get hair cuts. We caused quite a stir (OK, well, that happened whenever we went anywhere in Sri Lanka - I felt like a celebrity as everyone asked me if they were all my kids then gave me a thumbs up, not the reaction I usually get in the US)

The beach was beautiful. The kids were a little apprehensive, since not many of the beaches here in Abu Dhabi have waves. They had a great time though and we built some pretty sweet sand castles.

Owen was more concerned about what type of snacks we had brought with us to the beach. Never fear, there were plenty of oreos to calm everyone's hunger pangs!

Colby, staying out of the sun and playing under the palm trees :) The day after this, we left our villa and headed off to the far away jungles of Kandy.