Sri Lanka Again

While my parents were with us for the month of February we took a week off and flew to Sri Lanka for a family holiday.

It was just as perfect, relaxing and amazing as our first time. I highly recommend Sri Lanka for anybody looking for a Bali / Thailand type holiday minus all the commercialisation.

It can be a little hairy.... the lack of road infrastructure left my Dad gripping his seat on the 3 hour drive from Colombo to Bentota and some areas can be a little confronting, but this is a country only a few years out of civil war.

I won't bore you with repeat photographs from our last trip to Sri Lanka, you can find them here and here.

This weekend we are off on a camping trip with friends to the vast desert area known as The Empty Quarter. It is our last chance to spend a weekend outdoors before the heat takes over for the next 8 months.

Piper's snake addiction continues, we met this man on the beach and boy did he have surprises to show us!

As well as the python he had this monkey...

But when he opened the lid on this basket and revealed a cobra we bailed!

This elephant strolled along our hotel beach one day, he was part of a traditional wedding ceremony 100m up the beach

These boys were also part of the wedding celebration and kindly posed for me

Hectic streets of Bentota

Snapshots from Sri Lanka #2

A couple of days ago we visited a turtle research project/sanctuary in Bentota. The sanctuary is not only a hospital and home for injured turtles but raises baby turtles for release to aid in saving the turtle population.
Sadly turtle eggs and turtle shells are still illegally sold in Sri Lanka. Local fisherman collect the newly laid eggs before poachers can get them and sell them to the sanctuary. These eggs are then buried in a caged hatchery on the beach until they are born and then housed in a safe tank until they are old enough to be released back into the sea.
Lucky for us on the day we visited the sanctuary we were invited bakc the following night to particpate in the next turtle release. It was an amazing moment on a beautiful Sri Lankan evening.

Tuk tuk ride to the turtle beach

Time for relaxing

I know I am terrible at making time to relax, but even I was a little surprised when we worked out it has been over 3 years since we last took a real holiday (not revolving around my work or taking the laptop) and that we have never had a real family holiday with all three of us.
Well that is about to change! In just over 2 weeks we are off to Sri Lanka for a weeks holiday. 6 days in Bentota Beach and 1 in Colombo on our way home. I will try and post some updates when we are gone but most likely you will have to wait until our return..... pretty sure Naz is going to ban the laptop from coming.
In the meantime the weather is beautiful in the evenings at the moment and we have been making the most of our big balcony in the evenings to relax.
Piper has no trouble relaxing as you can see below, last night I read her bedtime stories to her while we lounged on the balcony overlooking the pool.