SRI LANKA SAFARI!

 

Going on Safari! The boys had binoculars around their necks, I had on my safari hat, we were ready!

 

We drove out to the Minneriya National Park in Sri Lanka's north central province. The road was bumpy, the sun hot, the jeep lurching

but the surroundings were gorgeous.  Big palu trees, dry grass and shrubbery.

 

As we wound around we saw water buffalo here

 

 

white cranes there, snakes in the grass, monkeys in the trees

 

and "oh look! a crocodile" 

 

But the highlight was definitely as we drove around the lake and saw a gathering of a hundred elephants in the distance across the water. It was incredible. A beautiful sight. 

 

We got closer and closer and couldn't believe our eyes. 

We only saw one with long tusks. There were lots of babies. This group in the picture above crossed the path in a fast trot, adults all surrounding the babies. Then walked slowly again once they were a distance away. 

Gage kept saying, "Wow! Wow! Look! This is amazing!" And Noah filled us in on all the facts, "Not all the male elephants have tusks, Mom, only 7%" he says. "You know they eat 150kg of plants a day," he says. "Asian elephants are smaller than African elephants," he says. Giving him wikipedia pages about Sri Lanka to read at bedtime turned him in to the best guide ever.  

Sybil LOVED getting out of the jeep to see the elephants. She wanted to get closer and closer. "Hi elephant!" "Bye bye elephant!" "Look Daddy!" "Look!" 

Then at one point the elephants all started walking towards us so our guide hurried us back into the jeep and we drove farther away. 

It truly was amazing. We could have stayed out there all day long just watching them. There is something so majestic about their grand size and motions. No wonder they are such an iconic figure in all of south east Asia.

 

Our guide was wonderful. Everywhere we went the people wanted to hold Sybil. She tolerated it, mostly. Never cried but just had this look on her face. 

SRI LANKA Sigiriya swim

The list of things I want my kids to learn from travelling all over Asia is quite long - to be open minded, to know the world is big, to love learning new things, to try new things, to be confident, to be compassionate, to be grateful, to be aware, to think globally.

"To see the world is to know where you are." 

My mind was full of this list as I sat and watched them swimming in the hotel pool with Sigiriya Rock towering in the background. 

I hope the kids will remember visiting Sri Lanka. I hope they will remember that cultures and countries are different from each other. And that's ok. 

And I also hope they'll remember our time spent as a family. Jumping off the side of the pool and wrestling with each other. 

How Gage makes the funniest frowny faces. 

And how Sybil only wanted Noah to swim with her "NOAH! NOAH!" 

I hope they'll remember. Because it was a blast. 

Every time Sybil saw a monkey in the tree she'd run to Daddy "Look! A monkey in the tree!" They would scamper across the roof and into the trees. We had to be careful where we ate our curry and rice.

Noah did not want me to take this picture, but he loved played with this chess set. 

SRI LANKA tea

Sri Lanka has gorgeous hill country covered in tea plantations.We weren't able to make it there, but we stopped at a small tea factory on our drive to the coast. 

Our guide carried Sybil as he explained the processing of their hand picked tea - the drying, sorting, fermenting, oxidating. The kids loved pushing the big red buttons on the loud machines. 

We tried a snack out in the garden. 

SRI LANKA Bentota beach

It was quite a drive to get from Sigiriya down to Bentota on the southern coast of Sri Lanka. But it was worth it.



We stayed here for a couple of days buying beach sarongs and tshirts from the vendors, digging holes and building sand  forts.

The boys always have an awesome game to create. 

Curry and rice with papadams never got old.

 

 

  

 

We stayed on the beach even when the storm clouds rolled by

 

 

 

 

 

SRI LANKA Bentota

A few days in Bentota was like a dream. A perfect break from the hiking and sightseeing (because we all know that is not easy with kids - so much fun, but not easy).

Sybil learned how to spray water at Daddy and thought it was the funniest thing. 

The boys made new friends. "Where are they from?" I asked. "I don't know, Mom, he said his dad is from Spain and his mom is from Sri Lanka and they live in Dubai." 

Before bed we'd watch Indian cartoons - Akbar and Bibal, and Tenali Raman ("the wittiest jester in the land" - that theme song may be permanently stuck in my head). But Noah's favorite was 1001 Nights.