Saturday 13 August 2016

Sri Lanka

Hello there! Long time, no see! We have just returned from our family holiday to sunny Sri Lanka and very lovely it was too. We saw more wildlife than you could shake a stick at, walked on beautiful sandy beaches, learned to windsurf (well, the girls did anyway!), ate LOTS of curry, rice and fruit and challenged my acrophobia by climbing Sigirya rock. We took hundreds of photos and here are just a few of them:

Sunset at Negombo beach - we stayed here for a couple of days at the beginning and end of the holiday as it was near the airport:
 One of our resident lizards:
 Our attempt at art made from our beachcombing finds:
 Our next stop was Sigirya where we were woken daily by the monkeys running across the roof:
 The hornets nest outside our room - luckily, they kept to themselves!
 Sigirya rock that we climbed in the late afternoon - it was cooler then. The views were magnificent but heights are really not my thing and my legs shook all the way up and down.
 We went on a jeep safari in one of the national nature reserves. If any of you have seen the film 'The Bucket List' (and if you haven't, you're missing a treat), we recreated the scene where Jack Nicolson and Morgan Freeman are standing up in a jeep singing 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'!


 Pelicans:
 Sorry for the blurry jackal photo - they are very quick!
 Water buffalo:

 We took a tuk tuk to Dambulla to see the cave temple:
 There were even more monkeys. One stole the lotus blossoms that we had bought as an offering. Apparently, lotus blossoms are very tasty!

 Durians at the local market - not my favourite fruit!
 Our favourite mode of transport. We usually managed to cram all 4 of us into one tuk tuk and lowered the tone nicely as we all piled out at our hotel!
 Sigirya rock before the climb:
 A rather worrying sign:
 We hired bikes to explore Polonnaruwa - a royal ancient city:

 The beach at Trincomalee where the girls learned to windsurf:



 L and I playing 'Hotdog or Leg?'!
 Tea at the market in Kandy:
 A monitor lizard:
 Our best and cheapest meal - masala dosa with dahl and coconut sambal at 'Pure Vegetarian' restaurant in Kandy. It was delicious and cost less than £4 for all of us ......... and that included drinks!
 Traditional Kandian drumming and dance:
 Terrapins at The Botanical Gardens in Kandy:
 Chipmunks:
 Flying foxes -we watched these for ages:

 The Temple of the Buddha's Tooth, Kandy:
 Snatching a yarny moment by the pool:
 Our hotel in Pinnawala backed onto the Oya River. Pinnawala is famous for its elephant orphanage but our guide book implied that, sadly, the animals aren't treated terribly well there and the only way to improve matters is to boycott it until they clean up their act. So, despite it being just opposite out hotel we decided not to visit. Luckily for us, twice a day the elephants are taken down to the river to bathe, so it meant that we were able to get our elephant fix from our balcony and the dining room:




Some of them came very close and we fed a few some sneaky bananas!

Well, that's all for Sri Lanka. We had a brief stop off there and back in Muscat in Oman, where we had a lovely but expensive meal. My abiding memory of Muscat though is that it smells very nice - very floral. Well done if you made it to the end of the photos. We are now back home and A level results are pretty imminent - yikes!
I'm just off to catch up with all your lovely blogs.
Toodle Pip for now. x

14 comments:

  1. What a wonderful sounding holiday. So much to see and do. Very different culturally to us I should think. My knees would have been knocking too to climb that rock. Very brave of you. I look forward to more posts. B X

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  2. What a wonderful holiday you had! The golden Buddha is exquisite. Fingers crossed fr exam success.
    Leanne xx

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  3. Wow, amazing photos! It looks like you've had a wonderful holiday, and such a variety of flora and fauna. I think you're brave to have climbed that rock too.
    Cathy x

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  4. I thought I'd left you a comment but it's vanished :-). What a super set of photos and it sounds like a wonderful time was had. Love the Ellies xx

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  5. Looks like a wonderful holiday! Must have been quite an experience. That is one cheap meal...

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  6. What a beautiful country. It sounds like you all had a fantastic time. Fingers crossed for the results tomorrow.

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  7. What a wonderful holiday, so many memories to cherish! It looks like you had an amazing time!

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  8. Oh wow! What an amazing holiday, looks wonderful, something to remember for a long time.

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  9. Sounds great! Beautiful photos. I was glad to look the star fish, fruit,reptiles...

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  10. You certainly had a wonderful holiday, loved looking at your beautiful photos. Sorry I have been awhile replying to your blog post, I completely lost my blogging mojo and have only just got around to trying to catch up. xx

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  11. Wow what an amazing holiday. So many fantastic things to see and do. It looks like you you got pretty close to some of the animals too.
    Marianne x

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  12. What a fascinating holiday! I just loved all the wildlife pics, I can't believe how close you got to the elephants! I'm so glad you boycotted the elephant orphanage, it's the only way to stop ill treatment. Glad those hornets didn't swarm! Oh....Sigiriya rock would have daunted me, well done you for climbing it, shaky legs and all!I remember the monkeys stealing my lotus blossom in Kuala Lumpur, how bold monkeys can be. You have added another place I
    really must see now!xxx

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  13. Amazing! I loved your photos, they gave such a good flavour of your holiday. It all looks very exotic and wild and different. I'm glad you had such a good time. x

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