a visit to the turtle hatchery

Buddy and Girl have seen turtles in the wild in Hawaii and here in Sri Lanka and they love them. So tonight we caught our last tuk tuk to the hatchery to learn more about the work they are doing to protect and preserve the five types of turtles that are native to Sri Lanka, and the kids were so excited. Turtle hatcheries are not without controversy. There is much worldwide debate about them, their practices, quality, purpose (tourism driven) etc. We always feel a little apprehensive about things like this including wildlife parks and zoos, but in the end we decided that we would go.

thoughts on garbage

City garbage tractor cleaning the streets in Galle

Sri Lanka is a truly beautiful and unique country. The people are kind, gentle and laid-back. But like every country in the world they have to deal with garbage.
And I keep wondering what do you do with the rubbish of 20 million people living on an island which is roughly twice the size of the island we live on in Canada? We have a population of only 759,000 on half the space. Everything we buy in Sir Lanka is wrapped in plastic or styrofoam and comes in a plastic bag, and all of that packaging has to go somewhere.

cricket

Cricket is the most popular sport in Sri Lanka. We have seen kids in fields and streets playing it, like football is in many other countries. But we had no idea how to play. Luckily that all ended today when we learned a tiny bit about the game. Our host is originally from the UK, a huge cricket fan and was happy to "school us". First up - how to hold the bat to protect the wicket.

is one the loneliest number?

We knew we would be visiting Sri Lanka in the off season. It was just the timing of our route from Turkey to Thailand. During our time here we have felt like the one family from out of town (we know we aren't, but we haven't seen many travelers). It was pretty lonely when we were faced with torrential rains and storms. It didn't make it a bad experience, it just got us wondering if we were idiots to come in the off season. Thankfully when we ended up in the south the sun appeared and our off seasonness started to pay off.

learning

Living in the mountains for five days created many different learning opportunities for our family. We landed at a rustic guesthouse with a giant covered terrace perched on the side of the mountain. While there we watched all possible weather systems come alive from fog rolling in, lightning striking, pounding rain and power outages. All while hearing about a cyclone off the coast of Sri Lanka, a hurricane in the US and an earthquake and possible tsunami on the westcoast of Canada.
We decided with the changing, cooler weather that this would be a good spot to work on school, and learn other things about the surrounding area.

how we got our sri lankan groove

Rainy Kandy wasn't really doing it for us. Nothing against the city, we had our moments and the people were lovely and friendly, but we hadn't found our happy place here yet (which is scary when you have three more weeks to go). So we decided to find it hopefully in the highest hills. But we have one very motion-sick child (and it isn't Girl). The train seemed our best option over the bus or hired driver, as you can move about easier, visit the toilet, breathe fresh air and it is very inexpensive. Still I wasn't looking forward to the impending waves of sore tummy, knowing the train ride was going to be loooooooong. The train tracks are old and you feel every bump, sometimes bumping backwards, sometimes going very slowly, or idling in wait for another train to pass. So as my moaning child clung to me I watched the foggy trees and cleared my mind.

from beach to buddha

We spent our first days in Sri Lanka at the beach. Then it was time to head for the hills. We took a morning making our way to the train station via tuk tuk, bus and foot to catch the train for Kandy. After all the "mind the gap" business on the trains in the UK, it was interesting people watching plus we learned the art of boarding the trains.