We arrived in Sri Lanka after a 15 hour journey at midnight (5.30am back home). The transit through immigration and customs was fluid and we had to laugh at the duty free stalls - one side was your customary perfumes, cigarettes, alcohol; the other side was all about white goods... because you just never know when you might need a 400-litre fridge when you're travelling around.
I was super pleased with myself for arranging our hotel driver to meet us at the airport because it didn't look that there were any taxis available at that hour, and he knew exactly where our hotel was. In a city as big as Colombo there are literally hundreds of accommodation options. The USD30 we paid seemed like a small price to pay for the peace of mind, particularly a mind that was surviving on a few hours of sleep and the imminent jet lag.
In we piled into a Prius hatchback, 2 bags, a backpack, surfboard, 3 tired bodies. But that tiredness soon evaporated as we hit the empty streets and flew down the freeway towards Colombo. A few kilometres out of Colombo we hit a traffic jam - at 1.45am. What the??? People lined the streets, along with decorated elephants, parade floats and other vehicles. Our driver explained that it was a Buddhist festival.
We reached the hotel and fell asleep promptly.
The next day we decided we would head into the Old Town and visit the Pettah Markets. Tuk tuks are ubiquitous and rule the roads, or in Colombo anyway. Our first venture in a tuk tuk was jointly terrifying and exhilarating. As we careened through the traffic in a little 2 stroke vehicle, I could not help thinking that it was like real life Mario Bros. At each red traffic light, they weaved and jostled for pole position before taking off in a chorus of straining gears. While I squealed in the back seat, the tuk tuk drivers traversed the roads fearlessly, judging gaps in traffic to the exact, death-defying millimetre.
Most are metered. Those that aren't mean that you just need to check the price with the driver. And make sure you bring lots of small notes with you as the drivers don't have a lot of change. We did have a lovely driver who didn't even charge us to go around the block back to our hotel in the hottest midday heat. We insisted on paying him and gave him lots of isthuti (thanks). Such is the generosity of the Sri Lankan people.
Tuk tuks are super cheap and a very efficient way to travel. Some of them even have roof racks and big boot spaces. We grabbed one of these to travel from Mirissa to Galle. A particularly wise decision when we easily weaved our way through traffic when we hit the traffic on the outskirts of Galle. One of the funnest ways to travel and very memorable.
From the moment we found out I was pregnant, we decided that having a child was not going to interrupt our lifestyle. That's not to say that we didn't think that our lives weren't going to change. But we weren't going to let this little person stop us from doing the things that we loved.
One of those things was travelling. Callum took his first flight when he was 4 months and he was a textbook traveller. It was a short flight from Sydney to Noosa. I just hadn't banked on the traffic getting to Noosa, and we had to pull into a cafe so that I could ask them for some water to make up some formula to feed a very hungry baby. Lesson learnt: we now pack A LOT of snacks when we travel. Keeping kids' hunger under control means that they are less likely to crack it when there are unforeseen delays.
I clearly remember having discussions with friends about the fear of flying/travelling with kids. I just never had that concern. We have travelled to loads of places with Callum who is now 8. He now knows that when he needs his passport, he will need to have a sleep on the plane (as it's long haul).
The blessed mercy of modern airplanes having personal handheld devices or individual screens on the seat in front of you means that children are occupied for the whole flight. A colouring book with a few join-the-dot or spot-the difference-puzzles doesn't really cut it anymore. Give them a screen and they can endure any length of air time. It doesn't stop us from bringing phenergan on flights as a backup. My GP advised that the trick is to give them the recommended dosage - it's under-dosing that causes the hyperactivity!
As a family we love travelling - learning about how big the world really is, checking out new places and finding activities that will suit all of us. Often we find that the activities that we think Callum are those that we enjoy the most. On our recent trip to Sri Lanka we went canyoning and rafting and it was AWESOME! (More of this on a post to follow but here's a snapshot).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9cnmYJ7J9-2bmhfVU5jNW50WjA/view?usp=sharing
So, the travel bug is certainly alive and well. We often look at Callum's desk globe and wonder at the wonder that is out there to be discovered.
