For our next adventure, we are heading to Sri Lanka for Eid-al-Adha, the next big holiday on the Muslim calendar, this year the first week in October. The boys get a week off from school and we are jetting overnight to Colombo, the capital. Wanna hear our plan? I thought you'd never ask!
As you know, I believe in itineraries that are popular with my biggest critics and fellow travelers, who right now are still 6 and 4. So this trip is no exception. I'm calling it our Wildlife Adventure Tour (because a name makes it so much more official!) We arrive in Colombo in the wee hours of the morning, but we are not stopping there. Our plan is to travel carry-on only so we can get off the plane and find the driver we have hired and leave the big city immediately. We will hopefully sleep a bit more in the car on our way to an elephant orphanage. How can you go wrong when you start with elephants? After some time watching elephants, we head to Kandy to hit assorted temples and cultural spots, as many as we have patience for (after an overnight flight and a big day with the elephants, my guess is we will be lucky to hit the Temple of the Tooth, if any at all).
The next day, we head with our driver for two nights in Nuwara Eliya, an up-and-coming (code for sleepy) tourist town in the middle of many tea plantations and waterfalls. This is our time to relax and enjoy nature, something we don't get to do too much of here in Qatar during the summer. Actually, we have helpfully timed our visit to Sri Lanka to coincide with one of their annual monsoon seasons (oops!), but even if it rains on us every day, I think the novelty of seeing water falling from the sky once again will be entertainment enough for us! We will leave this area via a local train that passes through tunnels in the mountains and eventually makes a 360 degree turn around itself. Our plan is to travel second class so we can hang out the windows like locals and take pictures.
After the mountain train, we descend to the wildlife refuges, where we plan on taking a jeep safari. Apparently, in these wildlife parks you can see everything from more elephants to leopards to crocodiles to sloth bears to all manner of exotic birds. We will stay two nights here and hopefully see enough animals to make everyone feel very excited.
Then we head to our last stop, the beach. I'm hoping the rainy season isn't too rainy and we can enjoy the beach, but, regardless of the weather, we plan to take boat to go whale watching, which should be loads of fun. I've already procured the necessary motion sickness pills for me and the boys!
If all goes well, this should be our flora and fauna tour of Sri Lanka. There is lots more to see in the country, of course, whole swaths we are skipping entirely, but our trip looks like it will satisfy all our needs to relax, be entertained, and see some impressive animals in some spectacular places. What more could we want??
As you know, I believe in itineraries that are popular with my biggest critics and fellow travelers, who right now are still 6 and 4. So this trip is no exception. I'm calling it our Wildlife Adventure Tour (because a name makes it so much more official!) We arrive in Colombo in the wee hours of the morning, but we are not stopping there. Our plan is to travel carry-on only so we can get off the plane and find the driver we have hired and leave the big city immediately. We will hopefully sleep a bit more in the car on our way to an elephant orphanage. How can you go wrong when you start with elephants? After some time watching elephants, we head to Kandy to hit assorted temples and cultural spots, as many as we have patience for (after an overnight flight and a big day with the elephants, my guess is we will be lucky to hit the Temple of the Tooth, if any at all).
The next day, we head with our driver for two nights in Nuwara Eliya, an up-and-coming (code for sleepy) tourist town in the middle of many tea plantations and waterfalls. This is our time to relax and enjoy nature, something we don't get to do too much of here in Qatar during the summer. Actually, we have helpfully timed our visit to Sri Lanka to coincide with one of their annual monsoon seasons (oops!), but even if it rains on us every day, I think the novelty of seeing water falling from the sky once again will be entertainment enough for us! We will leave this area via a local train that passes through tunnels in the mountains and eventually makes a 360 degree turn around itself. Our plan is to travel second class so we can hang out the windows like locals and take pictures.
After the mountain train, we descend to the wildlife refuges, where we plan on taking a jeep safari. Apparently, in these wildlife parks you can see everything from more elephants to leopards to crocodiles to sloth bears to all manner of exotic birds. We will stay two nights here and hopefully see enough animals to make everyone feel very excited.
Then we head to our last stop, the beach. I'm hoping the rainy season isn't too rainy and we can enjoy the beach, but, regardless of the weather, we plan to take boat to go whale watching, which should be loads of fun. I've already procured the necessary motion sickness pills for me and the boys!
If all goes well, this should be our flora and fauna tour of Sri Lanka. There is lots more to see in the country, of course, whole swaths we are skipping entirely, but our trip looks like it will satisfy all our needs to relax, be entertained, and see some impressive animals in some spectacular places. What more could we want??
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