Ceylon Sojourn

We're back from ten days in Sri Lanka, which was a wonderful holiday, full of sunshine, leopards, curry, and very nice people. I won't do too much of a travelogue of each day but I will mention some of the highlights. There might be a few travel stories in here, too, so I'll save some stories for later.

We loved the food in particular, a vast range of curries, amazingly sweet tropical fruit, and fish so fresh we were watching it flop on the beach one minute and eating it for dinner that night. I'll also post more tomorrow when the jet lag of an overnight flight (leaving from Colombo at 1:30, but delayed about an hour, then landing at Bangkok for a stopover where no one got off the plane but all the flight attendants SHOUTED so that people could identify their bags in the overhead bins, and then another five plus hours to Beijing, where we landed into air so murky I got an immediate sore throat) is not making me a tiny bit irritable.

Here are some photographic highlights in the meantime.

Bob scales the ramparts in Galle.

The Dutch must have had future tourism in mind when they built this fort.

Here I'm teaching Bob how to take a selfie, plus embarrassing my children in my silly hat.

We admire lighthouses, because Carol would.

We admire a Dutch Reformed Church, because Mom would.

We hang out at the home of the architect Geoffrey Bawa.

Not a bad way to spend Valentine's Day.

And then we hit the beach in Hikkaduwa.

Where we watched our dinner being caught.

Then we went to a leopard safari camp,where we looked for...big cats.

If we could tear ourselves away from the amazing food.

I might have mentioned it was my birthday.

The next morning, a peacock greets the dawn. Yes, a peacock.

Saw lots of cute baby elephants.

And then there she was: a gorgeous leopard.

Slightly anticlimactically, we visited a tea factory near Nuwara Eliya.

We visit the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. I think it's some kind of pilgrimage place for dentists.

We visit Kandy's botanical gardens. Big trees, big roots, big big bats.

And finally we end back at the beach in Colombo, where we ponder the endless variety of the earth's magnificent sunsets. And guard our spicy deviled cashews from very impertinent crows.