Colombo, our first stop in Sri Lanka

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This is an introduction to our next ten days of fun in Sri Lanka. Leslie and Tiffany have a full week of school holidays, so we hit the road closer to home this time.

Today, as I'm writting this, the one week holidays has actually turn into a three weeks break for them, as school in Bangkok are now closed till 7th of November due to widespread floodings. For info, home, school and all the area around us is still fully dry under a beautiful sun (today!). Few the next few blogs, i may give you some updates about our little lives in Bangkok. Hopefully we will still be able to have power...and communications to the outside world.

So let's come back to our ten days adventure in Sri Lanka. This is one of the first trip where I pre-booked close to nothing ahead. We had our return tickets...and a first night in Colombo sorted out...this was it. It is also great to have Tiffany with us for those small mid-term side trips! I can't tell you how much more fun it is to travel four of us together.

Bangkok-Colombo is a short three hours hop. Slight trouble, all flights are right in the middle of the night. How do you cope with two children, and a 3 hours flights....getting you in the middle of Colombo by 3am in the morning? Tricky! The first night was not the one where we would improvised.

Good news, I've got few nice cards with few hotel chains. So we booked a stay at the Hilton Residence...for the price of an hotel room, you end up with a huge three bedrooms service appartment. The place was actually bigger than home! But the best was to be able to check-in at 3am...nice...and cutting the price solid for a family of four. Ok, on top of that the welcoming bottle of wine was like icing on the cake!

I stopped few years ago for a day in Colombo and did try to see few things, actually missing all the good sights due to do my very bad homeworks at the time. Let's be honest, there is not a lot to see in Colombo. They are people to meet however. We will find out over the next ten days that Sri Lankans are amazing people. Well, we knew already a little about it as we have great friends from Sri Lanka living in Bangkok.

Sri Lanka have great scenery...but amazing people do come first! Point noted!

We walk a lot during our day. Yes, we are trying to get Tiffany to our rythm for further adventures. Let me tell you, we have some serious work in front of us if we ever want to go trekking with her!

The morning aim was to get tickets for the train the next early morning to Kandy. Job done...first class was already full, so we settled for 2nd class, which was actually more than adequate due to a pretty empty train the next day. Colombo to Kandy is an easy 3 hours leisurely train ride.

We also walked through Fort area, as well as the sea front on Galle Face Green. Afternoon, back to some shade at the National Museum. The place is not huge, but it was pretty interesting to learn a little more about the culture, history and religion of Sri Lanka.

By 4pm, it was time to hit the swimming pool....hot and humid tropical weather is not a great recipe for long walking hours for the little one legs. Good swim, good rest and early "homestyle" dinner....ready for our next adventure, heading to the middle of Sri Lanka next morning.

So first lesson about Sri Lanka....those people are so nice and welcoming! I could go one trying to compare them with their bigger neighbours, but this is not the place to do it!

Next entry, coming soon...

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Comments

[Target Travels Sri Lanka]

Great Family experience
Hey, Thanks for your sharing your great family experience in Sri Lanka. Colombo with all its hustle and bustle of the big city life, truly is magical and take tell a story of a 1000 years if historic impact.