We moved from Colombo and traveled south for 2.5hrs in a taxi to our second destination. Unawatuna is a beach town, the beaches are glorious But it’s still noisy, dusty, dirty and the roads are chaotic.

Our first Air BnB is great, Sleepy Heads is run by Darshaka and his family and once again, they are lovely people. We have air con and it’s fantastic.

It’s a clean, modern 2 bed apartment at the back of the family home, it’s about 100m from the busy road so it’s very quiet. We arrived on January the 1st which (this year) in the Buddhist calendar is very special, it’s not only Poya Day (full moon), and New Year’s Day but it was our host’s fathers 68th birthday so we were invited to celebrate with them. The kids made him a card and gave him some snowman chocolate we brought from home. Lots of people gathered at the house dressed in fine white clothes, we ate cake and drank fizzy pop, then the monk did a bit of chanting and we paraded through the street up the hill to their local temple. We were totally included in the ceremony and was asked to carry bowls of flowers on the parade. Locals and tourists came out of their houses and hotels to take photos of the parade, there were drums and monks and flags and finery – we felt very privileged to be a part of it. Mahayana Buddhism celebrates the new year on the first full moon in January. Mahayana Buddhists visit the temple on this day, lighting a candle to bring in luck and happiness for the coming year, meditating, and praying.

It was about 7pm in the evening the sun was going down which means only one thing for me – bloody mosquitoes! I did as I was advised by guide books and travel journals and I dressed modestly for the temple, a long cotton dress with long sleeves, I thought this along with mozzy repellent on my exposed bits would have been enough but no, the little bastards bit me on the arse whilst sitting listening and watching the shenanigans. It was going on a bit so we decided to make a sharp exit and head home…the kids finding the sight of my lumpy bitten arse quite repulsive.

Luckily the kids haven’t been bitten yet and John only has a couple, I’m up to about 20.

The next day was a very special day for us. We really wanted the kids to experience what it is like for other kids around the world to go to school, plus our two will miss the normality of going to their school so, we’ve been planning to visit as many schools as we can on our trip.

Our good friend Julie Forrest has an aunty Joan who for 6 years has coordinated five schools in Sri Lanka run by the charity the Senahasa Trust (www.senahasa.org), we were lucky enough to be invited to spend the day at Malagoda Siriseewalee Primary School, Henna and Arlo were (in preparation) asked if they could perform something to teach the Sri Lankan school kids. Henna chose to teach them the Penguin Song, a very repetitive song with actions that ends in hilarity by all the participants, and Arlo shown them how to create some fancy paper planes with a subsequent whole class flying competition. We took part in 3 groups – grades 2,3 and 4.

Both Henna and Arlo were absolutely fantastic and most of you will know that Henna will make a brilliant teacher if she chooses to. Arlo’s inner confidence shone through and he tried his best to show the kids his special skills. All the Sri Lankan kids were so enthusiastic, giddy and excited to have visitors in their school and we are really grateful to the coordinator Carolyn and volunteer English teachers Megan and Natalie for taking us under their wings and looking after us. A special shout out goes to Udala, the schools English teacher who then invited us to her home after school for a meal. Her family were so welcoming and once again we were overwhelmed by their warmth towards us strangers.

THE BUS HOME…

PROS – price, 20p for adults, 10p for kids, 45 minute journey.

CONS – absolutely nothing. Hot, noisy, dangerous, sweaty, smelly (diesel fumes) life risking. I nodded off and got whiplash (a slight exaggeration as it’s fine today but it hurt at the time) when turning a corner too fast with oncoming traffic on our side of the road. The drivers are crazy and will push by anything that gets in their way, beeping and swerving. The poor stray doggies on the side of the roads just sleep through it whilst being narrowly missed by the gigantic bus wheels. The passengers are hanging off the bus doorways swinging precariously with one hand while holding their shopping carrier bags with the other.

Of course, now John has realised how cheap it is to travel by bus…tuktuks have become redundant.

We followed our school day with a day on Sahana Beach. A surfing beach with shallow but wavy water. Henna has always been a natural in the sea with confidence and gusto, Arlo (up to now) has been more restrained in his sea fairing but is now catching up to her, it’s a joy to see his confidence growing by diving, jumping and swimming through the crashing waves. The sea temperature is very warm and is the only way to cool down from the 30* heat.

Our kids are doing well with their written journals/ sketchbooks although Arlo needs a bit more ‘encouragement’ – writing is not his ‘go to activity’.

John and I are enjoying the food, the kids aren’t so much….Henna is trying. We bought a 1kg bag of porridge – just to get some sustenance into them – it cost £6! The SL’s like their sweet stuff, so most everything is laced with sugar, on the plus side, our appetites are quite low, the suffocating heat means we don’t do much moving about, let alone any exercise so we don’t need as much fuel as we would back home. On another note… my 10 year caffeine free ride is over, even their peppermint tea has caffeine in.

The (30) 3 Degrees