Sri Lanka Post 7

Our last full day of vacation!

Are you all tired of reading about our trip to Sri Lanka yet? 

Well too bad, because THERE'S MORE.

I know.

I can hardly believe it either.

I'm catching up on our last day here (it was a full one!) and then one more post about our travels home, and then I'll finally be finished =).

We woke up this day and went to grab breakfast, and came back to our room to get ready to set off for the day, and David snapped a pic of this cute little towel art the housekeeping staff had done in his and Sisters room...

Another thing housekeeping did for us was laundry. I mean, we paid them to do so, but still. This was the first vacation Dave and I have ever used a laundry service like this, but this trip we deemed it well worth it! We paid less than $20 to have all our laundry washed, dried and folded for us after day two in Unawatuna. 
Knowing we were going to do this allowed for minimal packing, even though we were a family of four on an eight day vacation. It also meant we didn't have to lug around dirty, wet clothes from our rainy time at the elephant orphanage. 

Glorious.

This day we set off for our activities in a Tuk Tuk! After seeing them zoom all over Sri Lanka for the week, we were eager to try one out ourselves. We all piled in one and had a sweet driver take us to the Galle Fort. 

Our driver dropped us at a museum inside the fort's entrance. We walked around a bit...

...there were some cool -old- things to see, and I offered up Thanks that our kids are finally old enough to not touch every single thing they see =). Hooray for six year olds!!!

After learning some about Sri Lanka's history, we ventured out to explore a bit. Each of the streets inside the fort are very narrow, and lined with shops, apartments, and restaurants...

Me and my sweet girl...

She was chasing birds here...

We made our way over to explore the Galle Lighthouse...

Meera Mosque to the left of us. SO much beautiful detail in this architecture...

I tried to stay chill when giant lizards crossed our path...

Our little family at the lighthouse point, with the Indian Ocean behind us!

There were these super old man-made steps in the path here, leading you around a steep corner and then down to the beach. This picture doesn't really capture the height of the cliff we were on there, but trust me, it was steep and a significant drop. 

I kept telling myself "be cool, Kendra. Be cool!" as I led my babies on the edge of it...

It was amazing to see all the walls built by the rocks around the fort, some were of course very big, and the kids were really interested in learning about how it all was built. Explaining to them that this was all built in the 16th and 17th century - and just how long ago that was - was pretty neat...

We walked around the edges of the fort that border the ocean...

...along with more gigantic lizards...

We found a giant old sundial...

...and then walked around the insides of the fort and explored the shops...

Our silly little man...

The refurbished All Saints Church...

We then thought a tour of the National Maritime Museum would be pretty cool...

...which, I'm not gonna lie...really wasn't.

I mean, we saw a handful of neat things, but really, we breezed right through this museum!

Brother declared this cannon as the coolest part...

And Sister declared this giant anchor her favorite part...

Back out on the roads again, this sign cracked me up...no trumpet playing? What exactly does this mean? Is that a real problem around these parts??

We looked on our map to see where we should head next, and decided the playground sounded like fun! So we headed in that direction.

This is when we learned the map makers and labelers of the Galle Fort play fast and loose with the term "playground"...

...that was the extent of it! An old climbing structure and an old rusty slide.

But the kids had fun and I gave Thanks we were all up to date on our tetanus shots.

Brother wanted to explore this creepy cool tunnel, but was too scared nervous to go on his own, so I went with him...

...and when we came out on the other side, we saw Dave and Sister on top of the wall above us!

We found an alternate route to join them...

Such a beautiful place to be up on, overlooking Galle and the ocean...

My people next to the Galle Clock Tower...

I adore this picture...

Brother wanted me to be sure and capture a picture of these statues of soldiers...

...and a picture with a real soldier...look at their proud faces!

We were walking along and met a really sweet Dutch lady who runs a bed and breakfast inside the fort. We chatted with her a bit, and Sister was thrilled to get to pet her dog...

Our daughter, the animal lover =)

When we could finally tear Sister away from that sweet pup, we made our way over to the Shri Sudarmalaya Buddhist Temple...

Two things I love about this picture:

1) I think the Sinhala language lettering is so beautiful!

2) I love the Star Wars sandals in front of the temple =)

The inside of the temple was so colorful, and I was very grateful pictures were allowed!

While David, Brother and I took in all the beautiful statues...

...Sister sat in reverence of this dog, longing to pet it, but studying it first to determine if it was friendly or not...

We finished exploring the temple...

...and made our way back out to the streets...

With all our exploring and touring finished for the day, we decided to do a little more shopping...

The kids still had one final souvenir to pick out, and I was on the hunt for "the perfect" carved elephant to take home with us. (I'd purchased a carved camel in Oman, so a carved elephant from Sri Lanka seemed appropriate).

We were successfully able to talk Brother out of this flute...whew...

Sister  searched and searched...

...and eventually decided on...ANOTHER PINK ELEPHANT! =)

This one is stuffed and soft, as opposed to her other one that was a small carved wooden one.

We asked her if she was sure she wanted both of her souvenirs from Sri Lanka to be pink elephants? And she assured us she did.

The heart wants what the heart wants, folks. 

Brother searched and searched. 

And then he searched some more.

Finally, he decided on a little wooden Tuk Tuk...

Dave and I each bought another pair of pants, I bought a little dress/swimsuit cover up, and he bought a shirt. AND I found my carved elephant! 

Shopping success, people.

I loved all the bright colors around the shops!

At this point, we'd been out for the majority of the day, and we were not officially hungry and getting tired.

We agreed on a hamburger joint, and tried to entertain ourselves as we waited for our food...

After some tasty burgers, we found a Tuk Tuk to take us back to our hotel...

We took showers and settled in for the evening after a long fun day exploring. 

Brother wanted to go swimming, but David and I were too kicked to do so, but we were able to convince him a swim in our gigantic bathtub could be fun as well. 

He was sold on the idea...

It was a great last day of our longest vacation ever!

We headed to bed that night exhausted and happy, and ready to get up early the next morning to head back home =)