Sri Lanka - Day 3

We spent days 3 & 4 of our trip at the beach. Sri Lanka has beautiful beaches with BIG waves. I was pretty nervous being there with the kids because we were literally being knocked off our feet with some of the waves coming through. After playing for awhile the driver walked us a little ways down the beach and showed us an inlet that is protected by a coral reef so the waves are much smaller. It worked out perfectly for us. The water temperature was great and very comfortable without being too warm.  T

The water in the cove was actually quite deep and had an abrupt drop off so we all started doing tricks off the drop off and had a blast. The locals thought we were hilarious.

We are such beach lovers and have no problem killing an entire day swimming and digging and playing! 

These are a large fruit that look similar to pineapples but are poisonous to humans. These trees were all over the beach. It was also interesting that the locals approached most of the tourists on the beach to sell items or to beg for money but steered clear of us. When I asked the driver about it later he said it was because he stayed with us for the entire time and they knew not to bother us when we had a local guide. It was awesome that our driver took such good care of us during the week and did all the tipping and negotiating with the locals for us.

On the way home we stopped at the markets to get some food for dinner. It was interesting to us that we had to stop at 4 or 5 places to get all the food we needed. One stall only sold fruit and veggies, another stall for bread, a different stall for meat and still another for milk. The markets were so colorful and filled with so much variety and so inexpensive!

Some kinds of curry are made from this fruit:

 On the way home the driver stopped to get us some "Sri Lankan apples." We each popped one in our mouths and they were SO SPICY. These are actually peppercorns and they grow wild all over the country. When they reach maturity they are picked and then dried in the sun to be ground into pepper. I was amused to find out that white pepper which is so expensive and in so many fancy recipes, is simply peppercorns that have their husks soaked off before they are dried. Same flavor, only the color is different.

We headed home for naps and more time in the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Here's Emery sleeping under the mosquito nets.