Sri Lanka - Day 2
We're getting older. David and I know this to be true because we have spent a good part of the last 24 hours talking about how lovely it is that the hotel is quiet and cool and away from the beach, that there are no young people playing loud music, and that tea is served properly in nice white china at 11am. As it should be. Meanwhile Unawatuna is sun baking itself to a crisp, slurping up cocktails and tuk-tuking itself silly just around the corner. Thankfully out of earshot.
I hope that a good part of our "middle-agery" can be attributed to traveling with a baby. Let it state for the record, despite all the ludicrously happy photos of Cal, that this is no joke. It's incredibly stressful. There's a constant narrative running through my head about whether this is a Good Idea, or not. Cal and I both have colds, Cal is getting a tooth, there's the water to constantly worry about - is he getting enough and if he is, is it going to give him a bug, and last night he spent three hours whimpering and struggling to fall asleep. David rocked him in the dark all of those hours because I just didn't have the energy any more. Thankfully I married David and not myself, so only one of us is worrying constantly. "Nah, it'll be fine," seems to be his catch phrase these days. He is such an outrageous optimist that he even suggested that getting the runs on holiday "isn't such a bad thing because it means you spend less time on the bog, and more time out there having fun." I'm not making this up.
Another uncomfortable realization about traveling with a baby is that their idea of entertainment is radically different to ours. Cal's ideal way to spend the day is walking along the balconies touching all the wooden knobs on the railings, investigating fistfuls of leaves in the garden and lying on his back on the bed shouting at the ceiling fan. Yesterday when we took him for a ride in a tuk-tuk to the supermarket down the road he immediately shut down and went to sleep in my lap. And I don't blame him. A few minutes into the ride we knew that it hadn't been a good idea. It was like strolling down the middle of an expressway wearing a cardboard box with wheels drawn on the side. Trucks and buses swerved all around us, mangy dogs ambled drunkenly into our path and the Indian-style of preemptive honking is insanely unnerving. Back home a good hard jab on the horn means you are about to get rammed, here I think it just means - oh hi, here I come. Now if it was just David and I, I wouldn't mind the occasional life threatening situation in aid of a good travel story, but it's different with Cal. I'm addicted to his happiness which he turns on and off like one of those UV lamps Europeans use to combat seasonal affective disorder. One minute he's beaming, the next he's off, his eyes cold and glassy. And it makes me more than sad.
So we won't be doing that again today. When Cal wakes up from his nap we'll probably just go and see what the knobs on the railings are up to and then maybe shout at the fan for a bit afterwards.
I hope that a good part of our "middle-agery" can be attributed to traveling with a baby. Let it state for the record, despite all the ludicrously happy photos of Cal, that this is no joke. It's incredibly stressful. There's a constant narrative running through my head about whether this is a Good Idea, or not. Cal and I both have colds, Cal is getting a tooth, there's the water to constantly worry about - is he getting enough and if he is, is it going to give him a bug, and last night he spent three hours whimpering and struggling to fall asleep. David rocked him in the dark all of those hours because I just didn't have the energy any more. Thankfully I married David and not myself, so only one of us is worrying constantly. "Nah, it'll be fine," seems to be his catch phrase these days. He is such an outrageous optimist that he even suggested that getting the runs on holiday "isn't such a bad thing because it means you spend less time on the bog, and more time out there having fun." I'm not making this up.
Another uncomfortable realization about traveling with a baby is that their idea of entertainment is radically different to ours. Cal's ideal way to spend the day is walking along the balconies touching all the wooden knobs on the railings, investigating fistfuls of leaves in the garden and lying on his back on the bed shouting at the ceiling fan. Yesterday when we took him for a ride in a tuk-tuk to the supermarket down the road he immediately shut down and went to sleep in my lap. And I don't blame him. A few minutes into the ride we knew that it hadn't been a good idea. It was like strolling down the middle of an expressway wearing a cardboard box with wheels drawn on the side. Trucks and buses swerved all around us, mangy dogs ambled drunkenly into our path and the Indian-style of preemptive honking is insanely unnerving. Back home a good hard jab on the horn means you are about to get rammed, here I think it just means - oh hi, here I come. Now if it was just David and I, I wouldn't mind the occasional life threatening situation in aid of a good travel story, but it's different with Cal. I'm addicted to his happiness which he turns on and off like one of those UV lamps Europeans use to combat seasonal affective disorder. One minute he's beaming, the next he's off, his eyes cold and glassy. And it makes me more than sad.
So we won't be doing that again today. When Cal wakes up from his nap we'll probably just go and see what the knobs on the railings are up to and then maybe shout at the fan for a bit afterwards.
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| The lounge at Nor Lanka Hotel |
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| Pockets of holiday when Cal is asleep |
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| Heaven is a fast internet connection on holiday |
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| And Ceylon tea from down the road |
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| And a baby who takes 3 naps during the day |
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| Dinner naps at Nor Lanka |
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| Nor Lanka by night |
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| Mega-moth |
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| Midnight internet banking session |
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