AS OUR taxi from Colombo airport hooted its way around stray cows, girls in saris laughing under umbrellas, stalls selling coconuts and Buddhist shrines strung with prayer flags, my elder son Joe’s neck rotated almost round its axis. “I wish I had eight pairs of eyes!” he said. “Then I wouldn’t miss anything.” And suddenly the 11-hour flight with two young children was worth it to see a seven-year-old boy’s wonder at the world.
It was ten years since my husband and I had been in Sri Lanka, our last pre-parenthood adventure. And during our baby years, when you can’t face lugging travel cots further than Brittany, we dreamed of returning with our children.
On paper, Sri Lanka is not the most child-friendly destination. The civil war between Tamils and the majority Sinhalese, more subdued in recent years, still erupts occasionally north around Jaffna and on the eastern side.
The climate is hotter than most young children can bear: 30C-plus (86F), even in the cool season. Food can be hot too. The sea around the south coast has a treacherous rip tide. And there’s a bunch of jabs required, along with malaria pills to choke down every day.
Of course Sri Lanka now has all-inclusive resorts with air-conditioning, spaghetti bolognese and kids’ clubs. But I didn’t see the point of coming to bland international “hotels-ville”. We wanted to show the boys not just Sri Lanka, but the pleasures of travel itself. So we made a compromise plan that would combine sweaty local trains with hired drivers, luxury hotels with simple guesthouses.
And we eased ourselves in by spending our first night at the Galle Face in Colombo, an old colonial hotel. How many hotels in a capital city are so close to crashing waves you can taste the salt spray as you dine outside? We had planned to take the train to Bentota, a glorious sweep along the south-west beaches. But, jet-lagged and late up, we hired a minivan and driver for £16 and spent two hours in a traffic jam as infrastructure (narrow roads) collided with development (a boom in car ownership).
But at the end of our journey was the Club Villa, a place to “unfrazzle” the weariest traveller. Every vista at the hotel has a carp pool, a beautiful tree, carving or a superb antique. The Colombo train rattles by the bottom of the garden, a thrilling event rather than an intrusion. Over the track, across a coconut grove, are two miles of white beach.
But have you entered an exclusive boutique hotel with kids in tow? It is like making a nasty smell in a packed lift. The staff — like all Sri Lankans — welcome children, but our fellow Westerners surveyed us with dismay: hip young couples frowned from their iPods as our boys bounced in the hammocks, rich retired folk muttered as they piled into the pool. Paradise is not meant for parents.
Yet paradise is difficult to leave. It was Day 3 before we stepped beyond Club Villa and our safety obsessed modern parenting was instantly put to the test. For a start we hadn’t planned to travel by tuk-tuk. Too flimsy, no doors. But the boys could not be dissuaded. And on most journeys the driver would turn round and grin: “Does baby want to drive?” and wedge one of our delighted sons between his knees.
In Sri Lanka we learned to loosen up a little. On a trip to the spice islands in the lagoon around Bentota, the boys were invited to pilot the motorboat, the owner guffawing as they swerved to avoid fishing nets. And later, down in Galle, an army major let our elder son feed the regimental mascot, a porcupine.
But we also discovered just how much Third World reality our privileged princes could take. A trip to a local market was not a success: the boys recoiled from the flies and heat. But they loved chatting with Sri Lankans, who mostly have good English and are very kind: as Jake, 5, commented, “Everyone is so smiley.”
The boys fell into a rhythm to cope with the tropical heat: up early on the beach in the morning cool, play in the pool until lunch, read quietly in a hammock while we dozed, back to the beach or out for an excursion in the late afternoon until sunset. Children who have reached the age of reason are better equipped for this climate: I felt for a couple trying to entertain a squirmy toddler under a tree all afternoon.
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()From Bentota we took the train three hours to Matara, then a taxi 90 minutes farther round the coast to Tangalle. Sri Lankan trains are not crazily overcrowded. But nonetheless they are hot, grubby, with an influx of traders and alarming, mutilated beggars at each stop. The expected chorus of “Are we nearly there?” didn’t materialise; instead the boys gazed at the tropical scenery, the buffalo and fishermen, or waved to school children in white uniforms. Or they resorted to something hitherto rejected at home: they read.
In Tangalle, Sri Lanka’s southernmost tip, we stayed at Eva Lanka, less a hotel than a living soap opera, run by an Italian couple. The hotel is a collection of bungalows dotted down the hill to the sea and screened from each other by tropical flora.
We gorged ourselves on lobster and tiger prawns, just about all that was available. The boys avoided the dreaded spicy food, but we persuaded them to try “short eats”. This Sri Lankan traditional café fare is descended from British-rule high tea. You are served a huge plate of sandwiches, sausage rolls and pasties and pay for what you eat.
From Tangalle, we hired another minibus to take us to Uda Walawe National Park. In order to see elephant, you have to rise at 5am and are rattled around on the back of a Jeep for four hours — ours got stuck, to the boys’ delight, in a ditch. This was an event my sons enjoyed far more than I did. In fact, as the holiday progressed, it struck me that they had become much better travellers than me.
It was Joe’s eighth birthday on our last night, spent at our beloved Club Villa. His presents were very different from the scree of plastic he’d receive at home: a handmade drum, some temple cymbals, and a batik shirt.
Joe was delighted: “This is the best birthday I’ve ever had.” Far from fazing them as we’d feared, Sri Lanka had brought out the very best in our boys.
Need to know
Getting there: Janice Turner and family flew with Sri Lankan Airlines (020-8538 2000, www.srilankan.aero), which has direct flights to Colombo from £547 return. They stayed at Club Villa (00 94 34 75312, www.club-villa.com) in Bentota, which has rooms from £95 a night, and Hotel Eva Lanka (47 22 40940, www.eva.lk) in Tangalle, which has doubles from £75 a night.
Package options: Explore Family Adventures (0870 3334001, www.explore.co.uk) offers a 14-night Elephant Odyssey tour from £1,161 per adult, £987 per child. Scott Dunn (020-8682 5029, www.scottdunn.com) has a week at the Lighthouse in Galle from £1,535pp. The hotel is family-friendly.
Health: Inoculation against hepatitis A, and malaria tablets are advised.
Further information: www.srilankatourism.org.
