Sri Lanka: A few of our favorite pictures from my phone!

Ripley enjoying his Kindle on the plane.

Merry Christmas from the beach!

Teddy hanging with his beach buddy, Bella.

More beach buddies, Bella and Stan.

My little tropical Santa.

Selfies with our new friends, the Sidders Family!

Ripley and his buddy, Stan.

It's a little fuzzy, but we loved that these boys fell asleep as mirror images of one another.

Again, my favorite photo from the trip.

Sri Lanka: Negombo, Christmas 2016

We ended up staying at a fancy beach hotel in Negombo to get some sleep (after a sleepless night in the ER) and to enjoy the last few days of our trip to Sri Lanka. 

The view from my poolside lounger.

Teddy collected these beautiful shells on the beach.

We loved watching the traditional boats sail by

One of the fishermen on the beach.

There were crows everywhere, which just happens to be my spirit animal.  It felt like a good sign.

By the afternoon, Ripley was feeling a lot better.  Can you tell?  About 10 minutes after this picture was taken, he fell asleep on me in the pool.  So cute!

Teddy had a lot of fun on the beach picking up shells.

And playing in the waves.

Ripley even woke up in time to play in the water with Daddy.

While we were playing on the beach, we watch a line of fishermen pulling in their ropes from the day's catch.  It took them over an hour to work their way down the beach to pull in their ropes.  When they pulled the fish onto the sand, a huge crowd gathered to watch them work. 

It was really cool to watch.  Teddy and Ripley enjoyed throwing the stray fish to the crows who had gathered on the beach.  I guess that is why they were there!

Back at the hotel, we loved this palm branch Christmas tree.

By the time we left the hotel, Ripley was feeling so much better.  He even got to enjoy some lounging in a robe in the hotel room.  

Sri Lanka: Sigiriya, Christmas 2016

Next we traveled to Sigiriya, Sri Lanka but our travels didn't go exactly as planned.  Ripley got sick in the car and we chalked it up to car sickness because the roads were very bumpy.  On our way to Sigiriya, we stopped at the Dambulla Cave Temple.

The temple dates back to the first century.  Dambulla is the largest and best-preserved cave temple complex in the country.  We were able to tour five of the eighty caves which contain statues and paintings, which are of Buddha and his life, including statues of Sri Lankan kinds and many gods and goddesses.   

The outside of the cave complex, which has been enclosed for visitors.

The reclining Buddha's feet.

Thousands of Buddhas carved into the rock walls.

Teddy loved the caves!

An elephant drawn on the ceiling of the cave.

The outside of the cave complex.

A beautiful tree outside of the cave complex.

The tree was filled with monkeys!

As we walked down the mountain back to the parking lot we walked past the largest seated golden Buddha in the world.  Pretty cool, huh? 

From the front.

After we finished at the cave temple complex and checked into our hotel, Ripley started acting very strange.  He began running a fever and nothing we did for him brought his temperature down.  Ripley and I ended up in the emergency room in a very rudimentary field hospital.  We stayed there into the night but decided at 3am to return to the hotel to be in the air conditioning and have a working bathroom (things the field hospital didn't have).  

We were planning on visiting the city of Sigiriya the next day but we cut our visit short and returned to the capital to be closer to a more modern hospital in case Ripley got any sicker.   

Sri Lanka: Kandy, Christmas 2016

 We drove from the Nature Reserve up to the city of Kandy, Sri Lanka.  Kandy is on the top of a mountain and we enjoyed driving past waterfalls and little towns.

We ended up stopping for some lunch in Nuwara Eliya, a little town on the mountain.

We even ended up seeing some friends from Dubai along the way.  Ripley was sleeping so we only got a photo at the car.

We also ended up stopping at one of the many tea plantations in Sri Lanka.  It was a beautiful location and we enjoyed some tea and cookies as a snack.

We arrived in Kandy just in time to catch a beautiful sunset across the lake looking toward the city.

A new of Kandy's most famous landmark, the Temple of the Tooth, after dark.

The next morning, we went to the Temple of the Tooth to see the most famous relic that Sri Lanka has, one of the Buddha's teeth.  They have built a huge shrine to house the tooth, which is actually not on display here.  Oh well!  It was still a super cool temple.

The tooth is kept inside the huge wooden room behind curtains.

Lots of beautiful plays to pray.

The outside of the wooden room where the tooth is held.

Exploring the temple.

Outside the temple, we walked around the city of Kandy and I fell in love with these signs advertising local lawyers.

And we loved the cats on the roofs of the buildings.