Tissa

Tissa

After Merissa we went to Tissa were the house definitely wasn’t as good as the one before but still okay. They did have a pool tho which was a plus point at first but when all the kids cut themselves with blood over there hole legs it wasn’t as fun anymore.

We came around lunch the first day and since we were pretty tired we just did a chill day by the pool and went in to the city for dinner. Lunch we ate at the restaurant by the house but it could definitely not beat the food we ate at the place before! 

The next day we started of strong with safari. We had to wake up at 04:15 which was not the best but our driver had to wake up much earlier so we couldn’t complain. We did have an amazing driver that put us in the top 3 in the line of hundred of cars that also wanted to come in to the nation park to do safari which we were so thankful for. At first we just drove around and saw a lot of peacocks, buffels, crocodiles, antilops and lots of other birds. We had a nice time, feeling wind in our hair as we were sitting in our safarijeep until our driver got o phone call. 

We were pressed backwards in our seats and flying over the savannah. We were wondering why and when every car we past by started to follow us we were really confused. It was an amazing feeling sitting in such high speed looking around untill the driver slowed down. The more than ten cars after us did the same and we started to roll in deeper to the bushes. Then we saw it, was it the long lost lepard? No, but it was something almost as amazing. Right infront of us stood the most massive animal we had ever seen (except the bluewale then.) An elephant! It was standing still and eating as every person were looking at it and taking pictures. Then it turned around and made a big dump right infront of us.

When we drove away and had been driving for some minutes we stopped and we were confused once again. Then we saw it again, an elephant! But this time the elephant wasn’t alone, it had it’s whole family with it. It was really fun seeing all these animals and even tho we didn’t see a lepard it was an amazing experience!

When we came home from the safari we first took a looong shower since it was really hard getting all the dust of our bodies. After that we did a thing that Kiara had been looking out for, for a very long time. It is called ”jullappar” and why we do it is because we don’t get our christmas presents when we are in vacation instead we get them after the vacation but the kids want to celebrate something here aswell so that’s why we do it. The thing you do is that you write something nice about every person on a paper and on the same paper you write a gift to that person that you will do together for example go to the cinema or see a football game live. 

After this we had another pool half day were we just took it easy and hung out were we lived. We did go out to eat at night and we ate at an amazing restaurant in my opinion:) The next day it was time to drive to the next place and now we’re back on the sentence I said first ”we are now on our way to Haputale with a driver who is dads friends friend.” It is one hour and 13 minutes untill we arrive and the only thing mom said about the new home is that is high up in the mountains, you can swim in a waterfall almost next to our house and that you can do a lot of nice walkes up there. The last one dos not sound as fun as the others…

Goodbye and istutti for reading this!

Landed in Sri Lanka

We are now on our 3rd day on this Sri Lankese adventure, and are getting into both the heat & jet lag but are still working on the number of Russians and mosquitoes.

The trip here took about 36h, with some additional delay in Istanbul. At least we got a small flavour of Istanbul, some fantastic kebab and the best baklava I’ve ever tasted. Fresh from the oven end literally melting in your mouth.

DIY beds, almost like IKEA!

Our first destination in Sri Lanka is Unawatuna, a beach place on the very explored south west coast. We have discovered quite a few beaches already, snorkelled with turtles, big fish and unfortunately quite a lot of rubbish. The amount of plastic both in the sea and on land is just too sad for words. 

Up on land we’ve seen monkeys, big lizards, a snake eating a frog and peacocks. On the less pleasant animal side we have mosquitoes and cockroaches, mainly upsetting the youngest family members.

People are super friendly and food is good - especially for those daring the local cuisine! ;)

Oh, the fruit…

Treat after massage at Serenity Spa

Leaving some footprints in a restaurant



Fort Galle, Unesco listed old Dutch remains

When having mosquito bites even under your foot, it’s good to have strong sisters!

Local line dancing

Tropical rainfall

Snorkling with turtles

Beach life 

Bye Thai!

Thailand now feels very far away - but the jetlag is still oh so close, 3rd day home.

Our final days in BKK we did our best to break the daily steps record (the 2024 average of some 16000 daily will unfortunately drop like an Ericsson stock once home and back at work.) We also maximised the street food intake (oh how we miss those smoothies and the food!!!) and enjoyed the 25m pool. Kiara swam simborgarmarket, 200 m.

Cycling tour

Flower market 

China town

Reclining Buddha - world’s largest 

Last night market…

Thailand treated us really well, but eventually it was time to hit reality again. As usual, it was such a luxury to spend so much time together and build memories. Planning the next trip already started…

Bangkok!

We really enjoyed our week in Chiang Mai, and filled our last days with an inflatable obstacle course water park (resulting in next to whiplash injuries after to much pillow jumping), cycling, waterfall swimming and a lot of eating.



Some more hiking in Doi Suthep

Wae sa waterfall, 10th level




Justus favourite cup, by our lovely home exchange hosts (many interesting stories about working in North Korea)

Cycling tour to a small cake factory - where we added a bit of child labour 

Feeding the fish

Yesterday we took the night train to Bangkok, 13h, super smooth. We visited Lumkin park (where we ended up in a basket World Cup: team SWE-NL vs ENG-Sri Lanka-Mongolia), and Kao San Road, more hysterical than 20 years ago.

BIG friends in Lumkin park

Counting friends

Bangkok international basket cup


Kao san road

More food

One positive thing about travelling with the girls on a train is that they get really spoiled by other passengers, with lots of free snacks. The Thais are really sweet as palm sugar, super friendly and fond of kids.

Today we had a food day. Brilliant farmers market (some of us were most experimental than others, how about durian sticky rice vs hamburger?)

In the evening we joined a cooking course which was both great fun and really delicious. Justus and I also discovered that we were twice as old as the majority of our fellow cooking backpacker friends. The conversations become quite fun when exchanging travelling tips about destinations we visited when they were still in diapers (if even born.) Well well, age is nothing but a number.

Fried rice!

Chop chop chop




Master chef making mango sticky rice

Some more days in Thailand

The days that everyone has looking forward to… Diving! We woke up 7 am in the morning which the girls didn’t like but when we jumped in to the big van and got to the boat everyone started to finally wake up properly. We sat in the boat for about 1 hour until we finally reached the diving place. It was between two big beautiful rocks with trees and bushes on them. After we arrived we learned how to put on the diving equipment and we were soon in the water. Kiara was unfortunately too small to go diving (it was a 10 year old minimum) so she and mum started to snorkel instead. 🤿 Alma, dad and Junia started diving and when they came up the the surface they had so much to tell. They saw many many fish, corals and much more. After that everyone ate lunch on the boat with was delicious until it was diving time again! This time it was mum's turn to go dive so dad stayed up by the surface with Kiara. Unfortunately Alma went down to quickly so her ear started to hurt really bad. She had to go up to the surface and could my longer dive more. :( Now only Junia and mum were diving. Alma was disappointed that she couldn’t dive anymore but when she, dad and Kiara was snorkeling they saw a really big snake in the water! 
  

We are a big family so often we have to share safety belts…

It’s also hard to travel around and grab can take some time to come also. That was not a thing everyone liked…

Today we did something that also everyone thought was lovely. We climbed on waterfalls! In the middle off the jungle there is a place called “sticky waterfall” that is a place just like a normal waterfall but more sticky and fun to climb on. It was not many people there with was a relief. 


This was in the begging off the climbing and when Justus said “let’s take a photo” Junia jumped in under the waterfall and encouraged the others to join. Alma and Kiara gladly joined but mum would rather stand on the side. 







Some days before the Sticky waterfall we went snorkelling and when we saw the water we couldn’t resist to take a quick swim without snorkelling gear. ;)