JACQUELINE ALWILL
MUM TO SON JET
NUTRITIONIST
FOUNDER OF THE BROWN PAPER BAG
HEALTH & BEAUTY AMBASSADOR FOR HIVITA
FEATURED DESTINATION
SRI LANKA
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Jacqueline says…
We’ve literally just touched down from Sri Lanka and have absolutely fallen in love with it! There is so much on offer culturally, food wise, coast and inland adventures. But the best of all it was a beautiful time just to reconnect as a family after a big year.
The highlight for us was our morning ritual of a gentle wake up, roti (flat bread) filled with either banana, pineapple or spicy vegetable (so incredibly good!) with a papaya juice, followed by a surf at one of the many incredible beach breaks along the southern province of Lanka.
WHERE TO STAY
We based ourselves in Weligama and traveled from there in tuk-tuks (so much fun for big and little kids alike) with our surf boards strapped to the roof we just stopped wherever we felt like it. Whilst there is lots on offer in terms of surf, forest adventures, historical elements, the beauty of Sri Lanka is that it isn’t over developed and so the simple pleasures like days on the beach with naps and not making ourselves ‘busy’ with so many holiday activities is what made our time there the most special.
OUT & ABOUT IN SRI LANKA
In the southern province of Sri Lanka there are beautiful historical monuments such as the Galle Forte which is worth a visit, especially at sun down with a gelato from Isle of Gelato (salted caramel was phenomenal just in case you needed more reason to go!).
Along the coast as you travel (by tuk tuk naturally) you can stop at lots of different beaches and if you’re lucky enough see the turtles pop their head out of the water and swim with them. New Years Day this year I was walking on the beach and came across a baby turtle whom I helped back out to sea, I feel confident he was a good omen for the year ahead!
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We also ensured we visited the gorgeous tea plantations and experienced the finest Sri Lankan (Ceylon) tea. Walking through the expansive plantation my son Jet was really taken by the men climbing and picking coconuts high in the coconut tree, and the different varieties of teas grown there. I think he was most fixated on the tea tasting experience at the end however as he loves tea and absolutely dived into the tasting – mango flavoured tea was the winner!
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Mirissa is beautiful for snorkeling and the highly instagrammed palm tree peninsula was gorgeous, especially at sunset. You can go onto the restaurants in Mirissa after sundown and enjoy some of the absolutely scrumptious local fare. The food in Sri Lanka is heaven – we became obsessed by it! Such an amazing variety of food and so much flavour – absolutely something for everyone!
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And… because we’re such a family of foodies, we attended a cooking class one evening (taught in a kitchen 185 years old!) to learn how to make the foods we love. Immersing ourselves in the Sri Lankan food, we learnt vegan, Ayurvedic recipes for traditional dhal, sweet potato salad, an absolutely divine pineapple mushroom dish and the best raw coconut pineapple cake for dessert. We all agreed that evening at Welle Gedara was the pinnacle foodie moment on our trip.
Big. Call.
I think the highlight for all of us though was our days spent at Kabalana beach. We ate roti surfed, ate more roti, swam, body bashed, saw turtles, enjoyed seafood and fried rice for lunch, slept, read books, hung out and Jet made a lovely little friend, a local Sri Lankan boy of the same age, Carindu. Even without speaking each other’s language they understood each other completely, because play is a universal language.
We didn’t need to race about on this holiday and tick boxes, we just needed to ‘be’ as a family and we did just that.
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JACQUELINE’S TOP 5 SRI LANKAN TIPS
Image via Tourism Sri Lanka
1. REEF WITH A SIDE OF ROTI
You must visit Kabalana beach – the water is diamond-like! There is a big reef break out the back and then smaller waves on the beach. The roti shop on the beach became our favourite and the seafood restaurant a winner for all of us. Also because you don’t have to wait long for food which can happen a lot in Sri Lanka – and that’s not ideal with kids!
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2. AVOID HANGRY
On that note, don’t do food when hungry. Pre-empt ‘hungry’ by about an hour and get into a cafe/restaurant then because some will be quick and others will work on ‘Sri Lankan time’ and take much longer than your small folk might be able to hang out for. We accepted that was the way and did our best not to get there too late i.e. when hangry set in.
3. SEE YOU AT CEYLON
In the area of Weligama there is a lovely cafe and accommodation called Ceylon Sliders. They have great coffee for the aficionados needing their hit and delicious food too. We ended up getting take away buddha bowls to have with us on the trip to the airport so we weren’t caught out. Best decision because the trip to Colombo is three hours and you need about three hours minimum at the airport to get through the queues so plan with that in mind.
4. VITAMIN SEA, VITAMIN ME
Whilst food and juice huts are in abundance in Lanka, I still packed my HIVITA Women’s Multi Vitamin for the trip. I guess you never truly know until you get there how you’re going to eat and nourish over the holiday time and so I never go without these supplements in my bag.
In the lead up to the vacay, and during the super crazy busy December period I found HIVITA Energy Vitamins did wonders for me too – in particular so that I ACTUALLY had energy to enjoy a holiday and didn’t just totally crash which can easily happen!
5. GO WITH THE FLOW
One final tip for Sri Lanka – plan a bit but not too much. It’s so diverse to what we know and the best moments are spent just being and not racing about ticking boxes of places to go and things to see.
We did some things but not a huge list – and all of us were totally content with that.
Images unless specified supplied by Jacqueline Alwill
