Trip to Utah

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Zach and Rachael did not come home for summer this year, and I had some fun coach get togethers planned so made a trip out to Utah!

My flight was cancelled so I had to stay in a hotel at the airport for the night and eat at the hotel restaurant bar:

But once I arrived, Zach and I hit a great taco spot for lunch!

Zach also had to write an exam for his medical school applications so was relieved when that was done!

They both had to work during the day, so I went and visited a couple of clients and met up with coaches for two separate luncheons – so fun to connect!

A few more pics of the second coach lunch ( I only got one from the first lunch!)

Then on the weekend we took a trip to Moab.

We went to Arches and Canyonland. Did a bit of hiking, but also enjoyed the pool bcs it was pretty hot once mid day arrived!

We also went on a nice hike and went to a smash room. I was there over the anniversary of the death of Rachael’s older brother – so they took the day off work and she just did what she felt drawn too. Grief is no easy thing.

Then we had our last dinner out and walked around the “downtown”.

It was so nice to spend time with these kids. As much as I like visiting them, I like having them home too and will be so excited for them to come back (Zach is applying to Canadian schools so we are crossing our fingers for some Ontario acceptances!)

The Maldives Cont’d

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Well I wish I had some exciting adventures to tell you about – but our days looked kind of the same.

Morning walk on the beach, amazing breakfast, hang out on beach or swim, walk back to the amazing lunch, back in the water, nap, chill, read, massage, back to water, then head to amazing dinner, back to chill.

Oh, and at 5 pm some nights they would feed the sharks and sting rays that would visit the dock like clockwork.

And we also did snorkel.

And Rob played some pool.

The food was so so so good. And the restaurant had all sand floors. So as soon as we arrived at our table – we kicked off our flops and walked around barefoot to sample all the deliciousness from the buffet. Normally buffets get boring or are bad – but this one was so so good every single time. Very impressive.

What was so impressive too about this resort is it was totally affordable – no more than we would pay to go to Mexico (of course the flight here is a bit different and far) but we were very impressed with our resort (Dhigufaru resort it was called)

I have to say, we could have stayed so much longer.

Here’s some snaps that probably all look the same (but I will sneak some of our over the water bungalow – which we switched to for the last 3 days!)

You know Rob is in serous vacation mode when all he wears are flops, these fuzzy slippers he got in the hotel in Dubai and barefoot.

It was truly heaven.

We were sad to leave -but it was not great weather – luckily we got up in the air ok and headed back to the main airport for our very long journey home!

What a trip!!!

Arriving in the Maldives

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Although we were there for 6 days, Im not going to do 6 posts bcs they would all look the same!

But our arrival deserves a post of it’s own:)

Overall, it was an incredible experience.

So chill, so beautiful.

We took a sea plane to the resort. Had a few hiccups along the way as they had mixed up our flights b- but we ended up landing at another resort and they came to pick us up by boat.

It was kind of surreal to be flying over the water. Initially I was in a middle seat – almost right in between the pilots! But after the first stop (we stopped at a couple different resorts) I finally got the window.

Wow.

When we arrived, we were greeted with the drums on the dock, then shown to our beach hut.

We decided to do 3 nights on the beach hut and 3 nights overwater bungalow.

And I have to say it was so nice to have some variety. Both were amazing for different reasons.

The beach hut was right on the beach, and had a gorgeous outdoor bathroom.

Then the over water bungalow was stunning – a plunge pool and a ladder into the ocean.

We took advantage of both.

They also had a great spa with an incredible deal for massages – like INCREDIBLE. 6 massages for the price that you pay for 2 back home in a spa!!

So we spoiled ourselves!

I’ll share more in the next post about what we did…

Last Day in Sri Lanka – heading to Colombo

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On our final day, we headed back to Colombo with some stops along the way.

They included a jungle cruise – with a visit to a temple (and a blessing from a monk), and a fish pedicure (I actually like the feeling of them nibbling even though some people have told me they would never do it for all sorts of probably plausible gross reasons…).

We also visited a turtle sanctuary – that totally felt like a tourist trap (all the turtles were apparently getting released very soon…)

We finally made it to Colombo. We walked around a bit (of course we were quickly targeted with people trying to scam us), but our hotel was pretty sweet so we decided to take in the views from the roof top.

Sri Lanka was quite an adventure – but we were ready for 6 days of R&R in the Maldives!!

Yala to Galle

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We woke up and headed to the beach .

It was weird to see signs warning you of elephants!

We took a quick dip in the pool – the ocean was far too rough.

We then headed south to a beach town.

Of course, it is rainy season in the south – not sure why our travel planner would send us there!

We checked out a temple, a fort and a lighthouse before checking into our hotel.

It cleared up enough for us to chill by the pool – and that is what we did the next day too (we were here for 2 nights).

We lounged, we read, we watched some Netflix when the rain came in end of day – then we went to the rooftop for some drinks before dinner.

The next morning after breakfast, we headed out – back to the city of Colombo with some stops along the way…

Ella and Yala National park

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The next day was a bit of a mix up to start.

Our guide messed up and we ended up missing the classic train we were supposed to take to a cute backpacker hub on the souther edge of Sri Lanka’s Hill country.

We had to do a lot of waiting around, then sat in a stuffy train – BUT it had the most gorgeous views (and no that is certainly not me leaning out of a moving train like that!!)

When we arrived in Ella I could see why it is considered a tourist town – there were toursists everywhere! But I have to say the town was so so so cute.

I wished we had been here for 2 nights!

We walked around a bit and then went to a restaurant for a snack – and there on the menu was “Quebec poutine”. Of course, I could not resist.

And luckily I didn’t, bcs it was so good!

We had dinner that night and then chilled in our room that had incredible views.

The next day we had a fun day. We did a short hike to visit the iconic Nine Arches Bridge.

Then we did another hike to Little Adam’s peak.

I have to admit I was very hot and grumpy here too! We went back to the hotel to shower – and Rob took a little dip in the pool!

We had to take a little tuk tuk up and down to our hotel. Then we stopped at a beautiful waterfall…

We then drove to Yale National Park for another 4 our safari. I was pretty done by the end of it lol (FYI the comfort level of a safari in South Africa was quite different than here:)

The elephants are also much smaller – although that still did not stop one from charging the truck in front of us so we had to quickly back up!

When we finally got to the hotel (and our really nice room! – with the most unbelievably huge bathroom!!) I found a cute swing and curled up in it. We also took a nice swim in their beautiful pool before heading to another nice meal.

Kandy and Nuwara Eliya

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We spent the morning visiting the Botanical gardens.

To be honest, we walked around a bit and then headed to a cafe on the property so we could chill, lol.

There’s only so much touring around I can do.

We headed up in the mountains where we stopped for lunch and then visited a tea factory.

It was pretty cool to see how essentially some things have remained the same for many many years.

Afterwards, we went to Nuwara Eliya – it is known as “Little England” and it did feel like we were back in early 1900’s. There was a roaring fire going at night – it was definitely cooler. We spent two nights here and simply relaxed and chilled!

Our driver/guide went and spent some time with his family since we said we were totally find to chill on our own!

It was a relaxing day. We walked around town, napped, had a relaxed lunch, sat outside and read and talked, and Rob played some pool. We needed that bit of down time!!

Heading to Kandy

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Before heading out to our next stop – Kandy, we stopped to visit the Cave (Rock) temple.

It was super hot – but going in the caves was pretty refreshing.

We then headed to Kandy – and stopped for lunch along the way (we had to tell our guide that it is ok not to fill every second of everyday – we want to relax too!)

We arrived in Kandy and visited the world famous temple of the Tooth – which is the main attraction in Kandy.

We found a little cafe to sit in for a bit which was nothing special but we wanted a place to sit while we waited for the Traditional Cultural Show.

The show was interesting – lots of dancing, “gymnastics” and fire dancing and breathing (which I found personally disgusting – taking all that lighter fluid in your mouth!!)

After the show, we checked into a really nice hotel and had a dinner. Pretty much every dinner is buffet style at the hotel- and I can’t say I mind. It gave us lots of variety and we knew was safe to eat:))

Day 3 – Sigiriya

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We were happy to leave our strange hotel and headed on the most adventurous day.

It started out with doing “the short and easier hike”.

I had hurt my foot somehow a couple of weeks earlier so doing a ton of hiking was not high on my list of things to do. Plus the heat!

So we climbed the famous pidurangalarock and got the view of the sigiriya lion’s rock rather than the other way around.

The hike was hot and enough steps, and had some crazy tight squeezes and climbing rocks and balancing acts. Not my fave to be honest – but we did it. The views were very pretty.

After we did the hike, then had a cart ride and boat ride before visiting a traditional Sri Lankan home where we helped make lunch. It was very reminiscent of an experience we had in Cambodia with the kids – and like that experience – it was one of our best meals.

We then headed on a 4 hour elephant safari!

Do you think we squeezed enough in the day?!?!

At the end of the day, Sandu suggested we head to a traditional spa for treatments and even though it was one more activity, we thought it would be a great way to relax.

No pictures here but we did a traditional massage and then did this hot oil dripping on our foreheads kind of massage – the oil was a bit too hot for Rob lol. But it was still really relaxing overall

It was, but we were exhausted when we checked into our hotel and had dinner!

Sri Lanka – Day 1 and 2

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Finally trying to catch up on our trip! (Slowly but surely I’ll get there).

After Dubai, we flew to Sri Lanka for 11 nights.

We arrived in the evening and our guide, Sandu, who would be driving us around the county met us there.

He basically picked up up and took us to our hotel for the first night. It was dark, so we could see a thing, but our room was comfy, and we had our first of many buffet meals:)

The next morning we saw we were right on the water which was pretty. We had a traditional Sri Lankan breakfast – lots of curry and Daal (exciting at first but then we started to crave less flavour:)

The first day we drove to the country’s first capital: Anuradhapura.

There we visited several temples (too many to name), and Sandu explained the signitifance of the stonework and carvings.

I wish I could tag each picture with all the details, but a collage will simply have to suffice.

All I can say is that it was hot – and being barefoot on the red brick and pathways was extremely hot – especially for Rob lol!

It happened to be our anniversary that day too… Sandu took us a bit early to our hotel – which was supposed to be amazing – with a pool and everything.

We got there (starving bcs somehow we had skipped lunch – we quickly told him we wanted to have some lunch in future) and the hotel was the strangest things ever.

It was huge, in this beautiful natural setting. Gorgeous room, but the hotel had this Indiana Jones feel to it.

And it was completely abandoned. We couldn’t find anyone!

We were so so hungry, but no one was around.

We finally found someone who worked there (one of the only two guys we saw lol) and we were able to get two cokes – but no food until dinner.

Luckily we had purchased these yogurt/chocolate covered dated in Dubai (which I really don’t even like) but desperate times call for desperate measures. We snacked on them and the coke.

Dinner was truly bizarre.

We sat poolside, and they served us (we think they must have gone to pick something up bcs there was no working restaurant anywhere!). No options – just served chicken fingers. And no cokes left in the hotel (we had both of them earlier on lol).

We laughed at the crazy anniversary memory we were making.

And hoped we came out alive. lol.

The next morning was similar – we were fed breakfast – which had a nice selection – but no choice and then I can’t say we were disappointed when Sandu came to pick us up (and we shared with him that we need to tell the travel agent that this is not the place to send clients lol).

Here’s some snaps of our anniversary evening:) Happy 16 years McHottie!