Beasley-Taylor Family World Adventure

Hello everybody! It's Eloise. We are in Sri Lanka, and even though most people are Buddhist, a town in the North, Jaffna, is mostly Hindu. When we were staying there, we were right next to a temple. They are very impressive with their towering statues and beautiful representations of gods and goddesses Shiva, Parvathi, Saraswati, Brahma, Vishnu, and many more. Here is what a temple looks like. Here  is a presentation about the Hindu gods, and holds fascinating stories about them. Enjoy!!! Eloise

Hi everyone, this is Loic.  Right now I am in Galle, Sri Lanka. One of my favorite things on our trip so far has been seeing and riding in rickshaws (tuk-tuks, bajajis, there are different names) in lots of places.  We have seen them in Tanzania, Madagascar, and  Sri Lanka.  We travel in them almost every day.  I think they are great and I wish we had them in Seattle. In fact, I wrote a letter to Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle saying that I want to bring rickshaws to Seattle. Here it is: Here are a few pictures of Rickshaws. You can see what it is like to drive in a rickshaw in this video and you can see more pictures here . I even interviewed a rickshaw driver, you can check out the video: I hope we see some in Seattle soon!

This is Adam.  Yes, the one who has yet to contribute to the blog.  Rest assured that I have played an important managerial role behind the scenes, always full of suggestions about what others should write posts about.  But this time, It's all me! It has been great taking the kids to many of our favorite places in  Madagascar.  At the same time, we also wanted to discover some places we didn't manage to get to during our time here.  And more than anything, we wanted the kids to experience true village life.  So, we decided to take a hiking trip to visit a group of remote Zafimaniry villages, located to the east of Ambositra. If you have ever been to our home, one of the first things you see when you come through the front door is a carved wooden chest.  This was made by Zafimaniry artisans who have been carving their symmetrical, geometric shapes since the time of the Kings in Madagascar.  They live in very simple, one room wooden homes.  There is an open fire pit just insi