After travelling through Colombo Bandaranaike airport with kids in tow, we met with our friendly driver who took us to a waiting minibus. But as my husband and I combined the two year-old son and a daughter was five years in a private bus, we both see the same thing-there is no seat belt.
The minibus was taking us to our hotel in the beach resort of Bentota, a four-hour South capital on the West coast of Sri Lanka, and we wonder how we will keep our kids wriggling in one place.
So with excessive car seats in the back of the bus, we take our eager to wrestle turn by turn two years into a sitting position. Fortunately, even this little Duracell power finally ran out of man and, after a 20-minute jump between my husband and me, he fell into a coma-like sleep for the rest of the way, allowing us to focus on the chaos all around us.
It was the beginning of the weekend of Sri Lanka and the minibus had no choice but to weave between auto rickshaws, cattle, cars and buses filled with people and luggage.
Chaos in the streets may be something I'm used to from education in third world countries, but with two children to sleep in my hand, suddenly looking very worrying.