Travelling with Kids: Sri Lanka worth throwing caution to the wind

What would stop you from packing up for a family holiday? The risk of malaria, or something even worse?

Nothing stands in my way when it comes to a holiday. I'd decided that a last-minute family trip to Sri Lanka to stay at a small guesthouse which had been recommended by a friend was a good idea, and even my husband cannot persuade me otherwise.

"I don't think we should go. What about malaria?" he says unequivocally. A cursory online search uncovers the fact that Sri Lanka is actually malaria free so I book the flights anyway. The fact he doesn't want to come doesn't really register; he can be such a killjoy.

Had I known that there would be no hot water in our bathroom though, I might have reconsidered. "I would have told you about the hot water, but I knew you wouldn't have come," my friend, who is also staying, says knowingly as we sit down to eat a homecooked vegetable curry. The food is so good, possibly the most satisfying that I have ever eaten anywhere, that I forget to throw the cutlery at her head in response.

By the end of day one, exhausted as we all are by the overnight flight and transfer, such minor inconveniences as a freezing cold shower don't matter. Miraculously my two-year-old has eaten her dinner, sitting next to Ben, the three-year-old son of Lara who runs the guesthouse, and is now safely tucked up in bed, a cold wet cloth having stood in for a steaming hot shower.

My baby is also fast asleep, oblivious to the state of the plumbing, and the adults are left to look out over the treetops as the sun goes down, the sea grey-blue in the near distance and the sounds of the jungle buzzing all around us. "How can this not be a great trip?" I ask aloud.

The morning reveals a few of the challenges to come in the days ahead: the two-metre-odd drop over the side of the balcony of our first-floor room, which means one of us has to shadow our daughter constantly; the obviously sickening puppy dog in the garden that our toddler wants to cuddle; the ever-mounting tally of mosquito bites that are fiendishly itchy and leave us parents scarred; the hot, tiring walk downhill from the guesthouse to the sea; the lack of shade on the beach apart from the lolling palms that threaten to shower us with coconuts; and the strong tidal current you can feel a few feet from the shore.

And yet, at the end of our week-long trial by travel, when I ask my husband whether we should have come, he gives me a resounding, "yes".

And that's why nothing stands in my way when it comes to a holiday, even a family one.