Busiest Vacation Ever!

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Vacations only go exactly as planned when you pay for an all inclusive. We experinced that first hand on our last vacation destined for Gili Tarangwan. Gili T. (as many call it) is one of 3 tourist destination islands north of the island of Lombok, neighbouring Bali. Our original schedule was as follows: take a evening train to Guangzhou, then a 1:50am plane to Singapour, wait around for 6 hours then a 3 hour flight to Bali followed by a 3 hour speed boat to Gili Tarangwan. However half way through our train ride we noticed that Helen had no passport.

We had to think on our feet; the only solution we could find was if her mom took a following train to meet us in Guangzhou, otherwise Helen couldn't leave the country and our vacation would be changed drastically. Thankfully on the train (via unstable cell phoen connection) we rescheduled the flights for the same time the following night. Helen's mom came on the next train and things were back on track. The next day Helen's Mom flew back to Wuhan and we flew to Singapour on their high class famous airline.

We made it in to Bali and stayed at a hotel I had booked on line. Our plan was to spend a night on Bali island and then take a boat ride over to Gili Tarangwan. However as we quickly realized the plans needed to change again. As it turns out it was no longer safe for us to travel to the Gili Islands as boats were capsizing. So we decided to stay on Bali Island.

The next days we spent around Kuta beach just north of the Bali airport. Taking pictures, walking the beach and shopping made for some fun adventures. Following that we rented a guide for a day and explored the south of Bali.

We went down to Uluwatu a temple at the southernmost point of the island. Beautiful vistas, ancient Balinese temples and playful wild monkeys (they climbed on top of me and ripped a hole in my hat) were hilights from our first destination. Next stop, Nusa Dua, a great diving spot in the south. There we went snorkelling but we were quickly caught in a storm so we got out of our boat at the tourist attraction turtle island. We concluded our second destination with more snorkelling. The next destination was Tanah Lot Temple 3 hours north of Kuta. We quickly looked at this beautiful coastal tourist destination and went off to our final destination the central Bali city of Ubud. There we spent 4 days walking, scooting and hiking checking out rice paddies, waterfalls, and more monkey watching at Monkey Forrest. Unfortunately it was Helen's turn for a monkey attack this time as two monkeys attacked her there but she's alright. Ubud is a faily central community, that belive it or not even had a Starbucks! But we had a fun time in two great bungalo's for about 4 days in Ubud.

On our way home we spent 3 days in Guangzhou. We did some shopping at the city's walking street and looked at historical monuments of Sun Yat-sen and other historical destinations. We took a rather bumpy late night plane ride back to wuhan and so ended the trip.

Back in Wuhan with just a week left in our break Helen and I have planned to get our marriage certificate on Tuesday (Feb 14th) and then I just need to complete my drivers test and prepare for the next term of teaching. Everything has gone great so far in the holiday break as we have done nearly everything planned including buying the house in Victoria, which is in the process of being finalized at the tme of this writting. Helen and I will probably not be able to see the house until next year though as Helen is pregnant with our baby and we are expecting the baby on the 15th of July!

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