Bali, Indonesia

Chinese New Year!   For a week, China is completely shutdown to celebrate.  If the Chinese government tells you that all businesses must close during this time...people tend to obey.  The holiday is a good opportunity for expats to leave the country.  We left for Bali, Indonesia bright and early on Friday morning on January 20th. Our driver picked us up at 05:00 and dropped us off at the airport. We gave him his "red envelope" full of RMB's and off we went. It was a long day of travel and didn't reach our hotel until around midnight. The next morning we woke up to rain.  The rain did let up for periods of time, so we had a chance to walk into town to explore the restaurants and shops. Our hotel was very nice, the pool area was great and the staff were very cheerful and anxious to serve. The beach...Kuta Beach was not quite as nice as I expected. I'm so amazed at the pollution, litter at beach areas in Asian countries. The water was littered with mostly plastic garbage and the beach was too. Plastic wrappers, bags, bottles, films, apparently carried from other islands from the north and west winds.  The local people pick up the beach area on most days.

We had a couple of day trips we arranged after we arrived in Bali. We hired a driver on Monday and "William" drove us around the entire day, to various locations.  We went to a local dance performance, Turtle Island, Pura Uluwatu Temple, and a camel ride on the beach.  We ate dinner at Jimbaran Beach, usually a good place to watch the sunset, but more wind than sun that at our dinner.

On Tuesday we took a boat cruise to Lembongan Island. It took us to a nice spot and we spent a fun day on the water. We snorkeled, kayaked, rode on a banana boat, went to the island to swim in the pool and tour the town. We met some interesting people. Most of the tourists there seemed to be Japanese and a ton of people are from Australia. We were really curious why people from Australia would leave their beautiful country to vacation here.

Bali, Indonesia is 8 degrees south of the equator. We spent most of our time in the shade and we still managed to get a sun burn. It was also hot and humid even on the rainy and cloudy days. Indonesia has two seasons...wet and dry. We were there during their wet season. They say August is the best time to go to Bali. There is also a lot of poverty there and the most common form of transportation again seemed to be the mo-ped.

Our return flight left from Bali after midnight on Wednesday January 25th or actually Thursday the 26th. We arrived back to Shanghai on Thursday afternoon. The sun was actually shining and the skies were the most clear that we have ever seen them. Probably because everything has shut down for the week. It was really weird, no traffic and the sidewalks were pretty empty. It was day 5 of the Chinese New Year so they shot off the fireworks during the night. Mark woke up and watched them...I didn't even hear them. I guess I was a little tired from the day of travel.  Mark has to go to work on Sunday, I guess lots of businesses around here will continue to be closed this next week also. Optional this time.

Our hotel swimming pool area.

Kuta Beach

Kuta Beach

Mark trying to be bright and cheery.

Our driver recommended we see this local dance. It is called Barong and Kris Dance. The dance tells a story.

After the dance we were off to Serangan Island (Turtle Island).

Boat parking at the turtle sanctuary was hard to come by. Our driver had to back into a spot.

Baby turtles!  The turtle sanctuary brings the turtle eggs inside so they can hatch safely. Once they are hatched they are put into these pools so they can grow. This place keeps the turtles for one year to allow for the turtles shells to get hard and this increases their chance for survival in the ocean.

Grey turtle

We got to go into this pool and "play" with the turtles. They were really large and heavy.

Mark holding a Python. That was about as close as I wanted to be.

Pura Uluwatu Temple area next to the ocean. It was a beautiful view. We had to put on these Sarongs before entering as we were wearing shorts.  Doesn't Mark look more respectable in a skirt?

Our driver warned us about the aggressive monkeys before we got there and told us not to wear our glasses as the monkey's might grab them. We didn't really believe him until we witnessed this monkey grabbing someones eye glasses and jumping on other peoples backs. After that we walked around carrying sticks like so many other people we saw.

Next up was our camel ride. The ride was about one hour long. It was mostly along a beach. These camels are from Australia and only have one hump. They are quite tall. It was fun sitting on them as they went from sitting to standing...it was quiet a process.

We also got to feed our camel. Our camels name was Genghis Khan.

Along the ride we saw were they farm sea weed.

This is were the sea weed farmers live so they can be right next to their crop at all times. Pretty harsh living conditions and no electricity.

The next day we had our boat cruise to Lembongan Island . It was great day without rain.

The boat had a fun water slide, we also snorkeled. There was a ton of colorful fish in this area. We got to feed them bread while we snorkeled to entice them.

We also kayaked, and went on a banana boat ride. We had a nice lunch on board...great egg rolls.

They took us by boat to this island to swim in the pool for awhile and have a tour of the village.

They do a lot of sea weed farming on this island too. The sea weed takes about one month to grow. It takes a few days in the sun to dry. Some of the sea weed isn't dried but put back into the ocean to grow. The sea weed is used for eating and cosmetics. About 90% of this islands income is from sea weed farming and 10% is from tourism.

If you look in the water you can see the different areas of the sea weed farms. The darker parts are were the sea weed is growing.  Notice the mountain in the back ground?

Great view of the ocean from the pool.

Mark saying good bye to the Indian Ocean.

Chinese New Year

This years Chinese New Year begins on this Sunday, January 22nd, 2012.

The Chinese New Year is also known as the Spring Festival. This is China's biggest holiday of the year. This holiday falls on the first day of the new moon after the sun enters Aquarius (around the middle of January or later February of the Western calendar) . 2012 is The Year of the Dragon.

 Chinese are busy cleaning and decorating their homes with signs of good luck and good fortune, which the Chinese believe will ward off evil and attract good luck for the New Year. Lots of red color around.  Their most important task for a family is preparing the New Year food. The grocery store across the street has been crazy busy the last 2 weeks. Unfortunately I had to run over there again today. It was packed full of people...lots of bumping into people and people pushing trying to get past. I will never get used to this behavior.
On their New years eve all family gathers for dinner. Before dinner firecrackers will be set off. Then again at midnight and on new years day. ( so basically for 24 hours!) Firecrackers are believed to ward off evil spirits and venerate the gods. I believe they do this again on day 5 and another day sometime after that also.
Red envelopes are given containing gifts of lucky money.  The amount of money is not significant, it is the gesture of giving money that will bring good luck.  They are put underneath the kids pillows on new years eve to keep them safe for the new year. We are also told to give our driver a red envelope with cash to help celebrate the new year. Mark also gave his secretary one also.

This is a holiday for large family reunions and time to visit relatives. So there is a lot of traveling going on. Trains and buses are booked solid.

We were advised by many, many people to get out of China during this time. All business and most stores close for the week. We were told of huge numbers of people and endless fireworks and firecrackers at all hours of the day and night. So Mark and I will be leaving for Bali, Indonesia on Friday. Hopefully for a peaceful and relaxing time on the beach!

Last weekend Mark and I went to the Yu Garden area to see how it was decorated for the New Year. At some point the decorations will be lit at night but I guess this was not one of the nights.

"singing in the rain"

Pattaya, Tailand

Tuesday, December 27th day 9 through Thursday, December 29th, Day 11.

We flew from Seim Reap into Bangkok Thailand on Tuesday. After we landed we met our new guide and driver and drove about 2 1/2 hours to Pattaya. We had told our travel agent we would like to end this 4 country journey relaxing on the beach. Hmm... So we got to Pattaya in the evening and went walking to find the beach. While looking for the beach we walked about downtown Pattaya and down "walking street".  We had read about the city being known for prostitution, but "walking street" was a real eye-opener for all of us.   I guess this is a really popular vacation spot for Russians, because of the location and cheapness. We saw a lot of middle aged Russian men with very young Asian girls on their arms.

When we finally located the beach and we were not pleased with that either, quite polluted. We went back to the hotel feeling this is not a good way to end a great adventure. We got on the Internet and discovered for very little money we could take a ferry boat out to an island and spend the day on the beach. So the next morning we did that. Once getting to the island we just walked until we found to hang out for the day. We rented 5 chairs and had beach umbrellas all around us. The beach was very sandy and the water was clear.  There was still litter in the water.  They're just not very careful about plastic bags, food wrappers, etc.  Sitting in the sun and just relaxing on the island saved the day.

We went into town for dinner and then back to the hotel for a few hours of sleep before we had to leave for the airport. 2:00 am wake up time.

We said our goodbyes to the kids at the airport as we sadly had to go our separate ways. Makes me sad to think about it even now. We won't see them until summer but had a great travel adventure with the Fab5 and lots of memories and pictures to last a lifetime.