On the Eve of Raja Ampat

On the Eve of Raja Ampat (but, hopefully, not the Eve of Destruction)

Hard to believe I haven’t posted to this blog since Cuba in June, 2010. We’ve been on the go a lot - mainly trips to Atlanta to spend time with the grandkids or to visit Doreen's sister in Virginia. We did get back to Cuba with Laurie and Sandy in January - two weeks at Brisas Trinidad del Mar. Don’t know why I didn’t have any commentary on that except that Internet access in Cuba is the pits. We also did spring break in Florida with the grandkids. That was a great week.
Now, we’re sitting around waiting for the limousine to take us to the airport this afternoon. Doreen has worked hard to put together an amazing trip. We’re going to spend 12 days on a live-aboard snorkel boat in the Raja Ampat Islands of Indonesia which are reputed to be among the world’s best snorkeling sites. Should be wonderful. We’re hooked up with a group of Americans from the San Diego area who did this trip last year and are back for an encore.
We’ll have a few days in Kuala Lumpur at the beginning and end of our trip. After the snorkel tour, we have a week to explore Bali (and for Doreen to check out the batiks). Then we do Western Australia for a week to snorkel the Ningaloo Reef. A few more items off our bucket list.
The only drawback is that these places are half-way around the world. We leave here this afternoon and arrive in Kuala Lumpur at 10 o’clock on Friday night (a day lost to the Date Line). Along the way, we have a 6 hour layover in Vancouver, a 3 hour layover in Beijing and a 6 hour layover in Hong Kong. We should be able to sleep by the time we get to our hotel in Kuala Lumpur. ;-)
We have the same thing on the way back since we leave Kuala Lumpur at 7 on Saturday morning and arrive in Toronto at 6 on Sunday morning (having regained our day at the Date Line). This time the Hong Kong layover is also 6 hours, Beijing is 2 ½ and Vancouver is 3 ½. Interestingly, we leave Beijing at 11:30 pm and arrive in Vancouver at 7:30 pm that same day. How’s that for screwing up your body?