Monsoon's & Travel Plans

Phuket, Thailand - We are still in Phuket having been here just over a week now but are heading to Bali, Indonesia tomorow.

The week in Phuket has really flown by as it doesn't seem like we've done much except do some surfing, hanging around the great pool at our hotel and planning the last 6 weeks of our trip.

Last weekend we had a tropical storm come through where it rained most of Saturday and Sunday, at times quite heavy. So needless to say we were stuck in the room most of those two days so we decided to plan out our last six weeks. It was a pretty crazy storm with palm fronds knocked down everywhere and the power off and on for two days. I got soaked going out to get us dinner one night. When I left it was sprinkling but by time I returned it was a torrential downpour!

Back to our travel plans, our intention had been to go to Sulawesi in Indonesia and do some diving and then follow that up with some more diving around Bali & Lombok also in Indonesia however what we failed to realize was that it is high season in Indonesia right now and in Bali that means best of luck getting a hotel, in the other areas getting a hotel was possible but very expensive. So to make a long story short we have cut our plans in Indonesia from 6 weeks to 2 weeks with about 9 days in Bali using points for our hotel stay and 5 days in the Gili Islands doing some diving.

On July 30th we fly from Bali back to Singapore and then on July 31st we are headed to Sri Lanka for a month before flying back to Singapore on Aug 29th and then home on Sept 1st.

How did we come up with Sri Lanka? We basically looked at a map and tried to find destinations that were within a 2 or 3 hour flight that would be cheap to fly to, wouldn't be in high season like Bali but would still be a good time to visit and would be cheap once we got there.

We came up with 3 possibilities, Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Philippines. Nepal and the Philippines are very rainy right now whereas in Sri Lanka the weather is actually pretty good this time of year. The final marks in Sri Lanka's favor was that we could get a flight on Sri Lankan Air for $350 for the two of us and that the used bookstore next to our hotel had a copy of the Sri Lanka Lonely Planet!

So we've been reading up on Sri Lanka and trying to formulate an itinerary. The only thing we have booked right now is 5 nights in the town of Kandy which is the sight of the biggest festival of the year in Sri Lanka called the Esala Perahera.

The only other thing I need to keep in mind is my Fantasy Football Draft will be on the morning of Aug 28th our last day in Sri Lanka so I will have to make sure we have a hotel with a reliable internet connection...priorities you know!