Travel Woes Again

Well, the long slog hasn't gotten longer (48 hours is till the plan) but it has gotten more stressful.

Up at 4 am for Singapore to Hong Kong. Flight delayed but had a 6-1/2 hour layover anyway.

Speedy boarding for the Hong Kong to LAX leg...even got a mattress and jammies in business class.

Things were looking good. Until.......

The crazy guy across the aisle from Michael threw a hissy fit because someone else's bag was sharing his overhead compartment. 

Plenty of room for 1 or 2more bags but there was no appeasing him. He stormed about, paced, called American Airlines, fussed and fussed and then demanded to be moved back to coach. (I told you he was crazy.)

Next thing you know the cabin door is opened and he is being escorted off the plane due to whatever he was doing back in coach...but not before he came up to retrieve his third bag from the compartment above Michael!

By the time that all calmed down, we had lost our position for take off and ended up delayed by more than two hours.

Connection time was 1h45m for our next flight and we had to clear customs, retrieve bags, recheck in and change terminals.

Wasn't gonna happen.

Phone calls upon landing, rebooked to fly to Atlanta overnight and then Miami and then SXM..but we should still make it home on schedule. Of course a computer glitch left us standing at the first class check in counter for one hour to print our new boarding passes etc...but we managed to get into the Flagship Lounge where I will at least get a shower and we are enjoying excellent pork belly (a very nice break from three weeks of chicken and rice.)

So this could be my last post of this trip or I could get stranded in Atlanta. Clearly no guarantees.

I just keep telling myself that if it were easy everyone would do this.

Chicken and Rice

And here we are enjoying Singapore's classic dish of chicken and rice (In spite of the fact that Michael looks like Jack Nicholson in the Shining. But it's the only pic I have commemorating the occasion. )

Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device

Singapore

Today we are in Singapore. Just for one day before starting the long slog back to Anguilla. Luckily, again, nowhere as beastly hot as we feared it would be.

Toured around this morning. 

Sky park on top of the Marina Bay Sands.

Gardens by the Bay.

And here is the Merlion fountain. 

Good morning, Sri Lanka, Good-bye.

The birdsong was beautiful Yearerday morning as we got to sleep in a bit and enjoyed a nice breakfast by the koi pond at the safari tent camp in Yala. We hadn't really seen the place in the light of day what with safaris being predawn to sunset sorts of things. 

Then we were off again heading to our last overnight in Galle. Ira and Bonnie Bloom of Ani Villas (in Anguilla and beyond) encouraged us to visit their villa in Sri Lanka. Our quick tour around didn't leave us any time to stay there but they encouraged us to stop for lunch. It was hardly just a lunch. From the VIP reception to the relaxing massages to the world class cuisine in the stunning coastal setting, the whole experience was complete and utter luxury. Such a welcome treat after days of driving and dust and rushing about.

Then a quick trip to see the stilt fishermen along the coast (all the good pics are on michaels camera), the Dutch fort in Galle, and one last hotel check in.

Up this morning for our flight to Singapore as we start the long and winding road east to get back home.

Fwd: Fun and Games in the Game Park

Catching up after not really having adequate connectivity.

First, my initial two pics of elephants weren't posted on Facebook but are on the website.

One correction, spellcheck offered up that there weren't any leotards on our first game drive.

Actually, glad about that as I didn't really want to see any leotards. 

Leopards would have been good.but we didn't see any othe those either.

Yesterday was a full day of safari. Hot and dry and dusty and really rough riding. Nearly thrown out of our seats a couple of times. The guide politely suggested that if we were going to fall out of our seats that it would be best if we fell onto the floor of Jeep rather than out the sides onto the ground. Thank you, Einstein.

Regarding driving in the park, we did learn one interesting tidbit....at one point we came to an intersection, turned around and started backing down the road. Why? Well it was a one way road, of course. This is not the same as our one way streets where traffic must FLOW in one direction. No, in Yala National Park it apparently only means that the cars have to FACE in one direction but they are free to move any which way they choose.

Anyway, it was a long day trying to find leopards and sloth bears but mostly finding crocodiles and deer (we did find two of the three types in the park) and lots of birds. Technically, we did see two leopards. One crossed the road in between ours and 10 other jeeps. I can't get the photos off of michaels camera until we get home so you will have to trust me that we saw it take four steps. The other one was deftly spotted in a tree well off the road by someone with X-ray vision. Can you see him? Look very closely. Just to the right and just below the V in the tree. There is an inverted U in the gap between the greenery...the U has spots...that is his leg on the left and his tail on the right.

Again with us being jaded. But forgive me for not being ecstatic over that sighting when we have had many, excellent opportunities to watch whole, entire leopards for long periods of time. We were pretty disappointed.

However, the mother and baby elephant from the previous post did their best to cheer us up. We found them again right in the side of the road. Mom was pulling down a branch low enough for the baby to reach and teaching him or her to eat. I cut out a 6 second gif to try to post here. But apparently it is still too big for googles blogger site. So I will have to post it to Facebook separately. But go find it coz it will make you go, Awwwwwwww!

Finally, with one hour to go until the park closed, feeling like we had been rode hard and put away dusty (to paraphrase), the guide asked if we wanted to turn left and head to the exit and to call it a day or if we wanted to turn right and look some more. I think Michael was hoping that I would step up and take one for the team by asking to leave. But I did not. We turned right and were rewarded mightily.

Just as the guide was telling us that he was taking us to an area where we might find the very elusive sloth bear, we turned a corner and found not one but two sloth bears. Adolescent cubs rough housing right on the road. The Jeep scared them and they started to run, but just a way down the road were they started playing again. We pulled forward. They ran a ways and then started to wrestle again. This routine repeated itself several times before they ran off into the bush but even so barely off the road so we could still see them playing. Again, I managed to get some great video of the playful pair. There is another 6 second gif of the two of them at the end when they stopped and looked right at us before running off again.

So an adorable little elephant and two playful teddy bears saved the day.