Author Archives: Jim

A Place to Call Home

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We have settled in a place we hope we can call home for the foreseeable future–Salt Spring Island, off the southeast end of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. I’ve lived in some nice places over the years, but this may be the most beautiful. We’ve rented a small guest house on a property next to a small bay, and just a few steps from the northern tip of the island. On sunny evenings we can look out over the ocean, past small neighboring islands and watch the sun go down behind Vancouver Island. Pretty nice. Salt Spring is almost entirely rural, … Continue reading →

Footloose

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The middle of May we moved out of the beautiful lake-view place in British Columbia we had rented for the past five years. The middle of June we sold our house in Oregon. We are well and truly homeless…or at least houseless. We feel blissfully footloose. We spent the past couple of weekends at festivals–the first one, the Oregon Country Fair, near Eugene, Oregon. For the three days of the fair it must be one of the happiest places on the planet. At least it is for me. I wrote about it last year, and I don’t think I could … Continue reading →

Last Call

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Get a few drinks into a Latino and he turns into a philosopher and a poet. Of course, after a few more, he turns into an emotional wreck, and/or a really annoying drunk. Sometimes it is a fine line. We celebrated New Years Eve in a small, dark, crowded gringo bar Antigua, Guatemala. Having just come more or less directly from Southeast Asia, still dealing with jet lag, for once we felt pretty confidant we would still be wide awake at midnight. The bar was packed mostly with fellow travelers and bohemian expats. There were a few cosmopolitan Guatemalans and … Continue reading →

A Break in Bali

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Some places are travel destinations, and are often more interesting than enjoyable. And some places are vacation destinations, which are enjoyable, but not necessarily interesting. Bali is the latter–and just what we needed after Myanmar (which is the former.) Bali is beautiful. There are some great beaches (and some just OK); terraced rice paddies are postcard pretty; and lush, green forests and spice groves cover much of the interior of the island. But tourism has been a mainstay of the Bali economy for decades, and our challenge has been getting off the beaten path even a little bit, away from … Continue reading →

Some Perspective on Myanmar

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Myanmar isn’t the kind of place you can just go to, enjoy the sights, and leave. You can’t be in the country for any length of time without thinking about social issues, political issues, history and more. It’s not just a trip, it’s an education. And no more so than now, as Myanmar is on the cusp of what promises to be some major changes. At present most changes seem minor, but are significant. There are many new banks functioning and open to the public. Some even have ATM machines, though are only for domestic transactions. (One bank is evidently … Continue reading →