Category Archives: TRAVEL

Maximum City

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We left Canada the afternoon of the last day of 2014 and landed in Mumbai, India, on the second day of the new year, having fast-forwarded through New Years Day on eastward flights. We’re at the beginning of a two-and-a-half-month trip which will take us through much of India, but by no means all of it. India is a vast and diverse country and we have no hope of doing more than scratching the surface. We had the good fortune of meeting an Indian couple just days before we left home, which resulted in us being met at the Mumbai … 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 →

A Swing Through the South

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We spent the last week of this trip to Myanmar on the peninsula south of Yangon, bordered by the Andaman Sea on the east and Thailand on the west. The capitol of the area, and Myanmar’s fourth largest city, is Mawlamyine. It is the southernmost place in Myanmar we visited. Coincidently, in addition to Katha, the furthest north we got, it is another place that George Orwell was stationed in his service with the Indian Imperial Police. Mawlamyine (then called Moulmein) served as the capitol of British Burma from 1826-1850. There are still a number of colonial buildings around from … Continue reading →