Over Columbus Day weekend, after wrapping up week five of our Bosnian language class, V and I took a short road trip to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. To celebrate my birthday, V had rented a cabin in the woods. We were looking forward to a little getaway surrounded by nature, with hiking, winery visits, the changing of fall leaves, and explorations of small-town Virginia on the agenda. We eventually made it and had a wonderful time, but first, we had a slight detour to the ER.
Category: Travel
Colonial Echoes in Pyin Oo Lwin
Continuing with some posts I never had a chance to publish before we departed Rangoon in August… This past June, I flew with J and my mom to Mandalay, 400 miles north of our home in Rangoon, for a two-night visit. We had just spent a few days only slightly west of Mandalay in Bagan sightseeing with a guide and driver. We had arranged the same for Mandalay, hiring an established tour guide and known embassy contact who I’ll call T.
T’s company had taken me to Mandalay earlier in the year to conduct a prison visit with a U.S. citizen during an overnight trip I made with a member of my consular local staff. Unfortunately, between the consular access visit and meetings with schools and other local contacts, I hadn’t had a moment for sightseeing. I very much wanted the opportunity to return to Mandalay and actually see the city.
City of 10,000 Temples
Before much more time passes, I want to finish the posts I began writing while we were still in Burma. It was only several weeks ago, in mid-August, that we departed Rangoon. But with every week that passes, fresh adventures take priority and memories can grow dimmer or change shape. I’d like to capture as much of the magic I found in Burma before the details fade for me.
So backing up a little bit, during the June visit of my mom and her friend and co-worker J to Burma, which I touched on previously, we took a couple of domestic trips within Burma. The first was to the ancient city of Bagan. Colleagues had told me Bagan was not to be missed, which turned out to be absolutely true.
Global Repositioning
The past month has been characterized by a lot of movement. Just how much movement has taken place at any given moment is difficult to see (and perhaps even harder to grasp) without placing it within the broader context of an international move.
Unlike my time in Rangoon, when I’m in the United States, I blend in. Or at least, I appear to, until someone scratches the surface by asking me an impossible question like “Where are you coming from?” or “What’s your billing zip code?” Suddenly, any illusions about belonging and being settled start to unravel.
7,744 Miles Later
Two weeks ago today, I returned to the United States. V and I flew together with our cat from Rangoon to Seoul, where we parted ways. V continued on to Washington Dulles to return to work, while I headed to Portland, Oregon, via Seattle for Congressionally-mandated home leave.
Upon arriving, my dad picked me up at PDX, and we grabbed an early dinner. After nearly a full work day, followed by day-and-a-half travel and the 90-minute drive to his house, completely exhausted and drowning in jet lag, I proceeded to sleep for about 24 hours straight.
Port in a Storm
As I wrote about in previous posts, we spent our April R&R in the United States: the first leg in northern Virginia tackling our to-do lists, the second in Georgia for a family wedding, and the third in Washington state with my dad.
Normally, my dad’s house is a port in a storm. This visit was no exception. Because it was the last stop on our trip before returning to Burma for the final quarter of our diplomatic tour, however, our time with my dad also had to be divided between enjoying his company and running errands.
Milestones
We spent the second part of our April R&R to the United States from Burma (Myanmar) in the state of Georgia attending the wedding festivities of my eldest stepdaughter, A.
The wedding had been planned for a relatively long time. At only 27, A and her partner B had already been together since 2018 and engaged since 2024. It probably would have been easier for us had they decided to wed in the late summertime, after our tour in Burma ended. However, a spring wedding in Georgia was better aligned with their wishes (and who wants to be outside in the south during late summer!?), so we were happy to make the trip.
We Interrupt This Broadcast
As the Thingyan water festival wound down in mid-April, V and I departed on the second of the two R&Rs afforded to us during our Burma tour. During our January R&R, we had visited Vietnam and Indonesia. This time, we traveled to the United States for two and a half weeks for medical appointments, family visits, and the wedding of my eldest stepdaughter, A. It was a wonderful trip despite the long-haul travel from Asia and a domestic itinerary that took us across the country.
Our R&R unfolded in three distinct segments. First, the two of us spent several days in the Washington, DC, area. Next, we road-tripped to Georgia, where we stayed in an Airbnb with family, including my mom who’d flown out for A’s wedding. Finally, we flew to Washington state to visit my dad before beginning the long journey back to Burma.
At one point, while battling jet lag and exhaustion and noticing how quickly the days were slipping by, I found myself wondering, “Is traveling so far to ‘rest’ and ‘recuperate’ really worth it, just to have to fly all the way back?” The answer I ultimately arrived at was an unequivocal yes. Yes, it was worth it to fly all the way to the United States just four months before we leave Burma for good: to enjoy our lives, be there for our families and friends during important moments, and enjoy a little bit of good old ‘merica.
Year in Review: 2025 Blog Stats and Recap
I have both been writing this post for months and procrastinating finishing it. I normally publish my annual recap and blog stats in January, or at least earlier in the year.
But I hesitated to relive the personal and professional difficulties I experienced in 2025. A stressful international move, a life-threatening accident, family illness, job insecurity, work-related chaos, and policy whiplash were all lowlights in 2025. It’s a lot of work to dig through it all and think about how to organize and convey the details in a way that’s interesting to people aside from me.
Upon reflection, though, in characteristic form, I decided that feels like all the more reason to write this post — even if it took me a while to find the words, and even if no one else particularly notices whether I keep up what has quietly become an annual tradition. I would notice. And as the memories slowly fade around the edges, I think in the future I would regret letting a year like this pass without summary.
Finally, Bangkok for Tourism
One of the amazing delights of serving a tour in Rangoon is its proximity — via a one-hour flight — to Bangkok. Similarly to how we viewed the southern Kazakh city of Shymkent (located within driving distance of my first posting in Tashkent, Uzbekistan), Bangkok offers shopping, international cuisine, real banking and medical care. It’s also a genuine reprieve from the stresses of Rangoon, such as burning garbage and electrical outages.
On our prior trips to Bangkok, we have been most interested in what it offers that isn’t otherwise available to us. With that said, Bangkok is a world city with plenty of things that make it special and worth visiting, not just in comparison to Rangoon but independently. In February we finally took that kind of trip to Bangkok.
Pool Villa Life, Part II
Before too much more time elapses, I want to finish sharing my thoughts about the third part of our January R&R — in Bali, Indonesia.
Pool Villa Life, Part I
I planned our January R&R from my hospital bed in Bangkok last December. My intention was to pack the beginning of the trip with sightseeing and activities, then gradually slow the pace into a more leisurely vacation as the days went on. After our busy four-day visit to Hanoi, we headed to our second destination in Vietnam—the coastal city of Da Nang—where a private pool villa awaited us.
Holiday in Hanoi, Part II
January found V and me on R&R in Vietnam, a country we had never visited before. Our first stop was Hanoi—the country’s vibrant capital. Its streets buzzed with the cacophony of commerce and the chaotic crush of cars and motorbikes. It felt so different from Rangoon—more optimistic, more productive, life moving in fast-forward motion. I had only been out of the hospital for a month after being hit by a truck eight weeks prior, and I was still using a walker. But I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying Hanoi as much as I could.
[This post is the second in a series. To read the post about the first half of the trip, please click on the link.]
Holiday in Hanoi, Part I
After a short work trip to Singapore in mid-January, I returned to Burma for one night to repack and reorient before V and I left on our first R&R trip. Rangoon is a hardship posting; one year of service earns two airfare-paid R&Rs. Unlike a decade ago when I served in Tashkent, we can now use 10 days of administrative leave in lieu of annual leave to take R&R. (This is especially good for entry-level officers new to government service who haven’t yet accumulated much annual leave.)
Since we were approaching the halfway point of our Rangoon tour already and hadn’t used either R&R yet, while hospitalized in Bangkok in December I’d been busily sketching out a short vacation in Vietnam and Indonesia — two countries where neither of us had ever been before. Our first stop: Hanoi.
Flag Day Announcement… VI
Last week, I received the exciting news I had been anticipating since last September when sixth tour bidding opened for me: the title, location, and timing of my next diplomatic assignment.
