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.
Tag: Tourism
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.
The Beginning of the End
In May, we entered the last quarter of our tour. All of the storylines — my work, our lives here, and what’s next — started to converge, signaling that the beginning of the end was underway.
Sixth Tour Bidding: Postscript
In January, while V and I were on R&R in Vietnam, I received the excellent news that my assignment following the end of my tour in Rangoon would be as consular chief in Sarajevo. I could not have been happier, as Sarajevo had been my top choice during bidding the previous fall.
After receiving the handshake, I wrote here on the blog that I would tell the story of how it went down; four months on, I am finally getting around to that.
A Rolling Portrait: Yangon Circular Railway
In March, the embassy’s Community Liaison Office (CLO) organized a weekend day trip to ride the Yangon Circular Railway.
Often called the “Circle Line,” the train travels on an approximately 28-mile (45 km) loop track around the city. It is supposed to be one of the most atmospheric and socially revealing railways in Southeast Asia. It’s not only a commuter railway and a relic of British colonial infrastructure, but also an informal street market, a lifeline for people who need to travel inexpensively, and a beautiful way to understand how the city is laid out.
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.
Postcard from Singapore
A couple of weeks ago, I began 2026 with a work-related trip to Singapore to attend a consular leadership development course called the CLDC—it was my first CLDC and my first time ever in the country. It was also the first time since returning home to Burma from the hospital in Bangkok in December that I had traveled anywhere on my own; it felt not only like an exciting professional opportunity, but also a chance to road-test my healing body.
Postcard From the 16th Century Bayinnaung Kingdom
Before too much more time elapses, I decided to deviate briefly from the heaviness of the present-day story about my recent truck vs. pedestrian accident and highlight a trip V and I took in October to the ancient city of Bago, about two hours northeast of Rangoon.
I’ll give an update on my hospitalization in Thailand and recovery from the accident soon.
The World’s Your Oyster, Part II
In the fall of 2016 while I was serving in Tashkent, I took a quick trip by myself to Bangkok for dental care. Nine years later, we found ourselves serving just an hour’s flight away, so we decided to visit — me for the second time and V for the first time. There’s nothing like a weekend in a new location to change the scene — and your perspective.
