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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.]
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.
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.
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.
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.
Our second weekend in Rangoon, we attended a cooking class sponsored by the embassy’s Community Liaison Office (CLO) at a local organic farm. We were excited for a chance to learn how to cook Nangyithoke, a Burmese chicken thick noodle salad which originated in Mandalay.
The CLO warned us to bring insect repellant — and for good reason, as it turned out; the farm hosts its cooking classes in a beautiful outdoor kitchen.
We moved to Burma (also known as Myanmar) two weeks ago, at the start of my fifth diplomatic assignment. It quickly became clear that we had traded summer in the United States for the height of Burma’s rainy season.
Calendar year 2025 has continued to present a strange mix of hardship and beauty. Over the past two weeks of Burmese class, the cherry blossoms around Washington, DC’s Tidal Basin reached peak bloom—just as a devastating earthquake struck Burma, killing thousands.
In 2024, when I wasn’t making the most of my time outdoors, I managed to publish 35 posts, conclude my fourth tour handling international parental child abductions in the Office of Children’s Issues, and begin long-term training for my next assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon, Burma.
I also wrote a series of posts chronicling Foreign Service-related topics, including the centennial anniversary of the Foreign Service, the machinations of retirement and sixth tour bidding planning, and my best tips for success during FSI language study.
One of the best things about serving a domestic Foreign Service tour is proximity and access to all the wonderful aspects of life in the United States. In contrast to many overseas assignments challenged by air pollution, security restrictions, or lack of infrastructure, northern Virginia boasts a nearly endless array of activities with no such hindrances.
One of my favorite things lately about living in Virginia has been enjoying its beautiful nature.
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