Every April, Myanmar rings in the New Year with Thingyan, a week-long celebration defined by water fights, music, dancing, and a full reset of the pace of daily life. If you’ve experienced Songkran in Thailand, it’s a familiar scene, with similar traditions echoed across Cambodia and Laos. Having gone through it last year, a few
After months in Yangon, a three-day weekend in Myanmar’s southern port town of Myeik felt like stepping into a slower, salt-air world. The pace softened, the horizon opened, and life seemed to follow the tides rather than traffic. Getting there was its own Myanmar quirk: flights within the country often cost more than hopping between
Last month I was able to take a short but rewarding trip to Laos, splitting the time between Vientiane and Luang Prabang. It ended up being one of those trips that feels both busy and restorative, part work, part exploration, and part appreciation for a country that seems on the cusp of real change. For
Just an hour northeast of Yangon, the city of Bago (once called Pegu) is easy to overlook. At first glance, it’s a busy provincial town. But spend a day here and you quickly realize Bago is one of Myanmar’s most fascinating places — a city that has seen golden ages of empire, devastating wars, and,
One of the coolest parts of my job is easily the periodic travel I get to do. Last month had me heading to Las Vegas for continuing medical education, and this month had me heading to Mandalay in Upper Myanmar to do some hospital visits. Mandalay is the former imperial capital of Myanmar, until the
Just when I thought I was going to PCS back home to El Paso as quickly and cleanly as possible, Angeli convinced me to take a couple of days off and take the kids to Disney Paris on our way back home. After digesting some of the costs, which were mercifully blunted due to us
Well, not really Christmas anymore, but celebrating the New Year. After our lovely trip to the Philippines, we hopped on an airplane and started the long journey back to Mauritania. The return trip was a bit more palatable thanks to a great idea by Angeli to spend a few days in Istanbul on the way
Last week I covered our long journey from Mauritania to the Philippines, and our first week in country spent at the lovely Kandaya Resort. Following that week, we headed back to Cebu City, where we took another week to enjoy being back in a level of civilization that we aren’t really accustomed to in Mauritania.
I met Angeli in 2009, the same year she moved from Cebu City to El Paso, Texas. At least every 2 years, if not every year since, we have gone back to Cebu City to see her family and enjoy the great resorts, food, people, and hospitality of the Philippines. That is, until 2020 when
As luck would have it, I was offered a great opportunity at the end of November to attend a Foreign Service housing conference in Johannesburg. When I heard a close colleague that was previously in Nouakchott would be attending, we quickly connected and planned a girls adventure to compliment our work related activities. Having never
