Travelogue
Burmese Days - 24 June 2011
Practical Information - Republic of the Union of Myanmar – Visitor GuideMany visitors I met using guidebooks complained that information on cost and travel, especially travel times, was incorrect, so here's an update.VisasVisitors to Myanmar require a visa. This can be either a tourist of business visa. Visas are available from the Embassy on Sathorn Road in Bangkok at a cost of 810 baht, and are non-refundable. You are required to list your current and previous occupation on the application form. Do not put down journalist, and your application will likely be denied.Office hours are visa application 9-12pm, 1-3pm. Visa collection 3.30-4.30pm. The process time for a tourist visa is 48 hours. You will need to bring your passport, two passport photographs and a photocopy of your passport homepage (the Embassy will do this for you for a cost of 5 baht).Visas start from the date of issue and include a digital scan of your passport photo and are valid for a maximum of 28 days.Yangon is the only entry point into Myanmar. Air Asia flies to Yangon twice daily. There are also flights with Bangkok Airways; Thai and Myanmar Airways International.InternetThis exists in Myanmar but access is intermittent and in the case of some media sites, for example the BBC, is denied. Assistance may be required to find proxy servers before you can access Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. Internet usage is closely monitored in Myanmar thanks to technology provided by the Government of
Langkawi - The Jewel of Kedah - 22 June 2011
The chatty and helpful lady at the Penang Tourist Office by the dockside sold me my ticket to Langkawi. “Be sure to arrive at least 30 minutes before sailing” she said “and ask the bus driver to drop you here outside the door, not at the bus stop, which is someway down the road.” I did and he did. All Penang’s modern bus fleet, air-conditioned
Penang - Pearl of the Orient - 18 June 2011
Penang was Britain’s oldest colonial possession in Southeast Asia, the place where Raffles had started his overseas career with the East India Company. It was also breathtakingly beautiful. It was said that few places merited the title Pearl of the Orient as much as Penang, with its fringe of perfect beaches, its variegated interior of spice
Kuala Lumpur - City of Towers - 14 June 2011
In the 1850s Malaysia’s future capital, Kuala Lumpur, was a mining settlement fought over by rival Chinese gangs. The conflict often resulted in open warfare, prompting the British who then ruled the Federation of Malaya to step in, least the lucrative work at the mines ceased altogether. During its early times, Kuala Lumpur had many
Melaka - Guns, God, and Museums - 12 June 2011
One of the wonders of travel is that you go somewhere you’ve never been before anywhere in the world, know not a soul, arrive tired, hungry and with nowhere to sleep, and within a relatively short space of time be settled in like you’ve been there all your life. I can’t replicate the appreciation of that doing anything
Singapore - Waiting To Exhale - 9 June 2011
Singapore is a sea-level blip barely north of the Equator. Once upon a time it was sparsely populated, disease-infested island ringed by mangrove swamps. Needless to say it had one of the unhealthiest climates in the world and was the kind of graveyard that killed off people in their droves. Until the early 1800s it was a backwater, a
Asuncion - The Mother of Cities - 31 May 2011
Asuncion is the capital and largest city of landlocked Paraguay, a country rarely on the radar and for most, off the beaten track. Steamy tropical heat, tin-pot dictators, violence, tragedy and cultural melting pot, Paraguay seemed to fulfil stereotypical views for many of Latin America. True, during its history, Paraguay has suffered
Potosi - Smoking TNT and Drinking Dynamite - 22 May 2011
It has been said that if the bones of all the slave labourers who died toiling in Potosi’s silver mines to make Spain rich were laid end-to-end, they’d stretch all the way from Bolivia to Madrid. Before Britain and its Commonwealth, there was another empire on which it could truly be said “the sun never sets”. The Kingdom of Castile
La Paz - Every Breath You Take - 16 May 2011
La Paz is one of the highest capital cities in the world. Life there is highly stratified, culturally, economically and geographically. Affluence is measured in altitude, with more of the former equating to less of the latter. The higher up you live, the poorer you are. By the time you get to the city airport, life is barely subsistent.La
