Camp Champions Blog

I want to take a brief hiatus from travel reporting to share something that brought me joy, something for the Thanksgiving season.

Susie mentioned that I should share a few pictures from the Singapore Botanical Garden. So if you are looking for a blog with action and thrills, this might be one to miss.

Yesterday, I said that Singapore offers tourists food and shopping. In retrospect, I understated one other Singaporean offering: order, safety and security.

There are really two things that Singapore offers to tourists.

Charles Dickens would have loved out trip to Myanmar. It was “the best of times and the worst of times”. Traveling there was a true experience. We saw a different world. The people were so friendly (OK , when monks were not tossing pebbles at tigers). Their attire (the longi) and their unique makeup (thanakha) are unmistakable.

I write today with a very heavy heart.

I should start by saying how incredibly frustrated I was in Myanmar that I could not post all the pictures from that strange and visually stunning place. Not only were the temples worth looking at en masses, but the statues and frescoes in the inside were eye-catching as well – sometimes for their beauty and sometimes because they are covered in spider-webs and dirt from low maintenance.

I mentioned yesterday that Yangon has one redeeming site: the Shwedogon Pagoda. It is both audacious and intimate. We saw tourists, but also devout believers sitting in adjoining shrines and singing.

We are told to never judge a book by its cover.

Some experiences are, shall we say, trying ones.