Each year millions of Americans ride motorcoaches as an inexpensive alternative to air or rail travel. Dozens of discount lines now run between major cities across the country. Tens of thousands of groups book travel where motorcoaches are used, including student field trips. Motorcoaches are safe but not entirely so. This past week a motorcoach […]

Part of the adventure of travel is experimenting with getting around to see how other folks do it. This trip has had a fair amount of that. When heading for the airport in Chiang Mai, the hotel staff urged that I take a tuk-tuk three-wheeler rather than a taxi as it would be quicker. Indeed, […]

Bangkok Bangkok has its version of the same old story of occupation by various European powers, the French, British, etc. Today, it is a gigantic city and growing larger by the day. There are construction cranes by the dozens and they can be seen in all directions for miles on end. In land area the […]

Some Parting Images While it’s time to move onto Thailand I realized I still had some images I wanted to share. A stack of brooms used to clean around the Jaya Sri Maha Bodi, the oldest human-planted tree in the world in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. The ever familiar petal decoration adorning many famous buildings in […]

On the Road in Sri Lanka I’ve been to Nepal and India four times but have never travelled extensively on busy highways in this part of the world. Virtually all of Sri Lanka is two lane roads, even between major cities. There is a lane in either direction and a shoulder on either side. I […]

Sri Lankan Railways The railway system is a vestige of British occupation dating from 1864. The Brits introduced tea to the country, grown in the uplands, and the railway was needed to ship the processed tea leaves to Colombo for shipment by sea to England and other ports. The locomotives were steam, then diesel and […]

Former Sri Lankan and Then British Capitol Kandy is Sri Lanka’s second largest city, located in the country’s hilly interior at an altitude of 1,600 feet. Don’t let the elevation fool you, it is still blistering hot perhaps as there is that much less atmosphere to dampen the sun. (I’m not complaining, much.) The population […]

A Legacy of War The 26-year Sri Lankan civil war ended in 2009 after bitter fighting and many suicide attacks. During the conflict both sides laid thousands of landmines mostly in the north and east of the country, the area which the Tamils hoped to convert into a seperate state. Many of the mines were […]

And They Are Us My guide/driver suggested a late afternoon elephant “safari” and I said, “why not.” A safari is a jeep ride of any duration over a surface loosely termed a road in search of wildlife, in this case elephants. The ride in the back of the open-topped truck was crashingly rough. It quickly […]

Few and Far Between The Northern Province of Sri Lanka, about 3,400 square miles in area, has but a single fire station. So much for response times. Jaffna is the main city in the province with a population of about 500,000 and the station is located there. In fact, the Jaffna district alone is over […]