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Ethical and Beautiful Shopping in Yangon
If there is one shop in downtown Yangon where you can buy a gorgeous souvenir and help make a difference direct to local artisans, Hla Day is it. The name of the shop means ‘beautiful’ in Burmese and it’s hard not to feel good when you walk through the door. Founder and Lead Designer Ulla Kroeber agrees. “People clearly enjoy our products. They come here because we are a happy place,” she said. The visually stunning craft outlet was established at it’s current site around two years ago by a group including Kroeber. The shop aims to help talented local craftspeople develop their skills, market their goods and, ultimately, have a…
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The top four hotels in Yangon
My favorite hotel in Yangon is not, probably, the best hotel in town, but it’s certainly the most gorgeous. In a city which seems to open a new hotel every month, it’s pretty hard to choose the top four. There are a slew of brand new, high-rise places each one more shiny and slick than the next, as well as older, more established places. If you like modern, high-rise hotels, with (mostly) good views and standard amenities, you will be spoilt for choice. The newly opened Pullman, the Melia, the Park Royal, the Rose Garden and many similar places will give you all that and more. The problem with these,…
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The Soothsayer at the Sule Pagoda
I’m a sucker for a fortune teller. And so, when I heard the second most famous pagoda in Yangon had resident soothsayers, I headed straight there. When I arrived and saw the monstrous traffic that stood between me and my destiny, I almost lost my nerve. Because Sule Pagoda and its palm readers and astrologers also happen to occupy a huge traffic island slap bang in the middle of the busiest part of a city notorious for heavy traffic. There, bus, taxi and truck drivers smack their feet to the floor as they vie with one another for the tiny gaps in the roaring sea of vehicles. So near and…
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Yangon in the Rainy Season – Things to do
If you visit Yangon any time between May and September, chances are you will get caught in the rain. A lot. That’s why most visitors come between November and February, when the temperatures are moderate and rainfall low. However, there’s a certain charm to the city in the rainy season. Not least of which is low prices and no crowds. Also, Yangon is not normally a city for gentle rambles on the sidewalks, even in the best of weather. Pavements here, generally, are a route between one destination and another, not a place to linger and smell the roses. And so, many of the best things to do can be…
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What to take on the Camino to Santiago?
What to take for a 800km walk, in one backpack? One thing is almost certain – what you start with is not what you will end with. Camino albergues are littered with discarded gear. Some depends on what you normally use. Do you walk in shorts? Pants? Whatever. Take it, but just make it light. Some depends on whether you are carrying your pack. There are excellent services that will pick up and deliver your pack every day. Your accommodation will sort this out for you for about 3 euro a day. This post is probably not for you, unless you get unlucky… No, this post is for the people…
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My pack and me – an uneasy relationship
What should I take for the Camino? This exercised my mind in the few weeks I had to prepare. A lot. And, it also exercises the mind of most people before they go – judging from the internet. Also a lot. I decided I would carry my pack, even though a bag toting service was available. Anyway, I hadn’t much time so I stuck to basics. I hardly ever check bags so it all had to weight less than 7kg. This was in line with internet advice which said to carry no more than 10% of body weight. For me, this meant 6 to 6.5kg was optimal. When I left…
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Beguiling Burgos
Burgos turned out to be a pretty decent place to be unwell for a few days. I now think of my first Camino as ‘before Burgos” and “after Burgos”. After taxi-ing through from Santo Domingo, I holed up in a cheapish place right in the historical centre – the creaking Hotel Norte y Londres with its ancient plumbing and intimidating wooden furniture. Not that I saw much of the historical centre for the first few days. The main attraction here was the bakery within a 100m walk of the hotel’s front door. Luckily I had brought a small medical pack from New Zealand, including antibiotics for respiratory infections from…
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The Camino Cough – it got me!
Yes it happened. I got sick. Very sick. Too sick to carry on. So what’s it like being sick on the Camino? The short answer is miserable. The long answer is interesting. Because you’re a long way from home. And on a mission. But you can’t get ahead with walking 20 plus km a day, or even do much at all. So the fretting kicks in. About getting it done and wasting time. And you’ve got a lot of time to think. That’s why it’s miserable. And interesting. And very very challenging. But the truth is the Camino stretches us. It needles our weak spots. Be they feet, tendons, muscles…
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Days 1 and 2 – St. Jean to Roncevalles
Twenty five kilometers over the Pyrenees is no joke under any circumstances. Add a 8kg pack, no training and jet lag and it’s bad! A few weeks before leaving I’d decided to stay over halfway at Orisson and got booked into their overflow gite at Kayola. Turned out to be a good choice, considering. The first few kms out of St Jean aren’t too bad. Plenty of undulating hills through green fields and guest houses. Then, suddenly, a few hundred meters before the hotel at Honnto, everything changes. A do-able walk becomes a very very steep uphill climb. With my pack and my fitness (both bad) a pleasant walk quickly…
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I’m doing the Camino
My Camino to Santiago starts in about 30 minutes. My pack is packed. My passport and money are in place. This is really happening! Until today, preparations involved booking a one way ticket to Paris, lying on the couch reading a book on what to take (half-way) and another book on how it changed someone’s life. Also trawling the one-and-only Trademe, New Zealand’s iconic online shopping destination, for gear, which turned up the perfect now packed pack. No training has been done… So my Camino starts here in Wellington, through Auckland, Shanghai, Paris and on. Truly expecting to get lost. Or eaten by wolves.
