travel Archives - Poe Communications

Trip Report: St. Regis Bali (also, Revisited)

Posted on December 6, 2022December 6, 2022 by thepoelog

Winter has settled in at the cabin, it gets dark at like, 4:30, and with the holidays and probably snow right around the corner, I thought I’d travel back in time to much warmer days—ie: my ongoing trip report for Southeast Asia.

When last I left off, we had just finished the first leg of our first big post-COVID international trip—three days in Singapore. The next leg of our trip took us to a familiar destination: St. Regis Bali.

We loved St. Regis Bali on our first visit in 2014. The staff, the food, the villa, the lagoon, the private pool – it was all just perfection. So much so, in fact, that we tried to go back in 2017 but because of some WTO ministerial or some other international governing body visit, we were informed just weeks before our stay that St. Regis was unavailable, but the fine Starwood folks would be happy to put us up at literally any other Bali hotel. However, my shrewd travel-agent-for-life, XFE instead suggested that they put us up at the newly opened St. Regis Maldives and that’s where we went (spoiler: It was really, really nice as well).

We woke up early and made our way to the Singapore airport, where I proceeded to have a bit of a meltdown at pre-boarding security. Let me start by saying: I am a very conscientious packer. I’ve seen too many people (including on this trip) try to take all sorts of items that they must know by well would not make it through security, including food and drink items, lighters, lighters that look like replicas of guns (!), handcuffs (?!), box cutters, literal scissors (hand on my heart, I saw an Indian woman trying to take scissors through security in her carryon this very trip. And also, baby food and formula. Lots of it).

So I always make damn sure there is nothing in my bag that could set off security, not even a sewing kit. Except for this time. This time, I had a pair of cuticle scissors in my makeup bag. They were part of a nail kit that I had thrown in without realizing. And boy, was I adamant that I did not have any scissors in my makeup bag. I threw a hissy fit and kept insisting that nope, not me, no way, I did not have anything even remotely sharp in my makeup bag. Except that I did. Oops.

Now sweaty, flustered and embarrassed, I settled in for our two-hour flight from Singapore to Bali.

True to form, Bali was again getting ready for an international gathering of trade and politics, the G20 Summit, which took place in mid-November. Signs and advertisements were up everywhere. However, this time, we would not have to reroute our trip and would be staying at our favorite resort again.

Check-in at St. Regis was easy and we were in our villa in no time. And, it was just as wonderful as our first visit. The villa was the exact same; ie: gorgeous and smelled like frangipani. The private deck and plunge pool was amazing and secluded. XFE had called ahead and made sure we had a kite ready and waiting in our room, which was really sweet.

We changed and got in some beach and pool time. Now, I’m not much of a beach person and while Bali does undoubtedly have some lovely beaches, there is one small issue (actually not small, it’s a real problem) – trash. A ton of trash washes up on Balinese beaches. Although to be fair, this isn’t just a problem in Bali. It’s all through Southeast Asia. Just a lot of single-use plastics, Styrofoam, and other debris wash up on the beach all day long. Despite the resorts best efforts to clean it up, it just keeps coming.

Despite the trash, the days became a peaceful blur and we settled into our resort routine – early breakfast at the buffet and some kite flying (and trash pickup) on the beach.

Then back to the room for a very liberal application of various sunscreens. We had all the SPF numbers in cream, gel, stick and powder formulations. Properly protected, we’d head out to our deck and pool to read and listen to music.

At lunch, we’d head back down to the beach area to eat with our feet in the sand and people-watching—my favorite resort activity. My lunch favorites were the fish and chips and a pizza with tomato confit. XFE had an amusing encounter while ordering a club sandwich. He asked for extra mayo and ended up with extra chicken, bacon, and lettuce instead.

Our kites patiently waiting for us to finish lunch.

We’d fuel up with mojitos at the beach bar and then head back to our room for more reading, lounging, napping until 5-5:30, when we would clean up and go to the King Cole bar for sundowners and to watch the champagne sabering and the sunset fire dancers.

We made a meal off their appetizer menu one night and ate at the resort restaurant, Kayputi another night (my fish dish was divine) but most nights we ordered room service (the mushroom risotto and Caesar salad were particularly good).

We usually fell asleep pretty early most nights because we are just such hard-core partiers (raging till 8 or 9 every day). On our last day, we gave our Balinese kites to two boys from Switzerland and XFE showed them how they worked.

Everything was just as wonderful as our first visit and the staff was exemplary and friendly as before. It was a truly idyllic resort vacation. I didn’t even miss my cuticle scissors.

Trip Report: Singapore Revisited

Posted on October 28, 2022October 28, 2022 by thepoelog

I’m writing this from the very back of the struggle bus. We got back from our Singapore-Bali-Indonesian islands vacation about a week ago and we are still trying to get back on schedule.

I don’t know if it’s because we’re old or just out of practice or what, but both XFE and I are having a hard time staying awake past 8 pm and we both keep waking up at 4 am, unable to get back to sleep. We’ve never had this type of jetlag before, at least as far as I can remember.

BUT, it was a truly great and memorable, once-in-a-lifetime trip, so there is that.

We started with three days in Singapore, which we’ve been to before. I absolutely love Singapore. It’s a vibrant busy city that’s a mix of history and modernity. There’s amazing modern architecture, plenty of things to see and do, most everyone speaks English, and the food is just phenomenal. It’s overall bustling and busy with these surprising pockets of peace and serenity (like a garden or a temple). I just really love it.

We stayed at the Westin Singapore which is right near one of our favorite hawker centers, Lau Pa Sat. We had a memorable dinner of satay skewers and beer while sitting at a communal table set up in a closed down street that just an hour before had been a major thoroughfare. It was busy and chaotic in the very best way.

We landed at 6 am after an 18.5-hour direct flight from New York to a soggy and very humid Singapore morning. After a quick shower and refresh, we headed out for (what else?) a private food tour with a guide from WithLocals.

Since it was our second visit to Singapore, we decided to skip the museums and arranged a couple of “insider” tours. A food tour seemed like a great way to get to know the city better and get acclimated to our Southeast Asia schedule.

Our three-hour tour with William took us from Kampong Glam to Little India and finished at a Chinatown hawker center where we had “the cheapest Michelin-starred meal in the world” – soya sauce chicken and noodles from Hawker Chan.

We finished the tour stuffed to the gills and while it was all very, very good, I think our favorite thing was the garlic naan served with a side of butter chicken sauce at Tekka Center in Little India. Not butter chicken, just the bright orange, creamy delicious sauce. Genius.

The next morning, armed with an iced coffee, we went back to explore the Kampong Glam neighborhood a bit more. We also wanted to stop in for an early(ish) gin and tonic at Atlas Bar.

While I gawked at the gorgeous Art Deco-inspired interiors, XFE put the bartender through their paces, ordering (and getting) the most obscure gins we’ve come across in our various travels and which we can’t get in the U.S. Handcrafted gin from the Swedish island of Hven? Oh yes, they carry that, and in a couple of different variations. South Africa’s Inverroche gin? One of the barbacks would have to go up the gin tower to get it, but Atlas definitely had it in amber, classic and verdant.

We skipped lunch at Atlas that day (though we came back for a late lunch the next day) and made our way over to Clarke Quay for chili crab at Jumbo Seafood. We had learned our lesson from our last visit and came prepared with a Ziploc filled with napkins, hand sanitizer and our own latex gloves. We were seasoned pros this time, ready to dig into our sweet, saucy bowl of chili crab with a side of fried rolls and large Tiger beers.

Stuffed yet again, we opted to walk back to our hotel, walking past all the fun bars and restaurants that line the Singapore River. XFE even recognized the bar we had stopped in for beers the last time we were here. Since it had begun to rain (did I mention we were there mere days after the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix, the start of which had to be delayed over an hour due to thunderstorms?), we did not revisit the bar, but kept on going, winding our way through Ann Siang Hill Park (a total oasis and hidden gem right in the CBD) on the way to our hotel.

Our final day in Singapore we met up with another WithLocals guide (the delightful Joise) for an “off-the-beaten-track” tour of the Hougang neighborhood. It was really, really fascinating!

We learned all about Singapore’s unique housing situation – most of the homes (condos and apartments) are built and owned by the government, who then sells them at subsidized rates to citizens. Approximately 85% of homes in Singapore are owned in this way, with very few homes (and hardly any land) being privately owned.

This policy has guaranteed that most citizens can “own” their homes and has kept overdevelopment and speculators at bay. It also prevents foreclosures, since the government works with anyone who falls behind on their mortgage payments to keep them in their homes, sometimes putting a pause on the loan or even lowering the monthly payments.

We peppered Joise with questions about other public policies and citizen’s attitudes towards education, crime and punishment, retirement and aging, COVID and vaccinations, religion, same-sex relationships–all of the things. It really gave us a lot of insight into the typical Singapore person’s life.

The rain started coming down pretty hard around noon, so we had a pretty low-key rest of the day, including room service dinner, catching up on some shows on our laptops, and packed up to leave early in the morning for our next stop — Bali.

A sign at one of the hawker centers, which apparently are quite dangerous and prone to fights breaking out.

West Virginia Day Trips: Blackwater Falls & Canaan Valley

Posted on November 8, 2021October 26, 2021 by thepoelog

Our corona cabin in Hardy County is surrounded by lots of great hiking. We’ve got, of course, all the trails at the Lost River State Park, the Wolf Gap Recreation Area and the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests. Plus, we have our own five acres to tromp around on.

But one of our favorite day trips is to Canaan Valley and the Blackwater Falls State Park. Located 47 miles west of our cabin, Canaan Valley is a national wildlife refuge at the headwaters of the Blackwater River, and home to a major ski and golf resort.

Canaan Valley has a pretty standard story for this state: It was full of wild and beautiful forests until logging, railroads and coal came into the area and all the forests were cut down for industry. By the 1920’s, the Canaan Valley was completely barren. In the 1930s, after plans fell through to establish a hydroelectric power plant, the West Virginia Power and Transmission Company donated the canyon and falls to the state and the park was formally established in 1937. All the forests on view today are second- and third-generation growth.

We’ve not been to Canaan Valley Resort in the winter, but in the summer and fall, you can pay $8 to ride the ski lift up to the top of the mountain and hike down to the valley. We did this in July, hiking the provocatively named Bald Knob Trail and the wild blueberries were out of control. We were wishing we had brought a Ziploc bag to haul some out with us. I’ve heard it’s even more gorgeous in the fall when the leaves are turning and the whole valley is ablaze in color.

We did not see another single soul out on Bald Knob Trail in July, which was a moderately challenging hike. At the end of the hike, back at the chairlift base, is a bar and restaurant called Quenchers, which has some outdoor seating. The service is meh and the chef is usually completely missing in action (I guess summer hours are a bit lax?). But the local beer, Big Timber Blonde Ale, is very satisfying after the hike, as are the sidewinder fries (which the waitress can fry up, even if the chef isn’t in yet).

We’ve also hiked and fished along the Blackwater River Trail, which was a nice easy 1-mile loop with beautiful wetland scenery right off the parking lot near the golf area. There are a ton more trails (I think about 18 miles worth) within the resort area to explore, either hiking or via mountain bike.

Just three miles down the road is Blackwater Falls State Park, which is a pretty popular tourist destination. The falls are five stories high and are named after the amber-colored water that’s a byproduct of the tannins picked up from all the fallen leaves and pine and spruce needles along the river’s 31-mile journey.

The park has several overlook platforms to view and photograph the falls, including a handicap-accessible platform. In addition, the park has a 20-mile system of hiking trails. We’ve hiked the short, out-and-back Lindy Point Overlook a couple of times, which has an amazing view of the Blackwater Canyon, and the Elakala Falls Trail, hooking up with the Yellow Birch Trail to create a 4-mile loop that started and ended at the Blackwater Resort parking lot.

Lindy Point in the Fall (via Friends of Blackwater)

The Blackwater Resort has been closed for renovations throughout the summer and fall, so I cannot comment on their waitstaff or the fries.

So there you have it. A nice little daytrip in West Virginia’s Tucker County. As for us, we do plan on visiting sometime during the snow season to check out some of those activities as well.

Poe’s Packing Panic: Safari Edition

Posted on October 23, 2018October 23, 2018 by thepoelog

We leave in a few days for Africa. So, you know what that means.

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Packing panic. It’s a thing. And for me, it’s a repeat thing.

It’s not like this is my first African safari. Or even my second. No, this is the third time we are going on safari. You could say, we really, really, really like it.

I should know the drill by now.

Even still, in the last few months, I’ve vacillated between, “Nope, I have gobs of clothes, I don’t need to buy a single thing for this trip,” to “Oh my damn, I have nothing appropriate to take on safari, I better buy a whole new wardrobe.”

I have a few excuses. First of all, it’s a really long trip. We are going back to Serengeti Bushtops in Tanzania for eight days and Mara Bushtops in Kenya for five days (plus a couple of days in Zanzibar and one day in Nairobi on our way home, and a whole lot of time on very long flights). All told, I have to pack for 18 days, which is a LOT of days.

A-lot-o-luggage

(Oh, and I have actually packed for an 18 day trip before).

Secondly, I’ve lost a little weight since our last trip two years ago. Not a lot but enough to go down a size or two.

Third, I’ve purged my closet several times since our last trip and got rid of things I thought I’d probably never wear again, ie: clothes bought specifically for a safari. (Except my safari jacket. I wear that thing all the time).

sheryll_warthog — Warthog approved: My safari jacket in use in an actual safari in 2016.

And fourth, I also tend to buy really cheap items to take on safari (t-shirts from H&M or Old Navy, linen or cargo pants from Gap Factory or Kohl’s), and well, those don’t generally hold up that well. Which is fine, but obviously necessitated some shopping.

In case anyone is wondering, the reason I buy cheap, fast fashion stuff for safari (besides the cost, obviously) is that these clothes are going to take a bit of a beating. It’s not that safari is extremely physical (it’s not like your climbing a mountain or something) but you are getting in and out of a very tall Land Rover multiple times a day and walking through some dusty brush, primarily, at least in my case, to squat and pee.

You also really only need a couple of outfits since they do daily laundry at the safari camps we stay at. So the cost per wear is actually pretty high. Plus, if anything does happen to my safari clothes during the trip, say a laundry mishap or a tear from getting in and out of the truck, I won’t be bent out of shape about it.

I actually learned this lesson the hard way on our first safari to South Africa, where I bought these really nice $100 hiking pants from Athleta. I was so excited about these pants, I can’t even tell you. I ordered them online and put them right into my suitcase, still encased in plastic and everything. When I went to put them on our first morning in Sabi Sands, I saw (or felt, actually) that there was a big tear in the fabric, right across the right butt cheek. I was crushed. I used my little in-room sewing kit and stitched them right up but they were ruined, in my book. Lesson learned: no expensive, fancy safari clothes.

These were my fancy pants on safari in South Africa in 2014.

A few other considerations:

Colors: White and light colors are a bad idea since they show dirt so easily. And dark colors like black and navy attract mosquitoes and even tsetse flies, which hurt like hell.

As for agitating the animals with bright colors? Animals are mostly color blind, so the sight of bright colors doesn’t send them into a tizzy at all. Plus, you’re in a truck most of the time, so they just see you as part of a large, dark mass, and most likely think we’re all just another large animal. But, having said that, I tend to stick with neutral colors like gray, tan, olive. Especially if you go on a walking safari, when you definitely need to blend into the surroundings a bit.

Weather: It’s going to be pretty warm while we are on safari, highs mostly in the mid to upper 80s, lows in the upper 50s, low 60s. Still, I wear long pants and bring long sleeve shirts to help avoid bug bites. And a hat for sun protection. But not a pith helmet, or any other colonialist gear that smacks of racism and oppression.

Melania Saul Loeb-AFP-Getty Images.jpg — Nope. Just. Nope.

And even though it’s the short rain season in the Masai Mara and Serengeti while we are there, we don’t need to bring waterproof gear. They usually have rain ponchos in the trucks (along with binoculars, which is why we don’t bring our own).

Dinners & downtime: This one is tricky and all over the map. Each camp has its own vibe and the dinner attire varies. Sometimes people wear the same clothes they wear on the game drives, which is fine. At Savanna Lodge in Sabi Sands, people (including the staff) got a bit dressed up for dinner (sundresses or linen pants and camisole tops for the women, pants and button up shirts for the men).

I try to just go with a happy medium and bring something nice, then wear it over and over and over again.

Here’s my safari packing list

Clothing

3-4 t-shirts
2 long sleeve shirts (I’m taking two lightweight button downs to wear over t-shirts in the morning)
1 sweatshirt/fleece (I’m taking my olive cargo jacket)
2 pairs of cotton trousers/pants – a pair and a spare while the other is being washed.
2 light dresses/2 dressy tops/1 pair of jeans – for dinners while on safari and time in Zanzibar & Nairobi.
A scarf – good for blocking dust or sun or bundling up on a chilly morning.
4 pairs of socks
6 pairs of underwear (I also bring a net lingerie bag for our socks and underwear to keep them together and it just to make it a bit less embarrassing.)
3 bras (including one sports bra – VERY bumpy roads. I wash this by hand before dinner and let dry overnight.)
Sunglasses (for the dust as well as bright sun)
Pajamas/linen pants for hanging out in our tent.
Hat
Swimsuit
Lightweight, durable, waterproof shoes (I’m taking this tennis/hiking shoe hybrid pair I already have. Not terribly lightweight, but durable.)
Sandals for around camp/wedges for dinner & city

Toiletries/First Aid

Anti-malarial medicine
Sunscreen
Antihistamine (for bug bites/stings and allergic reactions)
Aspirin for pain/headaches
Mosquito repellant (I especially like the wipes or toilette versions)
A couple of large Ziploc bags (to keep things like your camera dry or free of dust)
Pepto Bismal plus something stronger (we travel with Cipro after the Great Peruvian Giardia Adventure of 2013)
Band aids/antibiotic ointment for blisters, cuts, scrapes
Personal toiletries in small travel sizes, including hair and skincare products, or formulas that aren’t liquid, ie: powder or stick sunscreen, solid shampoo/conditioner)
Minimal makeup – really, just the basics: tinted bb cream, mascara, tinted lip balm.
Prescription medications/spare glasses and contacts, in my case.
Tissues — (I found having little packs of these in the pockets of my jacket VERY useful when “checking the tires” — ie: peeing – during those 6-hour game drives.
Antiseptic gel or wipes (handy for washing your hands when there’s no water around)

Gadgets and Gizmos

Converter plug to fit local sockets (if needed. We did not need one on our last trip to Bushtop. All the plugs were universal.)
Camera (with zoom lenses/tripod/whatever. I just use a Canon point-and-shoot)
Extra memory card for your camera
Binoculars (Again, we found we didn’t really need them and our safari trucks had them)
Spare batteries and/or battery charger for electronics (Bushtop’s safari trucks even had USB ports to help keep batteries charged)
I-Pad or Kindle for all your entertainment needs
Cell phone. I don’t take my computer but I will take my cell phone. But, while the camps do have wifi, but it’s always a bit iffy. I try to just unplug and be in the moment, which is what safari (and any vacation, really) should be all about.

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5 Facts About the Maldives (or, Why Can’t I Just Relax and Enjoy Nice Things?)

Posted on October 11, 2017October 11, 2017 by thepoelog

Oh, hello there. I realize I left you all on a bit of a cliffhanger. Not about the Mad Pooper. I mean, we’re all waiting for bated breath on that one, but alas, I’m not sure we’ll ever really find out who she is or why she does what she did. And the Colorado police want us all to just flush it and forget it.

No, I left you hanging over our visit to the St. Regis Maldives. Which, honestly, is not a bad place to just hang. And, because really, that’s kind of all there is to do there is…..hang.

Let me tell you a little something about the Maldives, which is sometimes pronounced “Maldiiives” with a long “i” (if you are American) and sometimes pronounced “Maldeeeves” with a long and pronounced “e” (if you are British). Somehow along the way, XFE and I had taken to pronouncing it the British way. That’s fine, too. Nobody at the very fine and expensive St. Regis Maldeeeeves ever corrected us while they were taking our credit card information. No harm. No foul. Or “foal,” however you want to pronounce it.

St. Regis Maldives welcome note for Ms Peo — Perhaps this little mispronunciation of my last name is why they didn’t correct our mispronunciation of Maldives.

Anyway, about the Maldives.

Here are 5 things to know about the Maldives.

They are incredibly remote. – The Maldives – all 1,000 coral islands that make up the tiny 26 ring-shaped atolls of this adorable little tropical paradise – are just floating along in the middle of the Indian Ocean, far, far from just about anywhere. This island nation is just under 9,000 miles (or 19 hours by plane) from our home base of Washington, D.C.

Sri Lanka is probably the closest gateway country to the Maldives at just 642 miles away (it’s a one-and-a-half hour flight from Colombo to the Maldives largest city, Male).

So it’s got that whole Robinson-family-shipwrecked-far-from-civilization vibe to it, which, I’ve got to say, freaked me out a tiny bit.

Atolls in the Maldives — Future St. Regis atolls beginning to take shape.

They are unbelievably beautiful. — Lonely Planet calls it “nature’s sunken garden” and XFE commented that being there was “like living above an aquarium.” The water is an impossible clear, light aqua blue that literally makes your eyes hurt and the sand on the beaches was so soft and white it reminded us of the sand you find in those fancy stamped ashtrays in Las Vegas.

The reefs we explored – both around the St. Regis property itself and during a day of exploring other reefs by private boat – were exceptional. Crystal clear waters teaming with all kinds of sea life and underwater cliffs covered in coral that just went on forever. The reefs were so exceptional, in fact, that we didn’t even go scuba diving. We felt we could see everything we wanted to see just snorkeling, including sharks, octopus, rays, turtles, and all the colorful small fish you can possible imagine.

They are amazingly expensive. – I already spoke a little bit about the room prices at the St. Regis, which we were lucky enough to not have to pay. But those multiple dollar signs pop up in all the other stuff, too.

Hey, you know what grows in coral? Nothing. Not a damn thing. The lack of arable land makes agriculture a no-go, which is why just about every food item (besides fish, and in particular, tuna) has to be brought in. And it’s also why everything in the Maldives (at least in my resort-laden experience) was incredibly expensive (think: $45 burgers, $36 margherita pizza).

Menu at the St. Regis Maldives' Cargo restaurant — Please note the $23 falafel starter. There was also a $45 kebab.

(Disclaimer: Apparently, there are a few things that can be grown in the Maldives – hello, coconuts — but even this website notes it’s mostly grown in homestead gardens, not enough to consider marketable. And if these Maldives farmers did sell them, I’m sure they’d be really, really expensive.)

They seriously rely on tourism. — The overall population of all 26 atolls is just over 425,000 and pretty much everybody is involved in the tourism industry. More than 1.2 million tourists visited the Maldives in in 2016, shacking up in one of the 126 resorts located on the atolls. Local laws require a certain percentage of the staff to be Maldives citizens (I think it was something like 51%) so it’s safe to say that the vast majority of Maldivians are somehow involved in travel and tourism.

our St. Regis Maldives Butler — Our amazing St. Regis Maldives butler who put up with us for days on end.

So these guys are total pros—very service oriented, always smiling, very professional. The staff at the St. Regis was top notch all the way. Even when there were glitches (and yes, there were a couple), they bent over backwards to fix things, no questions asked. In fact, if anything, managers and servers wanted to dwell on those glitches: we were asked about and apologized to for service snafus by multiple people throughout the staff multiple times, which sometimes bordered on uncomfortable.

They are all about relaxation. – I don’t want to say there’s nothing to do in the Maldives, because there probably are lots of things to do, if you are not a pasty-delicate-white flower who burns when she even sees a picture of a sun.

And certainly the St. Regis had all kinds of different buildings with a ton of different activities (a gorgeous round library stocked with books, magazines and even Kindles for guest use, another building fully stocked with games—everything from video game areas to ping-pong and foosball tables, a yoga studio with those hanging ribbons ala Pink, a cooking kitchen designed for kids, a ridiculously cool, futuristic-looking spa). They have a movie night on the beach (I think it was on Thursdays) and a very cool DJ spinning at the Whale Bar every night.

Gravity free yoga at St. Regis Maldives

But most of the times we went in those buildings, they were entirely empty. We strolled by the movie night and it was playing to empty bean bags. When we went to the Whale Bar for after dinner drinks, it was usually just us, the staff and the very cool DJ.

Maybe it was the time of year. Who knows? We’d been to resorts on an island before, but this was entirely different. This was an island resort – not a resort on an island. It often felt (other than at breakfast time) that we were the only people in the entire place, which again, made me a wee bit angsty.

St. Regis Maldives beach — Where is everybody?

The one thing that felt slightly odd to me is that every day felt identical. They were all beautiful picture-perfect days. The sun was always shining, the sky was always blue, it was always warm and humid — there seemed no variation to the days at all. I think that could make someone go crazy. You don’t even have the weather to talk about!

In my next post, I’ll talk a bit more about the St. Regis specifically and our overwater bungalow.

Trip Tip: Bring Beer and Patience for Your Sri Lanka Train Adventure

Posted on June 24, 2017July 12, 2017 by thepoelog

I know I talked a little bit about the traffic and road conditions in Sri Lanka, but there actually is another more peaceful, maybe even more scenic way to see the country.

Sri Lanka Railway.

A little background: the Sri Lanka Railway was originally known as the Ceylon Government Railways when it opened in 1858, and was built to “transport coffee from the Hill Country to the coastal port of Colombo, then when the coffee crop was wiped out by disease, the embryonic crops of tea that Sri Lanka is now famed for were transported to the coast for exportation.”

Mad rush at the train station — Trains: Once used to transport tea and now, motorcycles.

There are three main rail lines in Sri Lanka, according to Lonely Planet, and they are used by both government and privately-run rail services (I believe there are like, 2 private companies).

We took the government-run red train from Nanu Oya (for Nuwara Eliya) to Ella, through some of Sri Lanka’s most beautiful hills and valleys. It’s a trip that, while it’s only 60 kilometers, will take you about 3-4 hours (plus an hour delay on arrival, in our case.)

Continue reading Trip Tip: Bring Beer and Patience for Your Sri Lanka Train Adventure

The Hottest Spot in the Serengeti

Posted on January 27, 2017May 24, 2017 by thepoelog

There are no plush velvet banquettes. No artisanal craft cocktails. No happy hour specials or hipster DJ pushing play on an iPod.

But the bathroom at the airstrip in Kogatende is hands down the most happening. most popular spot in the entire Serengeti.

airport-4

Now listen: I’m from Texas. Clearly I have no issue with peeing out in the bushes. Not at all. But I also understand that some people prefer even a modicum of plumbing and privacy. So it’s easy to see why this otherwise unassuming cinder block/tin roofed building was everyone’s favorite watering hole while we all were on our respective game drives.

And like the wild animals we observed navigating the ponds and watering holes across the Serengeti, there was a ritual to the gatherings.

Our particular gaggle of genus: homo touristus would swing by the Kogatende “watering hole” at least twice a day, and invariably, we’d see dozens of other safari jeeps and vehicles parked in rows on the hard-packed reddish dirt parking lot.

airport-2

Here’s how it generally went down (told in my best NatGeo Wild “Safari Live” voice):

A safari vehicle pulls up. Now, watch carefully as the white female inhabitants dash quickly out of the car and hotfoot their way up to the building! Notice they carry with them a supplemental item: why its….its…toilet paper! And a wise decision as well, since there’s a 99% probability that neither of these two stalls will not be outfitted with that particular nicety.

Wait….our female is pausing….she’s shirked back and is wrinkling her nose now. Oh dear! Apparently, despite the best efforts of the erstwhile male bathroom attendant lurking about, our female homo touristus is a bit suspicious about this particular watering hole. It appears she is not a fan of the large dual septic tanks flanking the building and filling the air with one of the many aromas unique to the Serengeti. Whatever will she do?

airport

Meanwhile, back at the safari vehicle, the male homo touristus are loitering about, seemingly unsure of whether they need to partake of this particular watering hole, or just wait to hang out near some trees. They decide to pull a beer from the cooler while they make up their minds. As with all male species, these male homo touristus know they have other options and are quite lucky in that regard.

Ok, so right now we’re also getting a not-so-rare glimpse into Kogatende watering hole life as the homo safarium guiduses slowly abandon their vehicles and charges to gather in clusters with others of their species. Notice how they are laughing and chattering away. There’s no rush here at this robust watering hole. There’s plenty of time for everyone to partake in both the amenities and the social bonding rituals available.

airport-3

Now, back to our female homo touristus. After a bit of a dance, she has finally, tentatively made her way into the bathroom vestibule. She appears to be investigating her two stall options quite carefully….perhaps she’s comparing their flushability merits, or perhaps ascertaining the presence of a toilet seat. We can’t really be certain, but we can be sure that she will likely be disappointed on both counts.

Holding her nose and picking the lesser of two evils, she dives into a stall to heed the call of nature. Mere seconds later, our female bursts out of the stall, helps herself to several pumps of watermelon hand soap, and engages in an extended round of hand washing under the cold and weak tap. This is a rigorous grooming ritual, indeed!

Slapping her hands back and forth over her shorts, our triumphant female struts out of the Kogatende watering hole and makes her way back to the vehicle to share all the details of her latest bathroom escapade with the other, uninterested inhabitants of her vehicle.

Revisiting Vieques, Puerto Rico

Posted on September 25, 2015September 25, 2015 by thepoelog

Hi there! Things are chugging along at a very busy pace here at Poe Communications and Cat Box Management Engineers. New clients, new projects, new contracts…all very exciting stuff.

It’s been almost a year since I picked up my lemons and struck out on my own and the transition has been surprisingly smooth. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, the work to dry up or some other scary situation to arise, but so far…so good. My good fortune continues to freak me out on a daily basis.

To keep all the balls in the air, I’ve neglected my little blog here, which makes me very sad. BUT, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. I have been and quite a bit, actually. Just not necessarily here.

One of the projects nearest and dearest to my heart has been the Project: Time Off blog. I get to work with my friend Katie and the rest of her fantastic team AND I get to write about travel, which is a dream come true.

I recently wrote about our trip to Vieques over there. Well, sort of. I wrote a “Splurge v. Steal” post about Vieques, but I’ll admit, I’m more of a “splurge” girl.

We did enter “steals” territory when it came to spending time beach hopping. Still, hands down our favorite thing to do in Vieques. We even got in a bit of snorkeling, which was surprisingly good. And they’re opening up new parts of the island every year, so we got to explore a few new places this time.

And then, there’s our second favorite, budget-friendly activity: chasing down food trucks. We made sure to stop by Sol again for the the best empanadas and we discovered the most amazing mofongo at a new-to-us food truck that, unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were only able to track down once while we were there. I didn’t even get a picture of it!

Another new-to-us, “steal”-type activity was bunker hunting. As a former, U.S. military stronghold, Vieques is littered with hundreds of bunkers that were used for all sorts of storage. These concrete warehouses are nestled in the hills and jungles of the island and are covered with grass on top, so they can’t be seen from the air. It can also make for some fun off-roading. A lot of them are locked up, but a few are open, probably to dissuade people from busting the locks on all of them. They’re full of trash from the 1980s and 1990s, things like busted up old computers and educational manuals. Very spooky stuff.

We also upped our “splurge” game by staying (and eating and drinking) a couple of night’s at Vieques’ newest hotel, El Blok. Review in summation: Gorgeous hotel, excellent service, great location, miniscule bathrooms and the hardest bed I’ve ever attempted to sleep on. We were definitely ready to move over to the W and their Dream Beds after a couple of nights. Also, the restaurant at El Blok is amazing and definitely worth a visit (you can read a full review from this blog here). We definitely felt that El Blok was a great restaurant that just happened to have a cool hotel attached to it, as opposed to a great hotel that has an above-par restaurant.

Go over to PTO’s Upside of Downtime blog to read more about things to see and do in Vieques. It was a great trip and just reconfirmed how much we really love the laid back vibe of the place. By the last day, we were sitting on one of our deserted beaches talking about buying property on this tiny little jewel of an island.

This Other Blog That Sometimes Lets Me Write for Them

Posted on July 15, 2015 by thepoelog

Heading over to the gym for some more pain, but I wanted to shout from the interweb rooftops about a new blog that I’m contributing to. It’s part of Project: Time Off, an initiative to encourage people to take time off from work, which seems like such a no-brainer to someone who not only took ALL of her vacation days when she worked a 9-to-5, but usually ran a deficit at the beginning of each year.

Anyway, the new PTO website and blog was launched today an includes a post from your’s truly on getting your Jurassic World fix without getting eaten. Go and check it out, sign up for updates, share your own vacation Instagrams or time off experiences. And take some time off!

Dinosaurs on vacation, get it? By MP Davey, a fine artist I had never heard of until today.

Finally, Cambodia

Posted on July 14, 2015July 14, 2015 by thepoelog

So, Cambodia, y’all.

As I mentioned just briefly a while back, our March trip to Cambodia broke my heart.

Going from Singapore to Cambodia was a complete and mind-numbing culture shock. I mean, I had expected that going from the U.S. to Cambodia would be a bit of a shock but it turns out that going from super-shiny, everything-is-new, non-stop-development Singapore to the poverty and stagnation in Cambodia was way more overwhelming.

As we drove from the airport at Siem Reap to our hotel, we passed dry yellow fields with gray cows so skinny you could count their ribs. Through the dust kicked up by our SUV, I could see children in various states of undress playing in the dirt next to women sitting in dilapidated lawn chairs of all varieties—the women fanning themselves in oppressive humidity, just waiting for someone to stop at their makeshift roadside stalls.

A particularly busy stretch of road with stalls.

Everybody is Cambodia is a roadside entrepreneur, selling everything from plastic soda bottles of smuggled gasoline (makeshift gas stations were everywhere) to those baggy pants with elephants on them to fresh sugar cane juice.

You can see the gasoline in the soda bottles just to the left there at this more established roadside stall.

Me with some of the elephant pants on display outside of one of the temples.

But none of them seemed to have any customers. Cambodia is, sadly, one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Average annual income is $2.60 per day, with a third of the population living on less than $1 per day. According to the World Bank Poverty Assessment Report, Cambodia’s “near-poor”, those who live on less than $2.30 per day per person, may have escaped poverty but remain vulnerable to (even the slightest) economic shocks. The loss of just 1,200 riel (about $0.30) per day in income would throw an estimated three million Cambodians back into poverty.

It is safe to say that the country and its people have not recovered from the horrors of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime of the late 1970s. This failed four-year agrarian, Communist experiment led to the death of an estimated 2 million people, or a quarter of the total population through a combination of executions, disease and starvation. Because of the genocide, up to 63% of Cambodia’s population is under 30 years old.

The main victims of the executions were educated people – teachers, doctors, engineers, lawyers. After the Khmer Rouge was overthrown, Cambodia was left to rebuild the country with hardly any educated people left to provide leadership and an ill-equipped, corrupt government.

As a result, Cambodia still has very little infrastructure with just a few roads (only 12% of which are paved), and no train system to speak of (there is a limited train system which runs to the southern seaport of Kampong Saom and to the northwest Thai border.) Much of the population, especially in rural areas, does not have access to electricity.

The “public” school system is mainly funded—inadequately–by students’ families. As USAID puts it:

Today, Cambodia’s education indicators are among the lowest in Asia. While the primary school net enrollment rate is an impressive 96 percent, the rate for lower secondary is 34 percent and for upper secondary is only 21 percent. Due to high rates of poverty in the rural areas, poor quality of education, and insufficient number of classrooms and teachers, school dropout rates in Cambodia remain high at the primary school (8.7 percent) and lower secondary school (19.6 percent) levels. Cambodia’s education system continues to be affected by a weak public sector service delivery system, minimal teacher capacity, lack of school facilities, and inadequate enrollment levels.

Tiny vendors who recited their ABCs in English while trying to entice us to buy something.

An even bigger problem holding the country back is government corruption. While Hun Sen brought in a measure of political and economic stability when he became prime minister in 1985, he’s also ruled with an iron fist and has allowed bribes and corruption to run rampant in his government. (Plus, he recently referred to himself in the third person during a speech celebrating his 30 years of power, and well, that’s a personal pet peeve of mine).

According to the reports over at Global Witness, every natural resource — from rubber to rosewood to sand –is exploited by the Cambodian government while the people get nothing. Even one of Bill Gates’ foundation to help prevent malaria has been ripped off by government officials. You know if one of the richest do-gooders in the world can’t keep it from happening, it’s pretty darn pervasive. And criticizing the government is, of course, extra frowned upon.

It’s all the more depressing when you contrast Cambodia today with the former glory and greatness of the Khmer culture. It is almost impossible to reconcile that the people who built the magnificent temples of Angkor are the ancestors of the people who today sit by the roadside scratching out a meager living by selling smuggled gasoline and can’t even send their kids to school.

See? I told you Cambodia was heartbreaking.

There is a famous Cambodian proverb: “Don’t take the straight path or the winding path. Take the path your ancestors have taken.” Cambodians have a mixed bag when it comes to ancestors. But I hope that someday they can get back on the path of their Khmer roots and the golden age of their Angkor ancestors rather than staying captive to their most recent history.