Overwhelmed....Not Writing...


I've fallen off the blogging wagon. It has been over six weeks since we returned from our, "Mad Dash Across Too Much" and I haven't written a word about our Asian adventure. I feel so badly about it, I should be inspire by all the great places we went and all the ideas, opinions and photos I have to share, but instead I just feel overwhelmed by the scale of it all. I don't suppose  there are twelve steps to getting myself started beyond, write, write, write....

So, I thought I'd get myself going with a quick recap. 

"The Mad Dash Across Too Much" started with three weeks in Rome which provided enough material for months of posts which you can see here. It was a great trip and there's lots more to tell you (particularly about restaurants we recommend) but now it's time to move on. If you've been following along, you'll know that our plans to visit Bangladesh were scuppered by rising violence and instability around the January 2014 elections. We flew to Abu Dhabi but ended up cancelled our trip  to Dhaka the day before we were due to depart. 
On the empty corniche in Abu Dhabi

Unfortunately Abu Dhabi had very little to recommend it and while we added an extra night we were keen to depart as soon as we could. Everything was very clean, very modern, empty and large. The Sofitel was beautiful but sterile and the entire place reminded me of a shopping mall. The scale of the city was like Vegas where the buildings are so large that you think you can walk between then until you actually get out there and determine the distances are far larger than they appear. It was time to get out of Dodge as fast as possible.

It came down to this, where could we go that was cheap, available on on frequent flyer miles and had no advanced visa application required? It was a surreal way to pick somewhere to go. I seemed to spend most of our time in Abu Dhabi talking to American Airlines and my mother who was very pleased to hear we were not heading into the election chaos in Dhaka. "I'm so glad you both  have such good sense", she remarked, which was not quite what she said when we went to Syria in March of 2011!

With our good sense in hand we headed to Colombo Sri Lanka in great comfort on Qatar airlines. American Airlines deserves a shout out for getting us there via their partner (Qatar) as well as for greater availability and flexibility on their awards, which is something which is in rapid decline over at United. Sri Lanka was a very different experience for us because over planning is my modus operandi and here we were, arriving with no reservations, no guide book and no knowledge about the destination! It was an adventure.

So, here's what to expect now that I'm back on the wagon and my mantra is write, write, write. I'll be blogging about Sri Lanka, Bangkok, Burma and Bali. If I promise it it will have to happen right? If I don't run out of steam you may even hear something about Malaysia. 


Nagapali beach, Burma



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