I left Thailand almost two years ago during the height of the Covid pandemic, and it was easily the most unceremonious departure I ever had from a location. There was no friends saying farewell; we didn’t have to drop off keys to a landlord; and our cab to the airport arrived a little early, so we rushed out the door without really saying goodbye to the place where we had lived for over two years. I did not know if I was ever going to get to come back to this part of the world, and at the time of departure, I did not know if I really wanted to come back. It had been a hard couple of years as we were stuck in a small house on the outskirts of Bangkok. The friends we had made had already left at the first chance they could so go back to a home they hadn’t been to in two years. In the end, it felt more like an evacuation than a goodbye.
When I was given the opportunity with my current school to come back to the region to a place that I wanted to travel to but couldn’t because of the pandemic, Vietnam, I was excited. I thought that I was done with the region, but as this trip loomed closer, I started to think back to the things I loved about this part of the world, the food, the people, and the culture. It is easy to dismiss a part of the world if you have a bad association with it. Sometimes that association is justified, but sometimes, it comes from something that was out of your control, and that association is not really about that part of the world, but instead that other thing.
Even though I was eager to leave Thailand, I now have a different perspective on the region. I am looking forward to exploring Vietnam again. I know its culture is different from that of its close neighbor, but I feel like I have come back to a place of the world I really do enjoy, so over the next couple of days, join me as I come back to Southeast Asia.
It wasn’t until the end of my trip when I was asked if I had a little Scottish heritage in me. The question came from a driver who was taking us from where we dropped off our car rental to our hotel for the evening. The way he said it sounded as if he asked any tourist that he was in a car with the same question. I am sure he got an answer from many of those people that was the same as my answer, “Yes, I got a little bit of Scottish in me.”
Scotland is one of those countries that becomes a pilgrimage for many people because it tugs on something from within. They can hear the allure of hazy skies, whiskey tastings, history, kilts, highland games, and the occasional fish and chips. It promotes a lifestyle that they have only heard of in the books they have read as children or the stories told to them by an elder generation. They are curious about whether or not they can find a home in a land that was a home to their kin for so long.
Despite the rugged landscape, and the various castles, there is a sense of home that comes with traveling to Scotland. No matter where I went, I was greeted with a warm smile, and a friendly ear. Community was everywhere I looked. People would put down their phones to meet each other at the pub, or spend a day exploring the vast landscape that was offered. It is hard to come out to Scotland, and not fall in love with the land, the history and the people. For that reason, it feels like home.
The history of Scotland is one of rebellion, and national pride. It tells tales of victory, and defeat and how the land and the people were shaped by these moments. It boasts heroes whose exploits have been slightly altered to share national pride in other nations, so they can believe in the same fights that the Scots have fought for generations. It brings together nations under one banner while keeping its unique flavor for who they are and what they believe in. The history of Scotland is a fascinating one, and wherever I went in the country, I would run into a reminder of how rich and powerful that history was.
Scotland does not just offer the world a rich history and wonderful story to tell. It is also one of the hearts for intellectual thought in the world. Many great writers and philosophers have called Scotland, or more specifically Edinburgh, their home. Names such as David Hume, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Robert Burns, and J. K. Rowling all have connections to this great city, and many people from across the globe have been affected by their works in some capacity at some point in their lives.
Scotland’s impact on the world does not only stop at philosophy and literature, but extends into the sciences as well. There were great medical discoveries that came from Scotland including the discovery of the first anesthesia, chloroform. They were also the ones who cloned the first animal, Dolly the sheep. Their contributions to medicine has influenced the common practices so much that we would still be in the dark ages without them.
Scotland may be a small island off in the distance to so many people that they would never consider it a part of their lives, but if they look closer, there is a part of their lives that have been touched by the Scottish. In a way, when that man asked visiting guests whether I had any Scottish heritage, their answer should all be the same. Their is a little bit of the Scottish heritage in all of us. We may not be able to claim a clan as our own, but we can talk about how their history and culture has affected us in some capacity.
I am really glad that I was able to take the trip out to Scotland. It is a beautiful country, and I felt instantly at home in it. I suspect that this would be true for anybody that travels there. It should not be a must see destination for the ones who have a tartan hanging in their closets and they want to see the land where it comes from; rather, it should be for anyone who has ever been enthralled by its literature, learned a lesson from its history, or been saved by its contributions to science. It is everybody’s home.
I hope that someday, you can take the trip to Scotland and have the same kind of experience that I did. It is really worth the pilgramage.
It doesn’t always look like this. I was constantly being told that on my trip to the Isle of Skye. My travels through the island was accompanied by sunshine and a cooling breeze wherever I went. We were also able to come out in April before the crazy summer rush of tourists invaded this idyllic setting. I couldn’t have asked for better conditions to check out this part of the world that I wanted to get to for a long time, and it exceeded all of my expectations.
The Isle of Skye is an idyllic island a short ferry right in the northwestern part of Scotland. It only has a couple of towns, and the rest of it is pastureland, old whiskey distilleries, even older ruins, and a few one lane roads to take you to these places. During the summer months, it becomes overrun with tourists, and not enough places to support the people who would come out to go on long hikes, take pictures, and enjoy a night out on the town.
One of the bigger towns that attract people is Portree. It is the perfect jumping off point to see a lot of the sights, and get to the long hikes that take people to stunning scenery. I am told that in August it reaches the height of the tourist season as people flock out here to watch the Highland Games. I was also told that it doesn’t always look like this. In April, the people are just starting to come in, and there are still sidewalks that are navigable, restaurant tables available, and pictures still looking like I was the only one there.
I guess that is the joy of being able to come to a place like this during the offseason. Yes, I did run into tourists at the sights, but for the most part, I had them to myself to explore. I went to the old fort one morning, and the parking lot to the sight was basically empty. A couple of people were wandering down the grassy slope back to their car, and a couple of people were up exploring the fort. But if I took my time, and waited a minute, I would be able to get that picture that I wanted where it looked as if nobody has been there for ages.
The tourists were still out there. We were turned away from a restaurant once because they were fully booked and we did not have a reservation. I had to step off a path every once in awhile to allow a person to pass on through. And they were at the distilleries, but that just added to the experience when we went on a tour of the Talisker distillery and tasting room. The funny thing that we heard from our tour guide though was “It doesn’t always look like this.”
I did not need them to tell me this though. When I came to Scotland, I had a certain image in my, and when I got there, I was not treated to what I thought I would see. I was expecting gloomy skies with clouds hugging the tip of mountains, foggy hikes where I could barely see in front of me, and rain, lots and lots of rain. What we got instead were cool days without any stormy weather. We were extremely lucky to have this experience of Scotland that I don’t think many other people get to have.
So I do not know if I am the person that you should talk to if you are considering visiting Scotland. I will tell you that the hikes were fun, the people were friendly, the sights were amazing with their historical perspective, and, out of the norm, the skies were always blue.
Scotland is an amazing place with a new treat waiting around the corner, and the Isle of Skye was my favorite place that I visited on this trip. The scenery was beautiful, the people were friendly, and the experience is not one that will fade from my memory soon, or ever.
But remember it is not usually like this. My experience might not be the typical Isle of Skye experience. Not everybody who travels out to this small Northern island gets to enjoy the weather that I enjoyed. I don’t think that if it was the typical weather it would be any less dramatic. It might be something I would enjoy even more giving the land a completely different character. Still, I will just have to live with the experience I have and think of the Isle of Skye as this sunny and amazing place to visit. I hope if you choose to go there that you have a similar experience, whatever the weather may be like while you are out there.
Thanks for reading, and until next time, get out there and enjoy those opportunities when they are given to you.
In the middle of Edinburgh sits a volcano that overlooks the city. It has been a historic part of the city for centuries, and in 1541, King James V made sure that it would always be a feature by building a wall around it. Tourists still flock to this sight, and on any given day you can find many people taking the forty-five minute hike to its summit. I am not sure if they would all make the trek if it wasn’t for the name, Arthur’s Seat, invoking the name of the famous king who has captured the imagination of the people of Great Britain and the world.
Despite the perfect marketing name, on a nice day in Edinburgh, it is worth taking the hike to the top of the mountain. The hills are beautiful, and there are plenty of places along the way where you will want to stop and take a picture. It starts off at a pretty leisurely pace, but as soon as you get off the paved Holyrood Park’s path, it does get pretty steep, and rocky.
Despite this difficulty, it is not that hard, and the view of the city, and the Highlands of Scotland to the North are worth taking the trek to the top. I was lucky enough to get a beautiful day in the middle of April to take the hike, and though it got a little cool with the wind, it wasn’t the bad. There were also not that many other tourists on the path, but I imagine that this gets pretty bad during the summer months during the height of tourist season. I can also imagine that on May 1st, the trek becomes overrun with people, especially early in the morning.
There is a local legend about the seat on the first of May, where young maidens should hike the trail before the sunrise. If they are on the top when the sun reaches over the peak, they are supposed to take the morning dew from the grass and wash their face with it. If they do this, then they were be graced with eternal youthfulness. Even though this is a story filled with superstition, it is still one that attracts many young women every year to make sure that they partake in the ritual.
Even if you are not a young maiden, it is still worth the time to spend an afternoon or early morning on this mountain. The photo opportunities are everywhere, and it is fun to look at the various viewpoints that Arthur’s Seat has to offer. It does make you wonder why it is named after the famous king. There is nothing that makes it look like a seat for a king, and some people suspect that it was the location for the famous castle, Camelot. The more likely explanation is that King James V liked the legend so much that he decided to name the mountain in the middle of the city after him.
Whatever the reason you make it to the top, the legends, the myths, or the exercise, it is a must do if you are in Edinburgh. You will join the other people who make the hike, and spend some time looking over the vast landscape that the vantage point has to offer. Make sure that you make it there if you ever find yourself here.
It is a little later than usual, but I have finally reached the moment of Spring Break. That means leaving those books and papers behind, and spending time exploring the world. A typical conversation that is had among teachers at international schools is where they will be traveling during the break, and of course that always leads to conversations about airports and the pains of commuting. It used to be one of the things I dreaded the most during the travel seasons, but since I have gained access to the lounges in airports, it has made the layover part of traveling less burdensome. While I wait for my plane to arrive at the gate, I can enjoy a comfortable chair, a buffet featuring the cuisine of whatever country I find myself in, and a couple of free drinks. It has made life so much better, and I will always get on that plane feeling a load lifted off of me as I make my way to my final destination.
I have recently found out that this privilege is not given to people of all countries. Colleagues of mine from Ireland, Australia, and Canada are not able to obtain those credit cards that give them access to these oases. It made me feel a little bad that I brought up these locations to my friends. While I was departing from Amman and sitting in the comfortable lounge there, they were only granted access to a few restaurants, most of them slapping together a quick meal that they still had to pay for. It is not like they do not deserve this luxury, and I do hope that things can work out for them so in the future they can. It still seems a little absurd that these places only give access to people from certain countries. I would hop that in this day and age that we would no longer see this kind of restriction, and hopefully we can work to making this less of a problem in the future.
Though I do like the fact that I am able to enjoy my time at the airport in a comfortable space that is free from the masses, I do believe that it should not be so exclusive so certain people from certain countries can never gain access to them. I am told that it is because there is not the competition among banks and credit card companies in certain countries, therefore, there is no reason for them to offer these kinds of benefits to their customers. In a way, it does make sense, but still, if a person flies on a regular basis, they should be allowed to have these privileges. It makes me feels a little bad that I am relaxing in a comfortable place; whereas, a friend of mine, who travels just as much as I do, who happens to be Irish, can’t come up because their bank won’t allow them to. Maybe, these privileges should not come from banks, but through the airline instead. They are the ones who would know the frequency of travel from some people and offer them that option. It would make more sense to me then what bank someone belongs to, but the world runs through banks, and until we figure out a way to work around them, we will always be under their rules.
Until then, I will continue to enjoy these spots. They are great, and I hope to one day see you and everyone that travels a lot there, so we can enjoy the space together.
Will there be complaints if my drink is red, Instead of being traditional green? It is not what the ceremony bled, But it is the drink of my current scene. There is still a fair amount I will imbibe, So I can find the proper state of mind. I do not want to hear your diatribe Of how the island is not so refined, But I find myself a lot further south, And they still celebrate this holiday. Something different goes into their mouth, Toasting the saint in their own special way. The bottle of red wine will do the trick On the Venetian’s day of St. Patrick.
When you travel to a famous place, there are always must see sights, especially if it is your first time there. Sometimes these places are so important that when you travel back to these certain places, you find that you want to make it there again to see if it is the same as you remembered it the first time you were there. When traveling the Venice, there are two such places, the Rialto Bridge, and San Marco Square. These places are even better if you can make it out to them during the off season, when the crowds are not as large.
It is also interesting to see how much the place has changed over the years. Of course, the same stores and sites are still in place, but the last time I was out here, the square was covered in pigeons. Back then, you could buy bird feed and wait with it in your hands as the birds would crawl all over you to get a bite. The city of Venice was okay with this, because back then, they would add birth control to the bird feed to keep the population of the pigeons down. I found out later, that they stopped doing this shortly after I was there last time, but apparently the plan had worked. These birds were no longer all over the place, and the square was open for people to walk on through.
The pigeons are not the reason that people come to this place though. There are plenty of other great sites lined up on the square that make it worth visiting. The Doge’s palace is one of these sites. It was where the leader of Venice used to live during the height of its economic power. It is a fancy building filled with ancient art from before and up to the Renaissance. It also has the spot where people can peer out the Bridge of Sighs. People being imprisoned in Venice would cross over this bridge when they were being led to jail for the rest of their lives, and the small window would offer their last view of Venice as they made their way to this final spot. It is pretty expensive to get in to see these things, starting at 30 Euro a person, but if you walk behind the building, you can still see the Bridge of Sighs and people peering out of it in a much better mood than the people who gave the bridge its original name.
And of course, there is the Basillica di San Marco which attracts an even larger crowd. Most of this is because it is a lot less expensive to enter being only three Euro a person. This will take you inside the cathedral whose inside is covered in mosaic that is worth a fortune just in stones used for it alone. Add together the intricate patterns that are created with these stones, it makes for a place worth your time to walk around.
For a little extra, you can go up to the top floor and tour the museum. It is filled with precious pieces of art, which the one being the most impressive is the four horses. Replicas of these horses can be seen on top of the basillica, and it used to be the resting place that housed these horses. This is not the end of the story though. The horses are actually older than the cathedral itself. They were found originally in Constantinople and were stolen by the Venetians to be brought to this cathedral and placed there. Nobody is sure how old they are, but they think that they date all the way back to the third century AD.
All in all, it is a great place to visit twice, and both of the times I have come here, I have enjoyed it. San Marco Piazza is a must see place, and I hope that someday you can make it out there to enjoy it as well.
Don’t be fooled. You are not looking at a picture of Venice. This is an island very close to Venice and usually associated with a visit to this historic site. If you ever walk down the streets of Venice, you will find many shops selling the very expensive blown glass sculptures. These small pieces of art come from this other island where artisans come to show their hands at this craft, and if you want, you can take a short vaporetto, water bus, ride out there to see how it is done. You just need to find one of the buses that will take you out to the island of Murano, and you can see where all of this blown glass comes from.
The big question is whether the trip is worth it. It is not that far of a ride, and when you get there, you will be able to see more shops selling more intricate pieces. It is fun to look at the art, but the island has the same kind of feel that Venice does, only on a smaller scale. If this is a type of art form that you are interested in, there are displays that you can witness to watch how they create it. If you get tired of looking at art, there are places where you can grab a gelato, or a nice Italian meal, and when I went out there, the crowds were a little smaller than the ones I experienced on Venice. So for these reasons, it is a nice day trip to take if you find yourself staying in Venice for an extended stay.
But this comes with a warning. The way you got out there is the way you have to get back. The vaporettos only come every twenty minutes, and that is if they are running on time. There are a lot of stops along the way, and at a certain time in the afternoon, they start to get packed. I was there during the off season in March, and I had to wait for four different boats before I was able to squeeze onto one. I also left at 2:30 in the afternoon thinking that it would be before the crowds got there. I could not imagine what it would be like during a rush hour, or during the height of the tourist season. The point being if you go out there, you might find yourself stuck in line for a long time trying to get back to the main island.
To be clear, I really enjoyed the afternoon I spent on Murano. It was fun looking at the glass sculptures, and I had a great lunch. My frustration came when I tried to leave the island. The feeling I got from the island could have easily been found on Venice without the frustration of having to travel both ways to get there. Murano is not a must see, but for a certain select group of people, I could see why they would want to go there. If you are one of those people, please make your way out there, but try to plan it to avoid the frustration of trying to get back. Make sure you are on the stop that picks up passengers first, or leave later in the evening where there is not a mad rush to get back to Venice. It is the one thing that can make the time there not worth it, but otherwise, it can be a lot of fun to experience what all the noise about the Murano glass is all about.
Thanks for listening, and until next time, enjoy your time traveling.
For my regular readers, this should not come as any surprise that the English teacher in me does not like this new technology. Many people will dismiss that as another English teacher spouting out the dangers of technological advancement. We have experienced many different advancements in communication, and ChatGPT is just another example of another advancement. I should not fear this move, but rather embrace it and figure out a way to live in this new emerging world. Some will even point out the fact that Socrates, at one time, considered writing to be the most dangerous thing in the world because it prevented intellectual discourse, and the only way that we know this is because his student, Plato, wrote it down. So essentially what I am being told by these people is to not be Socrates.
But I do not think my fear about this new AI that makes writing easier is actually the same thing as Socrates’s fear of writing. It comes down to this idea of convenience that we are always striving for in our modern world. We want things to be as easy as they can possibly be. I get that. The struggle is not always an enjoyable experience, and it sometimes takes many years of work and effort to see any payoff. I know this better as teacher than most people do. I watch as my students struggle, get frustrated, take their frustration out on me, and then years later when they finally realize why I created that struggle for them in the first place, then they thank me for it. Some new teachers give up on teaching long before they ever get to experience this reward, and I can understand why. Teaching itself is a struggle.
How does this fit in with ChatGPT? Well, it eliminates the struggle. The struggle is a good thing. It is within the struggle that we learn the most about ourselves, and are given the capacity to grow. If we are never presented with this opportunity to fight through something and come out the other end as a better individual, then as a society, we can never grow, and we will become stagnant. Our new mantra will be, “If it is too hard to do, then it isn’t worth doing.” In a time in our existence where we need to face these difficult things to do, this is hardly the mantra that we need to take.
But there is something deeper going on here. It is not just convenience, but what we are giving up for this convenience. It goes back to what Socrates feared with emergence of writing. He thought it would take away intellectual discourse. There is a certain insight that emerges when people talk with each other, and I could see how losing that ability would scare somebody. But writing is also a form of discourse. Even as I write this post, I stop and think about what I want to say next, and why it is important for me to say it. I want to reach a certain audience, and get them to understand this issue in the same way that I do. To do this, it requires critical thinking, craft, and art. It is not convenient. It is a skill that I have worked years to develop, and I still work on improving this craft today. It is what makes me a human being, worthy of this intellectual discourse. What type of world do you create if we take away humans’ ability to do this?
This is where the advocates of ChatGPT will want to tell me to put down the dystopian novels that I have been reading. They are corrupting my mind, and making me think that any advancement is a bad thing. But to that argument, I counter with the fact that they are making me think. ChatGPT offers us an opportunity not to think. A great majority of society, when given the opportunity not to think, they will jump on that opportunity. They would rather be mindless drones who are easily influenced by whatever mass media throws at them. This is already a problem in our society, and ChatGPT does not solve this problem, but makes it worse.
I will use a recent example from my class. My students were given a simple task. They were to watch two different productions of the same scene from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Afterwards, they were given a series of opinion based questions about costumes, lighting, and performance about which production they liked better and why. Rather than think about what they had just watched and comment on it, they ran to ChatGPT to do the work for them. They couldn’t even take the time to give me their own opinion on a subject matter. I view this as a significant problem brought on by this new technology, and if you don’t see it the same way, I fear for the future of this world.
Society keeps on heading in the wrong direction. We are pulling further apart from each other, and pulling further into ourselves. Mental health problems are growing at an extreme rate, especially among the younger generation. A lot of these problems started around the same time as new technologies were created that did our thinking for us. Our brains cannot process the information as fast as some of these computers can, and we already seeing this becoming a problem. So, why would we release another artificial thinking entity into the world to do our thinking for us without asking what its agenda might be, and where that would leave us? We need to slow down and start thinking about what we are doing and why we are doing it, rather than just throwing it out there because we want to know if we can do it.
I know that the genie is already out of the bottle, but even genies need people to interact with it for it to be able to do anything. By not interacting with this new technology, it will not give it the power to influence society in the way I fear that it can. I am aware that by my writing about it, it helps to promote it, but at the same time, I do believe that this tipping point in society is so important that if the discussion is not opened to talk about this, then we open the door to allow it the power that it could have.
Please tell me what you think down below, share your stories about your encounters with this technology so far and tell me whether I am overreacting or not. Thanks.
There are a couple of places in this world that are known for their tuk tuks, and India is one of them. Basically a tuk tuk is a motorcycle that has a backseat attached to it, so some driver can speed tourists around a busy city. They are called tuk tuks because of the noise they make as they putter around. They are fun to take, but depending on where you are, you need to make a deal with the driver before you leave about how much you are going to pay, and where they will be taking you. There are many scams surrounding these vehicles, but if you stick to your guns, you can get a reasonable price, and have a driver waiting around for you as you go from place to place. The trips are usually short, but the feeling of being rushed around in an open air vehicle is one that is too much fun to pass over if you find yourself in one of the countries that relies on these as a form of transportation.
I recently took a trip to Chennai which, in retrospect, was a lot like a tuk tuk ride. I guess you could call the trip a business trip. I was taking a group of kids from my school to a track meet at a school in this city. For those of you who have been on a business trip before, you know that they rarely give you the opportunity to do anything more than the business that you were sent out there to do. You could find yourself in one of the most amazing tourist destinations in the world, but all you could see of that place is the inside of a board room. At least, I got to experience the beautiful campus of the school that I went to, and a track meet is always going to be a lot more fun than sitting in meeting after meeting. But I was still busy, and like take a quick ride on a tuk tuk, it was nothing more than a whirlwind that I am still trying to wrap my head around.
During the short moments that I was able to get and explore the city, they were never to go some place that would have enriched me culturally. My first responsibility was to make sure that the students I had with me enjoyed their experience first. This meant that I went to a beach where they were able to spend some time figuring out how to boogie board, and dig around in the sand. We also went to a mall to waste a little time before we headed to the airport to fly home. The mall was a little too western for my tastes and was like any other mall that I have been to in the world, but my students enjoyed it. All of this did was give me a little bit of a teaser that made me want to eventually return to India so I could explore it more on my terms rather than the short spurts of energy that was required of me by coming out here on this school trip.
Still I was able to sneak in a tuk tuk ride on my tuk tuk ride of Chennai. It was probably the most cultural significant thing that I was able to do. It was a quick run to a store so I could find a gift to bring back to my wife, and we had to pay the tuk tuk driver a little extra money to have him stick around for us. Still, it was nice to get away for a thirty minutes and have this small moment in this new country for me. I enjoyed the tuk tuk ride, but I am looking forward to something a little slower next time. This way I will be able to experience the moments a little better than being whisked away through the landscape. But it still better to have a tuk tuk ride rather than no ride at all.
Here is to all of those tuk tuk rides out there, and I hope that the next one that you find yourself on, though it may be quick, will still be memorable.
John Collings 