Bucket Lists are so much more than places to see and things to do.  They can teach us about the world we live in, our place within it, who we are, and where we come from.   Whatever nationality you’re descended from, visiting the country of your ancestors results in rich, emotional travel.   Genealogical tourism first exploded in the 1970’s, largely credited to the success of Alex Haley’s book (and subsequent television series) Roots.  With the evolution of online genealogy tools - designed to make databasing and research as simple as ever – it has now become one of the busiest traffic segments online.  Dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers become private investigators of their familial pasts, looking for unlikely connections, unusual stories, and answers to questions of their origins.  If you think social media is addictive, try looking into your own lineage.
 
Genealogists advise to start with what you know.  I know my grandfather was born in a small village in northern Lithuania called Kupiskis.   Before booking a flight to the Baltics, I hit up the All-Seeing Eye of Everything (aka Google) and found a wealth of knowledge.    Kupaskis, like all shtetls in Europe, has a tragic history.   Before World War II, forty-one percent of its population were Jews, all of who were rounded up and brutally murdered by local Nazi collaborators.   Over three thousand men, women and children were massacred, including members of my own family.   While many people travel to the countries of their heritage expecting to encounter long lost relatives, there is no chance of physically discovering a forgotten branch of my own family tree.  Despite this, I headed off to Lithuania, eager to see what else I might discover.

Vilnius is a lovely European capital, with big town squares, cobblestone, cheap beer, few tourists, and welcoming locals.   It’s a three-hour drive from the city to Kupiskis, which is no longer a shtetl, just a small industrial town.  Piloting an old rental van, the surrounding countryside explodes in the colours of fall.  Each passing kilometre is one more step into the past.     A bold sign on the outskirts signals I have arrived in the town. I feel like a grown turtle washing ashore on the very beach on which I was hatched.

In 2004, a group of fifty Kupiskis descendents from as far away as the US, UK, South Africa, Denmark and Australia visited this small town to dedicate a memorial to the Jewish families wiped out in the war.  They were greeted by the town mayor, and presented with a list of the names and ages of the victims compiled by a local midwife during the war – the only such list that exists in the country.   These names are now engraved on a memorial on a plaque on the old synagogue, which is now the town’s library, and my first stop.  I run my hand over the names on the memorial, stopping at several with the surname root of Ezroch. It is exhilarating to meet the names of these ancestors, and depressing to know what happened to them. I’ve found and lost new family members all at once.  

​Late afternoon Kupaskis is half asleep, the streets deserted. Red and gold leaves cover the roads. Some locals still get around in a horse and buggy.  There are a few clues of the town’s rich Jewish history; the old library, and a street named Sinagogo, still lined with century-old old wooden houses.  It is cold and damp, and I wonder how my great-grandparents adjusted to the hot, dry veldt when they immigrated to South Africa before the first World War.    I wonder what might have been if they didn’t.  With the help of a local guide named Regina Kopilevich, who specializes in genealogical tours, I visit several mass graves, some of them with memorials, some of them with vandalized plaques. Who would deface a mass grave?  The same kind of person responsible for its existence in the first place.
 
Jews and Gentiles had co-existed peacefully here since the 16th century.   Regina leads me to the ancient, wooden house of a 91 year-old local woman named Veronica.  Floating in and out of lucidity, she recalls babysitting Jewish children, even singing me a few Yiddish lullabies from the depth of her memory. Her house overlooks the Freethinkers Cemetery, a nearby site of one of the worst massacres.  Veronica witnessed the children in her care stripped, lined up, and murdered.  
“I still see their faces,” she says, “I cried and cried.” 
The room is freezing, as if all the joy in the world has been sucked right out of it. Veronica died a few months after my visit, taking those lullabies and horrors to her own grave.

Back in Vilnius, I spent hours researching life in Kupiskis, reading old reports, and the testimonials of survivors.  I Skyped my grandmother in Johannesburg and asked questions, feeling somewhat disappointed in myself that I had never asked her these questions before.   In turn, she was fascinated by what Lithuania looks like today, what has become of Kupiskis, a place that always haunted my late grandfather. Lithuania’s history did not settle. First the evils of Hitler, then Stalin, it became the first Eastern Bloc country to declare its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.   Although my own roots were dug up, I’m nevertheless drawn to country, its under-the-skin familiarity.  Three of my four grandparents were Lithuanian.  It must count for something.
 
Michael, a distant cousin in New York, is an amateur genealogist and proved a great resource prior to my visit.  He amassed over three thousand names on my family tree.    I asked him how others should begin their personal journey. “Talk to your parents and the oldest people you can find in your family.   Ask them very specific questions.   Names of places, birth dates, if they have any newspaper clippings,” he told me.   Every time an elder family member passes away, they take with them an important piece of the puzzle.
 
Genealogical travel brings the rewards of travel you’ll find anywhere: beautiful landscapes, interesting new cultures, people, food, and history.  Yet when you journey into the land of your heritage, it makes those rewards all the more relevant.   You don’t need plane tickets or hard earned savings to begin your quest either.  If you’ve ever wondered about where you come from, your Bucket List simply wants you to start asking questions.   ​​

Note: There are thousands of volunteer genealogical societies worldwide who can help you start your search.   Websites like Cyndis List and JewishGen contain many links to get you started, and there's all sorts of software to utilize.  Talk to the people you know before going to online archives, census records, obituaries, newspaper clippings, and other sources of information.   It is highly likely you’ll soon encounter a relative or enthusiast on the same path, eager to share and learn from you.    Remember, when publishing personal information on websites and databases to respect others privacy. 

There are travellers, hardcore travellers, insane crazy hardcore travellers, and then there’s Rus Margolin.  I met Rus in the Arctic Circle when we both were guests at the world’s most northerly eco-lodge.  Born in Belarus, Rus had done well as a bond trader working in New York, and seemed hell-bent on visiting every country, unique region and territory in the world.   A few years later I interviewed him in a popular post about his progress, and just a couple years after that, his mission has been accomplished – visiting every country on Earth (an impressive feat considering his previous year included Somalia, Yemen, and other places that don’t exactly bring in the cruise ships).    With that milestone, I thought it’s worth checking in with the most travelled man I know on the planet.
 
 
Two years ago, we chatted just after you ticked off country #200.    The UN has 193 members. Remind me how you get your numbers, and where are you up to now?
 
193 is the only well defined number, and essentially every other list is arbitrary.  To be honest I never liked any of the lists, so I made up my own.  For me, an entry has to have its own culture, currency, and unique geographic location.  I have a constantly changing list of 300 plus or minus destinations, and I’m at 298. But the official list of 193 is now absolutely complete.
 
What’s left?
 
Just some parts of Iraq, and Socotra Island off Yemen, possibly territories in the Arctc and Antarctic, and some other outlying islands. 
 
Oh, then clearly you haven’t been anywhere *sigh* .  Between #200 and #300,  what have been the biggest stand-outs or surprises?
 
I left the hardest destinations for the end, so every one was difficult to get to. Yemen, Syria, Libya, various breakaway republics… all really hard to get to places.    Ethiopia’s Omo Valley was out of my comfort zone.  I ended up taking pictures of other people taking pictures, it was a human zoo.  
 
I had the same experience, the tribe watching circuit in Ethiopia was totally dysfunctional.   I was reading the other day about a young lady who hopes to be the youngest female to visit all countries on Earth.   Why is long term, intense travelling becoming so popular today?  
 
Different people have different goals.  I’ve run into people doing it for the check mark.  Land in airport, enter, exit, fly back home.  Touch and go.  To me, that’s not travel, that’s pursuing a limited goal.  You’ve got to get in there, explore the land, describe the people, taste the food, do the attractions.   I’ve been learning so much from it.   Travel is the best university you can go to.  
 
Do you think social media makes things better or worse for the traveller?
 
When it comes to planning, the logistics, and meeting like-minded people, social media definitely makes it better.  The avalanche of online interest might destroy some places, but there will always be out of the way and difficult to get to places that social media won’t ruin. Unfortunately social media makes people think they have to comment or have an opinion about places they know nothing about.
 
I was recently writing about Bali’s overtourism problem.  What are your thoughts on that?
 
My most recent travels have been more rewarding because I’ve focused on places that people don’t visit for getaways.  Nobody goes to Mogadishu for a holiday.  And yet in places like Damascus, the people were welcoming and friendly tourists were treated like gods.   We’ve had ten years of a non-stop growing economy, so another setback will probably set tourism back quite a bit. Everyone is travelling and flying now, but the economy is cyclical, so at some point people will slow down. 

What’s the least friendly country in the world? 
 
I’d say the US and Russia.  Knock on someone’s door in the middle of the night in some parts of the United States and they’ll probably shoot you.  In West Africa, they’ll offer you the last piece of banana.  
 
You’re the first Belarusian to have successfully circumnavigated the world (and to be honest, you’re only the second Belarusian I’ve ever met).    What had the biggest impact on inspiring you to travel – being a Belarusian or living in New York under the Western influence? 
 
Growing up in Belorussia, when I was a kid, I used to collect these magazines called Young Naturalist.   I used to look at them and think I’m never going to see any of this, but I wished I could.  I used to make my own notebooks of places I wanted to get to. Once I got to New York, I worked hard and got the resources to actually start travelling.  So it’s a combination of the two.     At the end of the day, some people want to accumulate wealth, for me I’d rather look back on visiting every country in the world.
 
Were you influenced by any travel writers or travel shows?  The new Blue Planet II is incredible. 
 
There was a weekly Soviet show where they would highlight some country in the world.   BBC’s Life with David Attenborough and National Geographic's Great Migrations gave me lots of ideas.  Of course, technology has advanced so much in the last couple years. The amount of effort they put into these shows is amazing.  But what you see is not what you’d see in real life. 
 
When you strike up a conversation with people abroad and tell them what you’re doing, what are the three most common questions you receive?
 
What is the most amazing place you’ve seen?  What will you do when you finish all the countries? How can you afford it? 
 
How do you keep yourself busy on those long flights, trains and drives?
 
I travel in blocks and do my best to keep the moves short.  Although this summer I did New York to Korea to Vladivostok to Japan to Southeast Asia to Somalia.   Often I just sort my photos, do research, plan out the next steps.   I don’t plan for more than a month forward. ​

You told me in our last interview that one should strive to learn everything and anything, take on the physical challenges, be respectful of cultures and traditions and be open to other people and their views on life.   I feel like I picked up the bulk of my insights in the first few months of travel, when things were perhaps the most intense.  Have you learned anything new? 
 
The first trip to a destination is usually an introduction, the second trip you go into more depth, and you’re more prepared, and you may be looking for something in particular.  In my experience, it gets richer and more rewarding the longer you do it.  Each new destination opens your eyes.
 
You recently visited a few war zones and hotly disputed regions.  Have you had to hire bodyguards, or use any cover stories?  Are you sure you’re not a Russian spy?  
 
I’m sure I’m not a Russian spy!  In Somalia you have to have bodyguards.  You can’t really go anywhere beyond Mogadishu.   I had four armed guys in a truck in front me jumping out at intersections to protect me when the car stopped.  The hotel I stayed at is in the Green Zone.  Two weeks after I left the hotel across the street was attacked and 40 people were killed.   There’s only one company on the ground that arranges everything for NGO’s and business people.  Tourism is not such a big thing though.   In Mogadishu, you don’t really have choice in terms of what you can see, it really depends on your guide and the situation.  We went to places that have barriers and are safe, like the incredible fish market, and the beach.   Often when I’m flying to the destination I think I’m crazy, especially going to places like Tehran, Tripoli, Damascus, and Mogadishu, but nothing happened.  
 
You’ve had opportunities to see more and do more than 99.9% of people on this planet.  Has this emboldened you with any special skills or abilities, and if so, how will you use them moving forward? 
 
I’m definitely a professional traveller, so I can probably navigate any destination, and take people anywhere.   Perhaps one day I could take people to harder to access places and show it to them.    The difficult places discourage people because of safety, legal, and cost…so if twenty people or more visit there it won’t be much of an impact.  ​

​Luminous orange overalls flap in the strong wind, an egg-yolk sun cracks against the horizon.   It’s been a physically tough hike, stumbling over loose rocks, my face caked in black volcanic dust.   Atop the cone of Cerro Negro, one of the youngest active volcanoes in Central America, the countdown has begun.  All that’s left to do is sit down on my wooden board, lean back, grit my teeth, and hurl down the cone,  0 to 40 km/hr in eight, wild seconds. 

​You can tell the “next big travel thing” by watching the trends of budget travellers, and they’re heading in droves to Nicaragua.   The beaches, colonial towns, accommodating locals, and prices are a backpackers dream, along with Bucket List activities like volcano boarding.  From the roof of Leon’s cathedral, the largest in Central America, you can see eleven of thirteen surrounding volcanoes surrounding the city.  They sit like a chain of pearls on a necklace, and when they erupt, as Cerro Negro did as recently as 1999, it can cover Leon in a layer of fine, ashen dust.   Not that it bothers the backpackers at Bigfoot Hostel.    When I inquire about the conspicuous absence of waivers for volcano boarding, its affable owner explains some of the legal differences between Nicaragua and the United States.  If tourists want to pay twenty bucks for the opportunity to throw themselves off an active volcano, that’s their problem!   Even though the volcano is at the tail end of its regular eruption cycle, and could explode any day, Bigfoot is doing a roaring trade, with about a dozen clients of all ages heading out daily, a wooden sleigh in hand, anticipating a Bucket List ride of a lifetime.
 
It took some time to figure out the right apparatus to accomplish such a feat, with everything from fridge doors to second-hand mattresses tested to strike the right balance of speed and relative safety.   One thing is certain: while Cerro Negro appears to have soft, sandy steep sides from afar, the granite dust is as sharp as broken glass. Protective overalls, eye-goggles, and remaining seated (as opposed to traditional upright sandboarding) is essential.  Wiping out would tear you to shreds.  

​It’s a forty-minute drive to Cerro Negro National Park, and it’s no accident the adventure takes place during late afternoon.  The sunsets in this part of the world are atomic, November through June, night after night.   We pay a small fee to enter the park, grab our boards, and start the climb up the rear of the ominous looking black pyramid.   Once we begin our steep ascent, the wind picks up considerably. Blackened lava from the last eruption sits like an Exxon mess, the thick oil spilled over the countryside. At the back of my mind, I’m well aware that nobody can sandboard faster than an erupting volcano.  
 
The loose rocks are sharp but we scramble over them, shifting the awkward weight of our boards from arm to arm. Half an hour later we arrive at the outer edge of the crater to find steaming hot sulphuric ash.   You can burn your hand on the ground here, so we keep walking around the lip, a silent prayer that the monster below us remains asleep. With the sun perfectly poised, our guide Gemma explains how to use our feet to break and steer.  
“Keep the mouth shut unless you want to chew rocks for dinner.  Back straight, lean back, and smile for the radar gun at the bottom!” 
 
A thin metal sheet is fixed to the bottom of the wood, along with a piece of plastic that increases speed.   As I begin the five hundred-metre slide, the grating sound of granite against metal sounds like an engine, revving fast.  Rocks and sand attack my goggles, stabbing my lips, sieging my shoes.  I’d scream, but it’s wiser to keep lips pursed and board straight (cone-burn awaits those who flip).     
 
Active volcanoes have intrigued many a Bucket Lister, but only in Nicaragua will you find one so creatively accessible.   Safely on the bottom, the group cracks celebratory cold beers and compares experiences.  “Now that’s something to do before you die!” says one backpacker.  I certainly agree.  

Our 4 months living in Southeast Asia can be broken down into 5 parts:

1. Chiang Mai, Thailand (6 Weeks)
2. Bangkok, Thailand (2 Weeks)
3. Bali (5 weeks)
4. Singapore (4 days)
5. Hoi An, Vietnam (5 weeks)

 
Thailand was a great start.  We jumped into the deep end of digital nomadism, swimming in an exotic culture, and enjoying a slower pace after the frenetic pace of Australia.   Bangkok was a sort of purgatory as we waited to visit Bali.  Bali was like an overharvested cornfield, a deep disappointment sprinkled with tasty moments.   How desperately we needed Hoi An to be different, to be the anti-Bali, to deliver on the promise of why we chose to visit Asia in the first place.  And how relieved I am, five weeks later as write these words on the plane back to Melbourne, to reflect that Hoi An delivered.  Everything clicked.  The warmth of the locals was sincere and inspiring. The food was fantastic.  The facilities we found were top-notch.   The friends we made were lovely.  The house we lived in was the best of any we’d stayed in, the water buffalo abundant, the excursions fun.   And most of all, the timing was perfect.   Wet season along the central coast of Vietnam officially starts September 1st, the day of our arrival.  But the rains only came October 1st, four days before our departure.   What September did was dampen the interest of high-season hordes.  Hoi An’s lantern-lit night markets, ancient storefronts and coastal attractions were busy, but never overcrowded and unmanageable.   It also meant that the locals were even friendlier, flashing their gentle smiles and gifting the kids lollipops.    Da Nang, the city that services Hoi An (located 45 minutes drive away along a quiet four lane highway) is exploding.   It’s got a lovely long white sandy coastline with resorts and apartments starting to encroach.  “This is probably what Rio looked like in the 1960’s,” says Ana.     Given its turbulent history, communist Vietnam has embraced modern tourism with a fever, attracting bus loads of Chinese and Korean tourists with mega-resorts sprouting all along the coast, edging closer and closer to Hoi An’s old city.   The Four Seasons, the Intercontinental, the Sheraton – it’s all coming in thick and fast, and it’s going to change everything, indeed, it’s already changing everything. The Canadian owner of Dingo Deli – one of our favourite hangouts with its great food and play area for the kids – tells us he was one of the first European families in Hoi An, when the inbound artery of Cua Dao was still a dirt road.  This was less than a decade ago.  Today, coffee shops and restaurants and tour operators and ubiquitous tailor shops and ATM’s and opulent-looking boutique hotels and mini marts line the paved roads to the Ancient City. In a decade, Hoi An could well become another Bali.    And while it felt like we missed the boat with Bali – which must have been incredible a couple decades ago, at least we discovered Hoi An when the going was good.   When we could walk beneath the colourful lanterns, scooter through rice paddies,  lie in hammocks under coconut trees, shop in busy local markets, and drink strong coffee on the patios. The kids might remember key moments from the photographs that captured our stay, but we’ll remember the general feeling of cultural bliss, contentment, and adventure.   Without doubt Hoi An proved to be the highlight of our Big Year, and one we’ll always remember with great fondness.  With the pace of modern tourism and the explosive growth of the mass Asian market, going back would probably be heart breaking.  

​I’d never been to Vietnam, and now I deeply regret not putting it into my Modern Gonzo itinerary 13 years ago.  It was a different country back then, just emerging from decades of Communist isolation.   I’d heard a mixed bag of backpacker’s opinions: some complained they were ripped off every two minutes and hated it.  Others said the people were lovely and it was their highlight of SE Asia.  And now, so many years later,  I heard the same stories, which illuminated the discrepancy.  It appears the the big overcrowded cities are intense, and travellers feel preyed upon.   Ho Chi Minh (aka Saigon) and Hanoi sound like places far removed from the reggae music, siestas and watermelon shakes we found in Hoi An.  It is a small town that repeatedly came up in conversations with friends about places they loved most, and wished they could have stayed longer.  Chiang Mai was the other one, and so no surprise we ended up in both.   My knowledge of Vietnam, like so many 80s kids growing up in the age of ‘Nam movies, is pretty tainted by the Vietnam War, or what the Vietnamese call the American War. All that’s in the past.  Heck, it seems that Communism is in the past, the Vietnamese taking their cue from China – the powerful neighbour that has played a huge influence on Vietnamese culture for millennia – embracing capitalism within the confines of a one-party state.    Tourism is embraced and protected.  After somehow talking my way out of corrupt police roadblocks in Bali and  Thailand, I do not recall any police presence at all during five weeks in Hoi An.   Gem’s Rider, where I rented our 130cc Yamaha Nuevo scooter, wanted to keep my drivers license as collateral.  “But what about police and roadblocks?” I ask.    “Oh, they’d never bother any tourists,” was the reply.  Everything here appeared peaceful, the roads were clean, people got about their business (working 7 days a week, I should add).  More than once I walked into a store during the hot mid-day siesta to find it abandoned, the products unattended and inviting theft from anyone off the street.   It’s why we stopped locking the front gate.  If locals are unbothered by petty crime, why should we be?
 
The only relics from the war were the stories we heard from an Israeli we met who was disarming bombs in the countryside for an NGO – “more bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were used in the entire World War II” – and an underwater mortar shell that Ana saw in the bay when she was doing her diving certification.  It continued to amaze me that these peaceful, gentle people inflicted a military defeat on the United States superpower, and then swiftly invaded Cambodia to unseat the horrific Khmer Rouge, and then held off an attack from China.  The Vietnamese are strong yet peaceful, gentle but unbelievably proud.  
 
We Air Bnb’d a house located over the bridge from the Ba Le Market off Cua Dai, in a neighbourhood served by narrow alleyways that can barely squeeze a car.   Next door to us was a small holding with banana and coconut trees, and across the road was a modest yellow temple on the shores of a large river.  The house was called Mali One, consisting of 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, two upstairs and two downstairs, typically rented individually.  We took the whole place, giving Amy her own space and a different area for Raquel’s home-schooling.    With temperatures ranging between 28C – 35C, air-conditioners in each bedroom were essential for sleep, and fans aerated the muggy air in the living areas.    The shower pressure was great, , we could flush toilet paper, and brush our teeth with tap water.    There were roosters next door and across the street, but their crows didn’t destroy us like they did in Chiang Mai.   Dozens of geckos patrolled the walls, and fortunately we’d missed the brunt of mosquito season.   A giant spider hung out downstairs by the front door, but we pretended not to notice it.  On our first morning, discovering the Dingo Deli by chance, we met a Canadian family temporary living in Hoi An with their two daughters, the same age as Raquel and Galileo.  We got to know Meredith and Jonathan, Charlotte and Aria well over the next 5 weeks, and shared the joys and challenges that come with schlepping your family around the world.   They introduced us to Kahunas – a friendly backpacker’s beach club that welcomed families to swim in their pool and use their beach chairs.  No $50 entry fee, no Bali exclusiveness.   Having broken in our scooter skills, we could pile onto the long backseat of the Yamaha and cruise the relatively calm streets of Hoi An and its surrounds.  Vietnamese scooter driving is as insane, probably more so, than in Bali.  Bikes come from every direction, at any time.   People bike on the wrong side of the road or on the pavements, using lights when they feel like it, carrying washing machines or mirrors or other bikes on their bikes, honking repeatedly and unnervingly.  We saw a couple accidents, and drunk people who could barely stand much less pilot a bike.  One hapless duo as so hammered on their bike they literally fell over in the middle of the street.  The difference with Bali’s madness is that there was a lot less traffic.  Outside of the hectic 4pm to 5pm school hour, the roads were generally calm and the highways basically empty.   Ana and I took the bike on a roadtrip to the Hai Van Pass, cruising over mountains and through some of the busier traffic areas in Da Nang.  As crazy as the riding and traffic was, it never felt nearly as dangerous and as desperate as in Bali.  As a bonus, concrete paths created shortcuts through the green rice paddies that surrounded Hoi An, showcasing water buffalo and farmers in pointy hats accompanied by wonderful feelings of exoticness and travel buzz.    I never wore a helmet, and have confirmed that riding a scooter with the warm tropical wind in my hair is as close to nirvana as I can be, more-so when I feel Raquel hugging me at the back, and have Gali holding onto the antennae-like mirror stands in the front.  Speeding along the the “water buffalo road” to Kahunas, and zipping about the rice paddies on the bike, comprise my singular best moments of the entire year abroad.  

​Just about every morning I would pop on the bike and ride around the corner – slowly across the road that became more and more flooded – to the Ba Le market.  Fresh bananas, mangoes, dragon fruit, watermelon…I’d have to haggle but at 17,000 dong to one Canadian dollar, it was always a bargain.  Some ladies ripped me off more than others, my favourite was Miss Huey, who always added a handful of fresh mint, spring onions, basil and other herbs the Vietnamese add to the soups, noodles and sandwiches.  Across the road was the white house bakery, where I could buy fresh baguettes and breads, and a little further down, the Hoi An version of Bali’s Everything Shop, although it wasn’t very big and certainly didn't have everything.  There were no supermarkets in Hoi An, no 7-11s, no Cocomarts or Pepito Express – and the two stores that sold groceries left no doubt that it was cheaper and a lot easier to just eat out.  Meals would cost between 30K – 130K, depending on the type of restaurant, and unlike Thailand or Bali, there were plenty of affordable Western options.    Raquel liked her freshly squeezed lime juice, Gali his watermelon juice, and every day the kids would have their Yakult and Milo drinks, along with homemade ice lollies from juice.  We made our own smoothies, and although I cooked schnitzel a couple times, we got a lot of take-aways from one-person kitchen restaurants nearby.   Visitors to Hoi An typically come for about 2-3 days, rent a bike to cycle in the rice paddies, visit the lantern-lit Ancient Town,  check out a few temples perhaps, and pop into a tailor to get a suit, dress or shirt made.   Every Friday we’d go to the Chabad – always the only non-Israelis – and those we spoke to were amazed we were actually living in Hoi An. 
“But what is there to do here?” they’d ask, and we’d say, “not much, which is why we love it.”    After having done so much this year, the opportunity to spend days by a luke-warm pool drinking Larue, Saigon or Tiger beer sold cheaper than bottled water while the kids play with new friends to the tunes of vintage reggae is as close to paradise as we can hope for.    Of course we got the suits and dress made, it’s the thing to do here, and you’ll struggle to find bespoke tailoring cheaper.  On the advice of someone from the Hoi An Expats Facebook group, we ended up at Cloth Shop Sue, where I got a suit, a blazer, 4 shirts and 3 waistcoats, and Ana got a suit, dress, and pants.  Shipping wasn’t too expensive, so we sent 26kg of clothes, souvenirs, books, and other stuff we’re trired of schlepping around home to Canada via sea.  Hopefully it arrives!     In our home was a 2002 copy of Lonely Planet Vietnam, and the country it describes is very different from the Vietnam 16 years later.  Hoi An is described as a small but popular town famous for its temples - we only visited one of them, by accident.  Our two sojourns were me taking Raquel on the bike to the Marble Mountains, a series of limestone outcrops overlooking flat Da Nang.  We took the elevator up to the top and visited a couple cave temples, sweating bullets in the process.    After riding 90 km;/hr with Raquel, I’m more confident than ever to get a motorbike!    Our second adventure was to the Ba Na Hills, a bizarre kitschy French medieval-style theme park built high in the mountains, and serviced by cable cars.   It was expensive and took a while to get to, but the admission price included all the rides, and they’d recently unveiled a stunning “hand” bridge that made world news when it was unveiled a few months before we got there.     We went to see a water puppet show, which was quite fascinating, visited Cham Island, which was less so. Amy took the kids on a small traditional boat that looks like a saucer, after which they made stuff with coconut fronds. We visited the Ancient Town a couple times, took the boat on the Ancient Town to let the kids make a wish as they released a floating candle-lantern.   We hit pub night where we didn’t fare particularly well but did win a pitcher of beer, and followed that up by a visit to the Dive Bar, which wasn’t a dive bar at all, and watched Jonathan support the local nitrous oxide balloon dealer.   With booze this cheap, tourists were more than happy to buy rounds for everyone.   For Ana’s birthday, Amy looked after the kids while Ana and I spent the night in a fancy hotel, having dinner and dancing to a samba band (yes, a samba band!)  at a place called Soul Kitchen in An Bang.   From the layabout couches to the kid-friendly restaurants on the beach, there was just so much to love here.  Raquel even took ballet classes on Saturday mornings, with an English teacher who knew what she was doing (in stark contrast to Bali).   The expat community heard about us and it’s a small circle – the folks with young kids living in a small town in a strange country.  Otherwise, no lost boys in caves or tragic earthquakes, although the ceremonial president of Vietnam did die, not that we (or the rest of the world) heard much about it. 
A typical day looked like this:
6am - 8am:  Wake up, make breakfast, hear about Amy’s evening exploits with the South Africans living in Hoi An teaching English to Chinese students online.
10am – 2pm: Kahunas or playdate
2pm – 4pm:  Gali naps, Raquel does school with Miss Amy downstairs,  Robin works in Australian Bucket List website/Ana explores/get PADI certified/rides around looking for baguettes. 
4pm – 6pm:  Kahunas or playdate with Charlotte or bike ride to the water buffalo or or some such thing.
6pm – 8pm:  Dinner, shower and bed time.
9pm – 11pm:  Monopoly Deal or Netflix or Pub Quiz or Girls Night Out or Book Reading or Sleep.  
 
Other memories:  The Koi Café, the karaoke clubs, the weddings, the trips to the one ATM machine where you could withdraw 5m dong. The inflatable pool on our upstairs patio, emptying the water over the sides into the banana trees.   Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the Chabad eggplant, hunting for diapers, hunting for new shoes for Gali.   The challenging Wednesday night Pub Quiz  (the most populous mammal on Earth is not humans!), the Birthday night away in a real hotel and dancing to Samba at Soul Kitchen, the horrendous sound of river frogs, the power failures, the horrendous sound of Vietnamese karaoke, the insanely strong coffee,  the kids doing this, the kids doing that…
 
It’s all a blur, and time does fly when you’re having fun.   Unlike Bali, where the highlights were crisp because they were fewer and far between, days in Hoi An blended into each other the way we blended the market fruit into smoothies.  At the the end of it, when Amy looked after all four kids and we hit the town with Jonathan and Meredith - four parents of four young kids bewildered to have some fun time to ourselves -  we realized we’d be sad to say goodbye, and yet if you don’t, months will blend in the same sort of motion blur.  It’s just hard to get much done when the going is this good, and it’s the closest we’ve had to a family holiday since we took the kids to Maui in April 2017.   For despite what people think, just because you’re travelling, it doesn’t mean you’re on vacation.   At least, until you find yourself in a place like Hoi An, the kind of place travellers visit for a few days and end up staying for a few weeks, the kind of place that vindicates your wild, crazy, irresponsible and risky decision to go travelling for a year in the first place. 

After so many miles, misadventures and meat pies, I'm delighted to be launching my 9th book, The Great Australian Bucket List , available October 9th online and in bookshops throughout Australia and New Zealand.   It's been a very long and very wild ride, packing in years of travel into six crazy months, and years of writing into the same. As for bringing along my family, two kids under five can only make the intense travel and writing easier right?   Right. 

As with my previous books, I believe that essay-style stories inspire, and are best read on a printed page illustrated with beautiful photography.  But I believe that practical information is important too, best accessed online where it can be easily and frequently updated.   The Great Australian Bucket List follows this successful formula:  a stunning, inspiring book supported by an extensive companion website - www.aussiebucketlist.com 
With any luck, both will have the same impact in Australia as the The Great Canadian Bucket List had in Canada: inspiring millions of locals and visitors to explore unique, one-of-a-kind destinations and activities around the nation (and becoming a smash bestseller as a result).    From jungle surfing in the world's oldest rainforest to swimming with giant tuna, chasing ghosts in haunted prison cells to hiking the remote outback, Australia has buckets of amazing stuff to explore.  

Here's a quick peek at what I got up to: 

The book is published by Affirm Press, the fastest growing publisher in Australia, driven by passionate readers who believe in stories as much as I do.  I have to give a shout out to my amazing sponsors and partners:   Presenting Partner Ford Motors Australia, Oaks Hotels and Resorts, Jetstar Airways, World Expeditions, Journey Beyond, Discovery Holiday Parks, Move Yourself, Sunshades Eyewear, Tourism Tasmania and Queensland Tourism and Events.  Thank you!  

Check out The Great Australian Bucket List videos on Youtube! 

The family travel project was an entirely different trip altogether.  You can check it out at the online trip journal we custom-designed to record the adventure:  www.esrockingkids.com.  Along with our partners above, special thanks to Valco Baby, Keen, Footwear, Britax and Victorinox. 

I met so many wonderful people on my journey, and as always, the people I met (and the family I travelled with) shaped my experience.  I learned so much about Australia, and myself.  This is what travel does:  new places stoke new emotions, new people stoke new ideas, new landscapes inspire new life stories.  

There's no word as yet if/when The Great Australian Bucket List will be available on shelves outside of Australia and New Zealand.  I'd love nothing more than my Canadian, Global and Australian books to find their way to stores worldwide, but that's up to the gods, agents, and the publishing industry.    In the meantime,  you can buy it online anywhere through Book Depository (with free shipping worldwide) and in Australia online through Booktopia,  Dymocks, Collins, Big W, KMart, Newslink, QBD or fine indie bookstores.  As always, it's the perfect gift for everyone from kids to grandparents, and will appeal to all ages and interests. 
​
Thanks as ever for the support, and may your travels continue to be rich and fruitful. 
​Robin

​Should you take your young kids to Bali?   Like so many other factors when it comes to travel, much depends on the nature and ages of your kids, your time, resources, interests, and what you hope to get out of the journey.   This post explores some of the options available to young families in Bali, discovering some amazing destinations and activities, but some challenges too.   I hope you find it useful. 

​The Resort Experience.
Bali is a beach-and-coconut-tree escape, the chance to relax and recuperate during the holidays.  Dozens of island resorts are designed and catered for visitors to drop’n’flop, and we sampled one of the better ones, the Hotel Nikko in Benoa Beach.   Airy and relaxed even in high season, the resort makes life a little easier for young families with spacious family suites (think tall bunk beds and rubber ducks in the oversize tub); an inclusive kids program with toys, books and more importantly, staff to look after the kids; family-sharing options on the menu at their outstanding Bali Luna restaurant; inclusive buffet breakfasts; and of course, a terrific pool and white sand beachfront.   This is all young kids need really – sun, sand and freshly squeezed juice! Raquel beamed when I raced her along the coastline on a jetski, taking advantage of the discounted watersport rates offered for hotel guests.   There was even a family spa– easily a highlight on our Asia adventure – in which Ana and I got a gentle Balinese massage while Raquel got her nails painted, and Galileo was head-massaged into a blissful slumber.  The day culminated with a sensational outdoor bubble bath, and later that evening, dancing to the songs in the piano bar off the lobby.  We didn’t want to leave the Hotel Nikko, which would be just as well, given Bali’s transportation challenges.

The Transportation Woes
I have never seen traffic anywhere as snarled, choked and unpleasant as Bali’s Uluwatu Road in the late afternoon. I’ve never seen taxi drivers as unscrupulous as those preying on tourists in high season Bali.  A simple drive to Ubud 46 kilometres away took us over 3 hours.   A simple drive to the airport 9 kilometres away from our place in Jimbaran took nearly 90 minutes.  Even with GrabTaxi (SE Asia’s Uber equivalent) and a similar local service called Go-Jek, drivers frequently tried to double or triple the agreed-upon price in the app, and randomly cancelled rides if something better popped us, leaving us stranded.  Winding narrow back roads and some terrifying driving all but ensured at least one kid would throw up in the car.   Taxi drivers physically accosted us on arrival at the airport – definitely arrange a driver to avoid this – and some Grab drivers told us that the taxi mafia physically threaten them or in some cases have beaten them up.  It’s horrendous and an unpleasant symptom of overtourism.   Unless we braved the roads on our scooter with both two kids, going anywhere proved to be an immense challenge in terms of patience and nerves.   By the end of our month-long stay, you could have offered us the world up north and we would have gladly declined to avoid the frustration of getting there.    If Bali were a resort bubble island, this would be OK, but there’s so much to see and do and so much culture to explore.  I suggest you pace yourself with the activities, keep it local, budget extra extra time to get around, and keep a towel handy if your little ones turn green in the backseat.  Note:  Bali’s roads are notorious and scooter accidents are all too common.  It is not uncommon to see tourists hobbling on crutches and wrapped in bandages.  Insurance is rare and expensive for bikes, more than double what we paid for the bike itself. We picked up helmets for the kids, and my comfort level and experience riding gave me confidence to explore the island with them on the scooter.  I do not recommend anyone doing the same without knowing and accepting the risks.  

​The Culture
Balinese art and sculpture is extraordinary.  Huge statues of Hindu folklore greet visitors at intersections, temples are built of polished black volcanic stone,  ceilings and doors are painstakingly crafted out of wood with incredible attention to detail.  Easily the most jaw-dropping of all is the 121-metre high statue that towers over the Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park, transforming the skyline of south Bali.  The world’s second tallest statue took three decades to complete, and fortuitously we arrived at its unveiling.  On scooter, I discovered back roads to get up close, and took the kids to the opening night party to see hundreds of performers entertain dignitaries beneath giant bronze statues of Garuda and Vishnu, and between looming cliffs carved from limestone.  Even though the heavens opened up with a torrential downpour, the bright costumes and passionate dances were sensational.  The Balinese beamed their wide smiles at the kids, sweeping them up and tussling their curly hair.   We’ve found our young kids get treated like royalty in Asia, and Bali was no different.   Locals were fascinated with Raquel’s corkscrew locks, and Gali’s naughty smiles.    We braved the Transportation Woes of Uluwatu Street to get to the namesake temple, perched on a dramatic cliff overlooking waves smashing into the coast.  Somehow navigating the chaos of crowds that gather here each sunset, we got tickets for the famous kecak dance – inspiring me ever since I saw the film Baraka – and a spirited performance of Hindu folklore.   It would have been a perfect evening if we could have got home without the taxi saga (this one drove off with our stroller and never returned it).  One more reason to have your own driver, if you can afford it.    On scooter, Raquel and I stumbled into stunning temples, explored Nusa Dua and Seminyak, while Ana and I visited a fantastic art museum in Ubud.  Still, the statue of a golden-crowned Vishnu riding the mythical eagle-like Garuda will stay with us forever, a symbol of Bali’s art, culture and ambition. 

​The Beaches
Bali has no shortage of beaches, although with kids I suggest you find the one that works for you and stick with it to avoid the Transportation Woes.  Our local beach was Jimbaran, which is famous for the many seafood restaurants that lay out tables and chairs on the sand each evening.  It’s truly a magical sight:  hundreds of candlelight dinners under the stars, stretching all the way down the beach, and soundtracked by the sound of waves.   We ate a sunset dinner on Jimbaran four times, choosing the restaurant at the far end so the kids could play with their toys in the beach sand.  It was always fabulous, and fortunately close enough for us to scooter in and out without tarnishing the experience.  We also learned to sit a little higher up as the tide often came in causing some hasty reseating for the front row tables.   Unfortunately,  Jimbaran by day revealed washed up plastic and garbage.   Resorts keep their beachfronts clean, but on a large public beach, Bali’s pollution problem is on full display.   The first (and last) time I took my daughter into the surf in Jimbaran, sticky threads of rotting plastic wrapped around our legs.    We had much better luck at the Sundays Beach Club, where Raquel relished her first true sea swim, playing in the turquoise waves.   The beach was gorgeous and the kids had a blast with free toys provided, as well as the steep funicular to get to the sweet infinity pool on the cliff edge.   Sundays was terrific, but as often found in Bali, the good stuff came with a price - both in terms of dollars, and the frustration of finding a way home (the taxi driver tripled the top rate the friendly concierge told us we should pay, scowling and speeding when we refused).  We also visited Dreamland and Padang-Padang, but found them overcrowded with tourists, and the surfer-friendly waves not particularly kid friendly. 

​The Food
After Thailand, we figured we’d reached the peak of Asian cuisine, and then we discovered the joys of Indonesian street food served up in eateries known as warungs.  The price discrepancy between tourist restaurants and warungs is enormous:  the same delicious nasi goring picked up at our favourite warung for $2 might cost $16 at a restaurant.   Aware that Bali Belly lurks in the shadows, we were hesitant at first but quickly found two fantastic neighbourhood warungs that made culinary artistry with the local dishes.  Our kids have been eating chicken, rice and noodles in some configuration for months already, so it speaks volumes that they (and we) never got tired of our dishes.  Sweet soy sauce chicken, gado-gado ayam, tempe stews, and yes, French Fries too. We cooked a fair bit at home but it was usually cheaper and easier to hop on the bike, pick up food at the warungs and bring it home.  Groceries from Cocomart and Pepito Express were fresh if a little pricey, juicy tropical fruit was available from street vendors and markets.  Some things are more expensive than what you’d pay in Australia or Canada (milk, cheese) and some things a lot cheaper (beer, fruit).  Be aware that the Balinese love sweet things, and sugar is everywhere!   Just about every place we visited used bottled water for drinking and cooking.   We did get a mild case of Bali Belly when we visited a more western-styled warung...but we really should have known better considering the name of the place:  Stop Makan Yuk! 

Activities for Kids
Given the weather and the rough state of some of the beaches, waterparks are a popular option for families visiting Bali.   Waterbom in Kuta draws big crowds, but we found Splash Waterpark in Canngu far better suited for little ones.  Part of the Finns Recreational Club – think of it as sort of a country club – the deck chairs are arranged around a large kiddie waterpark, and the rides are just the right balance of scary, safe and fun for everyone from young kids to teenagers (and yes, us parents too).   The huge family size pizza, served to us poolside with cold beer and freshly squeeze watermelon juice, is a thing of beauty.    Surf schools are also popular for young kids, and resorts offer the various watersport activities.   A good tip for those on a budget is Klub Jimbaran, which has kid-friendly pools and menus.  Near to our neighbourhood we found the drop-in Blue Dolphin Playskool incredible pricey and geared towards expats.   Better luck was found at a new outdoor play area called Jungle Play, which was opposite our favourite work-and-eat- spot called Café Kul Kul.  It cost around $6 per kid at Jungle Play (although there were frequently specials and half-price days), and the staff were absolutely lovely.    Also nearby was a day-care-like facility called Hompimpah, where our kids were more than happy to play with the huge range of toys in air-conditioned bliss (about $6 for three hours and half price on Mondays).    We signed up Raquel for their weekly ballet classes, while Galileo was content to just visit the cows that lived in a field around the corner from us.   
 
 
We lived in Bali for a month, renting a house in an area called Puri Gading, and exploring the southern part of the island as best we could.   Without our five and two-year-old, we undoubtedly would have seen and done more.  Travelling with kids definitely limited our options, but it dramatically expanded our family bonds, and the emotional richness of our experience.   Getting around was certainly our greatest challenge, but there were plenty of magical moments.    Being in a position to contrast our experiences of long-term family travel in Bali, Chiang Mai and Hoi An Vietnam, I’d honestly recommend Bali for a family resort holiday, and Thailand and Vietnam for the convenience, cost and lifestyle. 

Dubrovnik is in the news.  Since I visited as a backpacker (and Vancouver Sun travel columnist) in 2005, Croatia’s walled medieval city has become a magnet for mass tourism, fuelled by an onslaught of cruise ships, the success of Game of Thrones - Dubrovnik is a key location - and countless articles detailing its many wonders, written by travel writers just like me.   The result today is crowds so thick you can’t see feet for cobblestone. The infrastructure is choked, there’s notorious price gauging, increased pollution, and Disneyland-esque line-ups outside attractions and businesses barely able to cope.   This is the curse of Overtourism, a word that travellers are going to be hearing more and more often.  Tourism is an industry of growth.  More tourists = more hotels = more restaurants = more tour operators = more money = a better economy.   Rampant growth has little concern if roads or sewerage pipes or the food supply chain or ports or museums or hotels or attractions were never designed to accommodate it.   Hence, Venice is a disaster each summer.  Hence, the reality of Paris is so shocking to Japanese tourists seduced by its image they can have psychotic breaks (Google Paris Syndrome).  Hence available accommodation is limited, Air Bnb has soaked up what’s left and locals can’t afford to rent a place in their own city.  Hence finding and keeping talented staff is impossible, and transient employees are exploited under the table.  I encountered this end game on full display in high season Bali, where crowded beaches were covered in garbage and the roads were choked with snarling traffic.    I encountered it in the Masai Mara with Landrover traffic jams and aggressive guides dangerously jostling for position to get a glimpse of a lion, the beast quickly retreating from the cacophony of camera clicks.  Of course you won’t see this reality in the marketing paraphernalia produced by advertising agencies for tourism promotional boards.  Videos and brochures depict dreamy sunsets and isolated beaches, candlelit restaurants and goosebump-inducing landscapes - miraculously captured just out of view of the tour buses and line-ups, the pushy hawkers and the tourists bewildered by ticket prices with more hidden fees than your last bank mortgage.

Overtourism never used to be a big thing, because mass international tourism never used to be big thing.   Travelling abroad once signalled great fortune and privilege.  With cheaper flights, online tools and the growth of personal wealth, well over a billion people travel abroad each year.   The masses are inspired by advertising, by television shows, by books, by online Top 10’s, by travel writers promoting bucket lists.  Oh yes, they’re inspired by people just like me, enthusiastically promoting destinations and activities that make life worth living.   A destination’s prosperity brings more exposure, which brings more in-bound tourism, and the developers to build resorts and hotels to accommodate them.  We may as well stick in a zipline, or a waterpark, or an open-top bus tour, and let the good times roll.  And indeed, they have.  Mass tourism has been a boon for everyone. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, tourism generates over 10% of the world’s total GDP, supporting over one tenth of all the jobs in the world economy.  Beyond the economic benefits, travel brings people together, inspires, enlightens, informs.  I don’t need to write about why travel is good.  Yet, when tourism is allowed to grow unchecked and without care, when greed and profit drive growth, there is an end game.  I saw it on full display in Bali, and I’m not the only one.  Two decades ago the place was paradise.  But all that garbage has to go somewhere.  All those buses have to use the same narrow road.  All those tourists want to see the same show at sunset at the same temple.  And all those taxi drivers know they can feast on post-show “I just want to get back to the hotel” desperation like overfed hyenas on the Serengeti.  The End Game of Overtourism is not a pretty place.   It keeps us behind the safe walls of the resorts that protect us from the mayhem, and ensures we’ll never go back.   It inhibits meaningful cultural interactions.  It rewards the unscrupulous, the unethical, and the corrupt.   And it sends tourists packing for somewhere new, which, in turn, might gradually grow to become its own overtouristed nightmare.

Overtourism has been on my mind because of the jarring contrasts between Bali and Hoi An, Vietnam.  After 5 weeks renting a villa, my family couldn’t wait to leave Bali, and after five weeks renting a villa, we didn’t want to say goodbye to Hoi An.  Oh, tourism is exploding here too.  The word is out:  Hoi An represents a country and its people at its most loveliest: welcoming, beautiful, friendly, affordable.  And yet I’m hesitant to spread that news.  Because not far away from our villa, they’re building dozens of mega resorts all along the coast to Danang, 45 minutes away.  One resort has over 8000 rooms, built to serve one exploding market in particular, China.   And all these tourists will want to experience Hoi An like we did, and how could this small ancient town not become a Dubrovnik?   How could the main in-bound road of Cua Dai not become the choked nightmare of Bali’s Uluwatu Street?  And still,  how could I not rave about this wonderful destination without contributing in no short part to the overtourism problem?   Lots of questions to slurp back with my rice noodles.

Overtourism is changing and will continue to change the world of tourism.  Some authorities are dealing with it, making world headlines in the process.  In Thailand, they recently closed Maya Beach for six months to allow the famous cove - the setting of the film The Beach - to recover from years of tourist onslaught.  After assessing the extent of the damage, they closed the beach indefinitely.  Great for the environment and its surroundings, terrible if you own a local business and need tourists to put food on the table.  With overtourism, by the time you recognize the problem, it’s too late.  When an experience eventually becomes so negative that tourists shift their focus somewhere new - a new ancient city, a new island, a new beach -  they leave a path of environmental and economic devastation in their wake.   Will Dubrovnik shut its ports to turn down the millions of dollars cruise ships inject into the economy?  Would any city? Not likely.  Will I stop writing about inspiring places, which puts food on my table too?  Not likely either.  And there in lies the rub.  To stop the grotesque trend of overtourism, great sacrifices will need to be made.  Profits need to be pushed aside, the greater good must be pursued with long term vision.    Apply the same approach to the myriad of issues facing the planet, and then look at the leaders who have been elected to face them.  It’s not very promising, is it?

I don’t mean to and yet probably sound jaded, the dreaded word that haunts any self-respecting travel writer. Because as much as overtourism is a thing, so is Responsible Travel.  We can choose to travel with companies operating with sound ethics and impressive policies, and visit places that genuinely appreciate our interest, not just our credit card.  When authorities do use quotas and restrictions - as with gorilla encounters in Central Africa or in Peru’s Macchu Picchu - we can respect them as opposed to putting our own interests above all else.   Give Iceland or Barcelona a break, consider Finland and Lisbon.    And, yes do the research as to what a place will be like when you visit, as opposed to how incredible it was when the travel writer visited it back in, say, 2005.   As for myself, I believe that, however small the impact, my work has inspired the world,  and has made a tiny yet positive difference. I’ve always believed that travel is so personal. Just because I didn’t enjoy it, who I am to write negatively about any place or activity, and what gives me that right?   I’ve always believed there’s enough negative reporting in the world.   Well, my recent encounter with Overtourism in Bali has taught this old dog a new trick.  If I don’t starting telling everyone it how it is – warts and all - I’ll continue to be part of the problem, as opposed to part of the solution.   

​Perhaps like you, I first heard about kopi luwak in the film The Bucket List.  In fact, I first heard of bucket lists in the The Bucket List (a film which never quite matched its cultural influence with its box office earnings).  Jack Nicholson’s curmudgeonly character explains that kopi luwak is the world’s most expensive coffee, with beans gathered from the excrement of a civet – a type of wild cat -  found in Indonesia.  The beans are collected, cleaned, packaged, and sold for up to $70 per 100g.  Yes, this is a thing.  In fact, kopi luwak is one of the first things I sought out after arriving in Bali, where “Wild” and “Organic” kopi luwak sells for about $15-20 per 100g.   In the throes of high tourist season, I quickly learned that the Balinese are experts in the Art of Separating Tourists from Money, especially the taxi drivers, who are the worst shysters I’ve encountered anywhere.   Balinese cunning might explain why stories abound of poor civets being kept in battery cages and force fed coffee berries like geese on their transition to fois gras.   Today’s civet suffers greatly in order to meet both tourist and international demand for the bounty of their bowel movements.
 
The story also goes that the Asian palm civet carefully chooses only the finest coffee berries to eat, the epitome of natural selection.  After consumption, the berries receive some rare biological gift in the civet’s digestive tract, are pooped-out whole, and are scooped up, processed and marketed as the world’s finest and expensive coffee.   Having procured 100 grams of Organic (says the bag) and Wild (why would they lie?) luwak from a souvenir shop, I reviewed several sites as to the best method to prepare the coffee.  We used the French Press we’ve been carrying around the world with us, and prepared the press with the same care the wild civet must have taken when it squeezed the beans out its anus.   Gently raising the cup to my nose, it smelled exactly like… coffee.  Putting my lips to the black elixir, it tasted exactly like…Angels Singing with Harps in Heaven.  Nah, just kidding, it tasted like coffee.     Actually, it tasted worse than our regular coffee.  A little too thin, a little too complex, and a little too obvious that the only remarkable thing about this coffee is the words written on the package in which it came.   Plus, I felt terrible drinking my cup of Joe.  I couldn’t help but picture an abused cat trapped in a battery cage, force-fed coffee berries by steely-eyed, clove-smoking men with big sticks.  Despite the reassurances of “Wild” and “Organic” providence on the vacuum-sealed baggie, the amount of times I’ve been ripped off in Bali made me question the veracity of the packaging.   Taxi drivers doubling the agreed upon rate; meals suddenly costing more; paying to park; paying to relax on the sand; paying to use a floatie by the pool; paying extra;  paying more;  paying “special price for you.”  Can’t really blame these folks, given that tourism accounts for 80% of the island’s economy, bringing in 3.5m people a year, with the Chinese – those bastions of cultural sensitivity – leading the charge, and Australians drunk on the island’s cheap beer and anarchy not far behind.
 
Prized for its unique rarity, when a peak experience jumps the shark, there’s nothing unique or rare about it any more.  Rather, it quickly becomes the domain of the unscrupulous cashing in on a phenomenon.   This is the case with the luwak or the kecak dance in Bali, and it is the case worldwide (see: every tourist trap you’ve ever been to).  Meanwhile, those poor civets in Indonesia must deeply regret the bloke who first discovered that coffee beans extracted from their faeces taste delicious.  They probably wonder why the guy didn’t just eat the coffee beans, crap them out himself, and give that a taste.  Perhaps the human digestive tract would have added an extra layer of smoothness too.   It certainly would add a layer of complexity to impress the coffee connoisseurs, the same ones that have rated kopi luwak poorly in several blind tastings.  
 
It is my opinion, therefore, to leave the poor civets alone, and release kopi luwak from its dubious claim to be the world’s best cup of coffee.   Let the cats live in peace, and let's ignore the bright red coffee berries shining within their scat. A steaming cup of kopi luwak is certainly a unique culinary experience, although is probably better described as a steaming pile of something else. 

Living in a country, as opposed to travelling through it,  is a form of travel I have long felt missing in my repertoire. My career, after all, has too often involved the ticking off of unique experiences, and then running off to the next destination.      After a frenetic 6-month research period in Australia to write my next book, and with my daughter only starting kindergarten at the year-end, it felt like the perfect opportunity to live in a place I've always loved, and in places I've yet to explore.   We started with six weeks in Chiang Mai. 

I first visited the city 2005, and fell in love with it.  Unlike the congested, polluted mess that is Bangkok, Chiang Mai was friendly, peaceful and calm, beaming with golden temples, cheap eats, and guesthouses.   I returned a few years later to film an episode of Word Travels, and always thought:  “If I had to live anywhere in Asia for a while, this would be the place.”    With my family and Amy, our own travelling Mary Poppins-assistant in tow, we found a semi-detached house outside of the Old Town on Air Bnb, and prepared to settle into the neighbourhood.  The Thai – at least those outside of heavy tourist zones -  are just unbelievably, remarkably, authentically warm and gentle people.  They love children.   They smile a lot.  They are 95% Buddhist.   We weren’t off the plane for five minutes and felt reassured by the welcoming nature of the culture. .  Our house was at the end of a soi, an alley, off a busy road.  Everything was so different, so anything-goes, so jarring, so unlike Australia. ​ Like most Thai houses, ours didn’t have much of a kitchen (a gas burner, a fridge, some basic cutlery and utensils). Like most Thai houses, we wouldn’t be able to flush toilet paper down the toilet.   The beds were rock hard, the furniture basic, the shower pressure almost non-existent.    A rooster crowed directly across from us all through the night (more on the rooster later).  There was blessed air conditioning in the bedrooms, and just a fan downstairs.  Mosquitoes and flies patrolled the windows and the wonky screen door.   Inside the place was clean, but a little rough around the edges, softened each Monday when the cleaner would come and leave it spotless.   When we arrived, my wife looked at me like I was a madman for bringing us here.   But at least we wouldn’t have to unpack after a few days, and at least we didn’t have anything in particular to do.  We could just be. 

It took us about 10 days to get our bearings, to navigate the wild discrepancies between tourist/rich Thai prices, and local/poor Thai prices.    After our careful budget in Australia, we leaned heavily towards to the latter.  All that beef in Australia disappeared from the menu in Northern Thailand (unless we wanted to pay $50 for a steak in a fancy mall restaurant).   Up here, they love pork, pork and smelly fish, rice, pork and rice, and lots of chicken.  Prices for food in the big Tesco supermarket were significantly more expensive than Australia.  We splurged on olive oil.  Cheap plastic toys from China were triple the price.     In fact, everything was more expensive than I anticipated.  In the decade since I last visited, Chiang Mai has become a haven for an estimated 3000- 5000 digital nomads – people who can work from anywhere  - and Chiang Mai is as good as an anywhere as you’d want to be.    A military coup that took place a few years ago in Thailand must be good for business and tourism because the sheer number of visitors and new hotels within Old Town was staggering.   Every shop was a guesthouse or tour operator, a massage parlour or restaurant.   While we might see one or two westerners wandering about our neighbourhood, once we crossed the old walls into Old Town,  gringos were everywhere, still wearing the baggy elephant-imprint pants one can only wear in Thailand without looking ridiculous. At first, we wondered if we made a mistake booking a place so removed from the thick of Old Town, but quickly came to appreciate it.     Because we did indeed get to know the community, who embraced us after a couple weeks when they realized we were not the typical transient visitors.   We slotted into a lifestyle that was more than just visiting temples, going to overpriced bars and eating pad thai.  Although we definitely visited temples and ate pad thai.  

Getting around was affordable and easy, something we really only appreciated when we arrived in Bangkok, where getting around was difficult and comparatively expensive.  Mobike, Chiang Mai’s public bicycle system, allowed us to rent bikes with handy baskets in the front, seemingly perfectly designed for the kids to sit up front.   Solar powered and blue-tooth operated through a phone app, the bikes could be left anywhere, so we basically just “borrowed” a few to use and permanently kept them outside our heavy sliding green gate.  It cost 10 baht (about 50c) for a half hour, although I got a 200 baht ($10) unlimited use for 90 days pass.   My fondest memories of Chiang Mai are riding the streets with Raquel or Gali in the basket, stopping at temples, waving to locals.   Chiang Mai is mostly flat, and the Mobikes – at least the orange ones we used and not the wonky silver ones – were super comfortable.    We never saw any other kids in the baskets, and neither had anyone else, which is why Gali and Raquel were instant rock stars on the Mobikes.    Smiles and laughs and waves came from every direction.   For further distances,  Grab Taxis is the local Uber, and they eliminated the constant haggle and rip off with tuk tuk drivers and taxi drivers.   The fare was always fair, and the drivers gave us no nonsense.   What a game changer!  We took a few tuk tuks, more for the experience, but between the Mobikes and Grab, we could get around wherever we needed to go.  On the last week, I hired a scooter, which was super fun, even if we had to wear a helmet primarily to avoid the bribes we’d have to pay at roadblocks (only foreigners get stopped if they don’t have a helmet).   Our underpowered bike didn’t make it up every hill, but we had a fun day lunching by a river, feeling the jungle breeze, and braking for elephants.   Raquel only fell asleep twice, on the scooter, in heavy traffic.  Raquel and I took a bigger bike for a 90-minute ride to the beautiful Sticky Waterfalls.  It was quite the adventure I hope she somehow remembers, racing 100 km/hr through the jungles of Northern Thailand, seated between my legs.   

“Hi-low Lay-dees!”  The local Thai ladies were besotted with the kids, especially Gali.   We never got their names and would not be able to remember or pronounce them if we did, so we just called them “the ladies.”  On our street, upstairs in an old wooden house was an old lady always sewing.  She always smiled and waved, and raced downstairs one day to give the kids handmade Thai clothes.   We printed out a picture of her and the kids to say thanks. When we said goodbye, she gave the kids teary hugs and some wooden Buddhas.    On our corner was the “chicken fried rice ladies”, working in their gritty local eatery a tourist wouldn’t go near.  We must have waved and greeted to them at least six times a day.  They made us the fine and tasty chicken fried rice that we ate a couple times a week.  Then there was the Thai Ice Tea lady, although we all had our favourite Thai tea lady.   The Plastic Lady, who provided us with plastic bins and knick knacks and spoke some English.  The Pad Thai ladies, another place tourists wouldn’t blink at but made a great 30 baht ($1.50) pad thai.    The Market Ladies, the Fruit Lady, the Temple Lady (above) who always cried when she saw the kids, the Pancake Lady, the Ice Cream Lady.   ​We did cook at home a fair amount and realized how much we miss an oven when we don’t have one.   We made do with pasta and deep friend chicken and eggs and toast in the morning, although usually had to watch out for the geckos jumping out of the toaster.   My wife took a Thai cooking class and came home to make a fantastic Tom Yum soup.   It was often more expensive to buy the ingredients than just grab a pad thai.   Without eating pork or stinky fish, it says much about Thai cooking that we ate chicken/rice/noodles in some configuration for 6 weeks without getting tired of it.   There was a local vegetable market  - more friendly ladies - around the corner, along with a Tesco Express and 7-11 (a mini supermarket),  and it all amounted to a situation that became dependably convenient – something we again only appreciated when we left Chiang Mai. 

​Also around the corner was a gritty local Muay Thai gym – Thai kickboxing.  We paid the friendly manager Ratana to give Raquel private lessons on Thursday nights.   Ratana and her pretty daughter loved Raquel, who cut the cutest curly-haired figure sparring among sweaty fighters.   She learned to keep her fists up, kick, punch and elbow, and survive the massive mosquitoes attacking the gym in the early evening.   Ratana took lots of videos, she thought Raquel was just amazing.   We hoped the lessons would help burn off some of her energy so there wouldn’t be a prize fight trying to get her to sleep that night. 

Although we tried hard not to be tourists, of course we did a few touristy things.  Art in Paradise is an interactive art museum that blew us away, putting us in the picture with dinosaurs and masterpieces.  The kids loved the Elephant Poo Poo Park, where dung is sustainably converted into paper (it's a lot more interesting than it sounds, and in case you're wondering, doesn't smell at all).  We visited a massive waterpark called Tube Trek, the Saturday Night Market, which was so much better than the overcrowded Sunday Night Market.  The Ginger Farm, where Gali fell into a muddy trench.  He had more luck at the Buak Hard Public Park, which had the only decent playground we could find. Of course there were all the amazing temples, and we had a beautiful moment with an elephant on the road without visiting an expensive and dubiously elephant park.   We made friends with wonderful locals and expats (and their kids), celebrated birthdays.  Along with the rest of the world, we anxiously watched the dramatic rescue of the schoolboys from a cave located a few hours drive away.  We joined hundred of Israelis every Friday night for a Chabad feast, and enjoyed the spectacle of the FIFA World Cup in Russia, washed down with tall bottles of cold Singha beer.  

Next door was a Burmese family who prepared rounded fish balls over burning charcoal, the smell of which reliably wafted through the windows each afternoon.   Each night, and often during the day, the loud roosters would get started.  If they didn’t keep us awake, they invaded our dreams.  We spent long nights lying in semi-sleep thinking about how much we’d love to kill those damn birds.   I suppose it was revenge for the sheer amount of chicken we ate every day.   

​The smell of the camphor/citronella mosquito spray.  The ants that would snake from the ceiling to the garbage bin in the kitchen.   The kids writing with chalk on the patio outside before the daily late afternoon tropical rain would wash their scribbles away.    Amy’s ongoing saga with the dodgy dentists of Chiang Mai.   The manual washing machine we didn’t use in the back, and the communal washing machines we did down the road.   The modern malls and dragon fruit.  The homemade ice-lollies with the plastic we bought from the Plastic Lady. To say nothing of Chiang Mai itself, with its bustling markets, and shiny golden Buddhist temples, orange robed monks, crazy traffic, and pungent fish-sauce fragrances.  The kids couldn’t enjoy our $15 hour-long massages in the dark but innocent backrooms off the strip next to the Doo Dee Bar, but they sure chomped down the surprisingly good biltong we managed to find, made by a Dutchman, and delivered to our front gate.  

We could only appreciate how comfortable we’d become in Chiang Mai when we bid our farewells and arrived in Bangkok for 2 weeks.  Our first Air Bnb was such an epic disaster we had to evacuate it after a few hours (with a small refund, thanks Air Bnb).  Our second last-minute emergency lodging was called the Paradise Sukhumvit, which was as far from Paradise as you can imagine.  Our third attempt was modern and clean and on the 29th floor of a condo in Thonglor, which is where you want to be in sticky, smoggy Bangkok, away from the insane traffic and noise and mayhem.  A big city means  less smiles, and more issues getting around to do anything.  The disparity between expensive “normal” restaurants and cheap street food, between normal Thai and rich Thai/expat, is bewildering and excessive.   The traffic can often jam you into a single intersection for 15 minutes.  Grab Taxi is double the price here because you’re hardly moving.  It’s enough to make you want to lock yourself up in a tower with a swimming pool and air conditioning and hardly venture outside.  We did take a couple crazy river boats and visited some of the bigger temples,  hooked up an amazing indoor play area in a ritzy mall where a hand bag costs more than several month’s wages.     Still, Bangkok offered up some wonderful and vivid moments: riding the loud riverboats up the narrow canals  (always preferable to the frustrating gridlock in the back of a taxi).  The incredible temples and time well spent in the wonderful condo infinity pool above the snarling traffic on Petchaburi Road; a play date with a family from Vancouver; Raquel conquering the monkey bars for the first time in Lumpini Park, seeing a movie where the audience must stand and sing tribute to the King (I'd say more about the King, but in Thailand that can get you arrested). 

We hope Chiang Mai is only the beginning of the amazing experiences to come in Bali and Vietnam (and a side trip to Singapore to see our old dear friends), as opposed to the pinnacle of our Asian adventure.    Because if I reminisce about it so fondly after being away from the city for less than a week,  memory will likely grow positively and brighter as the months and years pass.  My family spent 6 weeks in Thailand.  Not travelled in, but lived.   It was a culture shock, it was full of big challenges, unforgettable and wonderful moments, lovely people, and everything we hoped it would be.  Next up:  Bali. 

​I was chatting with a friend today about the idea of Going Back.  Back to a place you’ve visited before, back to a place you really loved in the past hoping that it will redeliver the magic you found the first time round.   It was a pertinent conversation, as we both found ourselves back in a place we had visited, individually, over a decade prior.  This month, I’m working and living in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a city I first discovered as a backpacker on my first big world adventure.   I found the south islands of Thailand to be overhyped, over-trafficked, and too full of package tourists showing scant regard or respect for their hosts.   Chiang Mai, by contrast, was relaxed and peaceful, bursting with authentic Thai hospitality, and exotic golden temples, tall mountains and bustling markets.  Better than another overcrowded beach any day.   I connected with a dozen other backpackers from around the world and we quickly formed a wonderful group, continuing onwards together into Laos.   And so, when it came time to choose somewhere in Asia to live and work for 6 weeks after our great big Australian adventure, Chiang Mai felt like a no-brainer.   It was time to go back.  
 
Much has changed.  Chiang Mai is busier and more expensive.  Travel writers like myself have raved about it so much that there’s little surprise every house in the moat-surrounded Old Town is either a guesthouse, a restaurant, a tour operator, or massage parlour.   The classic $3 Thai Massage is now $10, the classic $2 beer can be as much as $8 in a bar, there are so many more cars on the road, the air pollution February to April is among the worst in the world.   With cheap rent, great food and  high speed internet – certainly faster and more reliable than anything I encountered in Australia – it’s little surprise that thousands of digital nomads live here too.  As someone who can work with nothing other than a laptop and a stable internet connection, that includes me, at least for a short while.
 
We found an Air Bnb in a neighbourhood to the south of Old Town, in a dusty road surrounded by Thai and Burmese.  Every day, we wave to the old lady stitching clothing for the market (she ran downstairs one day to give Raquel and Gali some handmade clothes).  We yell “Sawatdee!” to the waving ladies at the authentic Thai eatery on the corner, and take Raquel on Thursdays for her private Muay Thai class on the main street (they love her to bits!)  After the first 2 weeks, locals realized we were not transient tourists, embraced us, and I cannot emphasis how lovely it is to be living here as opposed to travelling.   Of course, the kids come with plenty of challenges too, but we knew that going in. 

And so, this will forever be my new cherished memory of Chiang Mai, a new layer of paint over my previous romanticised memory of solo backpacking.   Ask me about Chiang Mai, and I will tell you about the convenience of Grab Taxis and exploring temples with my daughter seated in the bicycle basket of our communal Mobike rental.    I will tell you about the crowded Saturday night market where you need a few visits to discover everything, or exploring the Ginger Farm, and the innovative Art in Paradise, the Elephant Poo Poo Paper Park, the Tube Trek Water Park, and other exceptionally kid-friendly activities.  No more bars and parties. No more dreadful Chang beer hangovers.  No more chance romantic encounters.  There are also no more cooking classes or elephant sanctuaries, which I covered during my second visit while filming an episode of Word Travels.   Much like the amazing Pixar flick Inside Out, those memory balls have been stored, and new memory balls have taken their place.    This is the price of Going Back.   
 
Too often we hope to recapture something special we felt the first time round, a folly that always accompanies any attempt to relive the past.   Things change, places change, we change.   Better, perhaps, to try something new and appreciate what was.  Or revisit a place knowing full well and with eyes wide open that in the process, you’ll probably be erasing its previous experience.    I was telling my friend that, during the filming of my TV show, I had the opportunity to go just about anywhere.  I revisited several countries – Bolivia, New Zealand, Thailand, Nicaragua – because I knew particular adventures I had discovered as a backpacker would make great TV episodes.  Little did I know that by repeating those adventures I was in fact robbing myself of what made them so special in the first place – the fact that they were new and different.   Some places and activities really should stay once-in-a-lifetime.   Instead I should have used the opportunity to visit new countries and discover new adventures.   Another regret, like everyone else, I have a few.   That concludes my rant about Going Back.   Travelling with my family and embarking on new life adventures, it’s better instead to just enjoy the process of Moving Forward.  ​