Relocation, Relocation, Relocation

So it's been another hot minute since my last post where I said it had been a hot minute from the previous one. That's a lot of hot minutes. In the age of rampant climate change, no surprises there.

In reality, life has been kind of a lot. The last thing I've wanted to do after work was use what remaining brain space I had to write, even about something I love doing. Burnout is real, it's ugly and it's robbed me of quite a bit of joy. 

Fortunately, the September 2023 version of me recognised the tell-tale signs and took some steps to remove the toxic faction (my employer) from my life. And because I don't know how to do things by halves, instead of relocating in London, I decided to blow up my life, Paul's life, Frank's life and accept a job in Bangkok. Yep, Thailand. 

The journey from December to today, Tuesday 3 September 2024, has been mired with literal and metaphorical potholes. Degree certificates lost in the annals of the USPS; being ghosted by the Thai agricultural pet import office; Paul's toxic workplace dramas; packing, sifting, shipping, moving out of a flat we've lived in for the better part of 10 years. 

But ultimately, on the 7th of August, we trudged to Heathrow, boarded separate flights to BKK (Paul and Frank--in the cabin!--via Amsterdam with KLM) and me direct with Thai Airways. We all arrived the next day. We all got through customs. This is a far larger hurdle than words can describe.

Three weeks later, here we are. Emotionally bruised and battered, sweaty for sure, but ready for the adventures of life abroad once again. 

My basis for comparison is the move to China (ten years ago!) and I've been doing a lot of weighing up the challenges. 

• Some things are the same: delicious food; cheap foot massages; good cost of living; annoying proximity--anti-proximity?--to public transport. 
• Some things are easier here: the culture is outwardly very friendly; English is understood more widely; the politics are far less censorial; there's a swimming pool in my apartment!
• Some things are harder: Frank has mega separation anxiety and our network of Frank watchers is thousands of miles away; parks, public transport, most places are not dog friendly; the heat is real, persistent and clings to you constantly.

Perhaps the biggest difference is my brain. It's older, more fearful and painfully outwardly cautious. My imposter syndrome is real; I'm much more aware of the gremlins in my mind than I was last time. 

One takeaway in all of this however is that I'm so happy I blogged my time in China in detail. I was on my own for the first five months, I had time to write. As I read back on those early days, the wild mood swings and inner woes of my younger self have stood as reminders to be kind and compassionate to myself in this process of Life Abroad. 

So if you have somehow stumbled across this blog as a random stranger in the midst of a move across the city/country/world, may this too be your reminder that the early days are hard. They're also fun. And a complete cognitive overload. They mean going to the wrong dog park all the way across the city by accident; and being an extrovert when you're really not; and paying through the nose for a loaf of sourdough because you need hot buttery toast on a Saturday. The early day horror stories becomes the ones you love to tell one day. Be kind to yourself. 

Writing it out is permission to myself. 

2023 in Review

So it's been a hot minute. The time between blog posts seems to be getting bigger and bigger, perhaps made worse by the continuing responsibilities of my day job. And my attempts to juggle my life with my day job. I do firmly intend to come back to this space. I find it a beautiful memorial to my adventures in the world, even if no one really reads this. 

As I dig into the archives, this year has seen a return to pre-pandemic travel. I've tried to make the most of each school break. To that end, we've gone far and wide: 

• February half term: Lisbon 
• Easter holidays: Israel and Palestine 
• May/June: school trips to Bosnia, the Peak District
• Summer part 1: Berlin, France and Switzerland 
• Summer part 2: Guatemala and Mexico 
• August Bank Holiday: Florence 
• October half term: Pembrokeshire, Wales

Considering I'm not halfway through blogging 2022, I'm not holding myself hostage to strict deadlines. But I'll get there eventually. 

Plus, 2024 looms and promises some big adventures. I can't wait.

The Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) Caves

This is a post without pictures. But do not be dissuaded, this may be the most epic travel experience I've ever had. (Also the tour link below contains lots of pictures.)

Our journey took us from Caye Caulker to San Ignacio, a modest town close to the border of Guatemala. The town is a jumping point for three main things: a border run to Tikal National Park; adventure travel; more Mayan ruins. 

Despite my love of travel, I'm a bit of an adventure chicken. But I let myself be peer pressured by both my tour group and the lovely staff of Maya Walk Tours into taking a caving adventure into the Actun Tunichil Muknal caves, lovingly abbreviated as the ATM caves. As their website will tell you, the caves have been deemed: the number 1 Sacred Cave destination in the world by National Geographic. Indeed. 

Discovered by archaeologists in 1989, the caves were once home to the ancient Mayans. Evidence of burials, rituals and human sacrifices are everywhere and to this day, around 20 human skeletons still reside in the cave. Because of the ecosystem inside, these remains have been preserved to perfection. The cave's main chamber is home to the Crystal Maiden, the likely remains of a 17-year-old boy who was drugged (voluntarily or otherwise) before being sacrificed to the gods. We didn't know any of this until we were in the cave. Probably for the best. 

The Journey

We were promised the adventure would be: easy (lies); not claustrophobic (also lies); epic (truth). The journey involved helmets with head torches, close-toed water shoes, mandatory life jackets and no cameras. In 2012 a tourist accidentally dropped his camera on a 1,000-year-old skull, fracturing this precious piece of history. And so, we left all personal effects at home. 

And so, we set off by van, a roughly 1.5 hour drive to Tapir Mountain Nature Reserve, where our hike to the cave would begin. From there, we traipsed 45-minutes through the forest, fording three streams at knee, waist and chest height to make it to a small spring. We swam across and into the mouth of the cave and the ensuing darkness. Cue a 3-mile stream network that we traversed in the intimate glow of our head torches all the while scrambling over rocks, ducking underneath them and admiring the stalactites and stalagmites that formed from the condensation and darkness. The crawl spaces were narrow and at one point, we had to duck until a narrow rock formation underwater in our lifejackets. Beware if small, tight spaces are not your thing.

At the end of the three-miles a scramble and ladder takes you up 12-feet to 'the Cathedral', a chamber of sacrifices, home to the Crystal Maiden and numerous pieces of pottery, both intact and broken. This is where you get rid of your water shoes and pad around in socks, carefully exploring what archaeologists have carefully marked and measured. It was truly haunting and otherwordly. 

Our tour guide was incredibly knowledgeable and wove his knowledge of Mayan culture with that of the archaeological finds as we sat in front of the site of sacrifice. In fact, all the guides have extensive training with the Belize tourism board who closely monitor the number of visitors per day. 

And so, spooky stories told, we did the journey in reverse, somehow a bit more daunting given the scramble down the rocks. Our return was dotted with 'wildlife', both a bat and a giant spider of the dark graced us with their presence at crucial moments. 

Our eventual return to the starting point saw lunch waiting for us, including pitchers of the iconic 'panti rippa', a boozy concoction of coconut rum and pineapple juice that was poured liberally. And so, we drank into lunch grateful to be out the other side of the cave and not left behind somewhere in one dark alcove or another. 

And so, even without photographic evidence, my humble travel suggestion is that the ATM caves are not to be missed. If you're near Tikal and looking for an adventure, divert your trip for a couple of days. You won't be disappointed. 

Bosnia by Bus

Throughout the four days, we spent the bulk of our time on a coach, watching the beautiful scenery whizz by. Elvis, our tour guide, provided a wealth of knowledge on the various biomes we drove through. Despite the country's small stature, smaller than the state of West Virginia, we drove through deciduous forest, mixed mountain coniferous forests and broadleaf lowlands. This all sounded considerably more compelling when Elvis was telling us about it. 

On our last afternoon we ended up on the outskirts of Zvornik, a tiny town on the river Drina bordering Serbia. The Drina is one of those historic rivers, empire making and breaking, as such. Our view was brief, unremarkable but also idyllic. 

So Bosnia may not be on the trip radar of places to walk, hike and relax but give it a second thought. I can imagine summertime, unencumbered by a group of 15-year-olds would be pretty damn wonderful. 

Srebenica

We coupled the first two days of the Bosnia Memorialising Conflict trip with a third day of long bus journeys to Srebenica, three hours from Sarajevo. The winding journey took us through some stunning scenery that was the backdrop to the war from 1992-1995. 

Our first stop took us to the Srebenica Memorial Centre, housed in a former battery factory turned UN Dutch Peacekeeping site. The center has been thoughtfully turned into a memorial of the events leading up to the genocide that saw at least 8372 Bosniak men and boys killed, women and girls raped and thousands displaced, at the hands of Rakto Mladic and the Bosnian Serbia forces. 

The memorial spans two floors, covering the people, stories and aftermath of the events. In one room, we watched the footage from Mladic's trial at the ICC in the Hague in 2017 before taking a seat to hear Hasan Hasanovic speak. His gave his testimony to the genocide he witnessed, to the deaths of his loved ones. We hadn't anticipated this, nor had we prepared our students. And there are no words to do his pain, his memories justice. We spent much of the rest of the afternoon silently processing, wondering how humans have let this happen over and over again. 

A few hundred meters down the road, the Memorial cemetery is a final resting place for the many thousands killed. According to our tour guide, Elvis, a young Bosnian who was born just after the war ended, human remains are still being found to this day--some through anonymous tips, others through excavation and building projects. 

We walked around in silence for a bit longer, trying to understand the scale of the suffering.

Sometimes nothing makes sense. But it felt important to bear witness to these dark days and these innocent people. Hasanovic made that clear, that we must pass this message on. Because even in the most remote parts of the world, injustice takes some very typical forms, and we must learn or we'll be damned to repeat history.

A Bosnian Reunion Tour

Pardon me, it's been an unrelenting school year and burnout lurks just off stage right. Perhaps that makes the timing of a school trip to Bosnia and Croatia perfect (or perfectly mad, depending on how you swing it). 

I won't bore you with the details of quite possibly the third most challenging year of my career. But I will say that this trip looked a lot better from the vantage point of September when I signed up than it did as I rolled out of bed at 3am to head to the airport on Sunday morning. Alas. 

The trip, a four-day jaunt via flight and coach with 53, 15-year-olds in tow, promised to be a bit of a reunion tour of Jen and my trip to this beautiful part of the world in 2010. The lens of this visit is through one of 'memorialising conflict' and we've taken a whistle stop tour from Dubrovnik to Mostar and Sarajevo and to Jablanica and Srebenica and back. This has meant long days travelling through beautiful sceneries, past war-pockmarked buildings; time has not been a commodity here. 

Some things have changed: buildings have been updated; people feel more prepared to openly wear their religion; work has paid for me to stay in my own room in a hotel. There's big perks to travelling as a real life adult. 

And, charmingly, some things have stayed the same: 'vegetarian' food; old men drinking coffee in town squares; the kindness of the people we've encountered. 

Mostar 

After a journey from Dubrovnik and crossing a border with a gaggle of students in tow, we spent roughly 16-hours in Mostar. This largely involved sleeping but we squeaked out a walking tour by foot. 

The perhaps only real benefit of travelling for work, besides not paying for accommodation, is that the tours you'd normally shun are all part of the process. 

And so we shuffled along being told about Bosnia's scars, resurrection and return to new normal. 

In Mostar, that happens to be quite stunning. 

Jablanica 

The next morning, we set off roughly 45 minutes down the road to the town of Jablanica. At the memorial museum there, we learned all about the 1943 WWII Battle on the Neretva River, arguably one of the 'most humane' battles of the war. 

This involved Yugoslav partisans blowing up a bridge to fend off the coming German forces. The bridge, or an approximate replica, exists to this day. The events were also memorialised in a 1969 film, which Picasso created both a painting and artwork for. 

Next stop, Sarajevo 

One completed museum visit later, we rolled into the outskirts of Sarajevo, a breathtakingly underrated city in my humble opinion. To really understand the scope of the Bosnian War and the siege of Sarajevo that lasted from April 1992 to February 1996, we started on the outskirts of the airport. There, we visited the Sarajevo Tunnel Museum, a memorial to the tunnel that Bosnian forces dug under the airport runway and into the city itself. It became a conduit for food, supplies and humanitarian aid during Europe's longest siege. 

A small piece of the tunnel exists today and the museum's owners, a local family, hope that the tunnel's preservation reminds everyone of humanity's simultaneous worst and most hopeful moments. 

Onward to Sarajevo! The city itself has been witness to so many moments in history: from the foundations of the Ottoman Empire; to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that sparked the start of WWI; the Winter Olympics of 1984; and the siege that brought the city to its knees. 

And walking around, all of these things become clear. 

Unfortunately, my afternoon in the city was cut short when a student got sick. I got sent back to the hotel to let her rest and to prepare for the arrival of the hordes later. Despite my disappointment, there was a silver lining. Directly next to our slightly-out-of-town hotel was a gem of midwest days of past. 

Be still my midwest at heart soul! 

Moping Around

So Bologna and I are fighting. And it's not either of our faults. 

After last summer's travel suitcase shenanigans (thanks, BA!), I still thought the city was a charmer. And so when my friend Kat wanted to 'give Italy a try' (she's never been), I suggested we start in this charming city in Southernmost Emilia-Romagna. 

 

We booked flights with BA and did our travel research. We got in touch with my friend Victoria in Florence to schedule some extended time for a catch up. I booked hotels, train tickets. I followed advice from a travel influencer I follow and booked a food tour with Streaty, a local tour company that offers a fascinating glimpse into the culinary world of Italy's major cities; Kat booked tickets to the Uffizi. 

And then we rocked up at the airport, keen to depart knowing that BA had suffered a 'technical glitch' the day before, cancelling hundreds of flights. Our flight registered as 'delayed' by 30 minutes but by the time we got to the airport it was 'on time.' 

But it was not meant to be.  We went to the gate. And sat at the gate. And five minutes before they announced it, Kat checked her phone to see that our flight had been cancelled. The announcement came: 'the runway at Bologna airport has been closed.' Except it hadn't. Flights were still landing. 

And so we sat our mopey asses for another hour at the departure gate while we waited for airport security to walk us back through the secured part of the terminal. And we waited our mopey asses at passport control only to find out the e-gates had broken nationwide. And we moped our mopey asses all the way back to my flat, arriving home around midnight to pick up the pieces of our long weekend gone wrong. 

BA booked us on the next available flight, a flight over 48-hours later. And so we cancelled our trip, forfeited our bookings and pored through my travel insurance policy. It turns out that mine covers 'technical difficulties and weather-related disruptions' only. To cover 'other' disruptions, I needed to have added the premium package. Only I hadn't read that particular fine print. 

After a 6am fight with the airline, a long moping debrief and a longer sleep, we picked ourselves up and attempted to claim travel compensation. Then, in true rallying fashion, we had Italian Day in London--Hugo spritzes in the piazza (okay, Newington Green); a slight sunburn; rooftop day drinking; a bit of shopping; and pizza and gelato for dinner. It was nice. But not as nice as Italy. 

Life lesson learned other than the fact that life lessons always seem to be so freaking expensive... Read the fine print. And never fly BA again. 

We're regrouping and trying again in the August bank holiday. We're also flying Ryanair.