Category: Travels
Sri Lanka travel notes
Have you ever been to a perfect spot and wished “there should be an amazing hotel right there, except I want the hotel without any accompanying crowding or corruptions of tourism?”
If that is your desire, Sri Lanka is the country for you. (Who cares if that is an apparent violation of the laws of economics and location theory?) If you have visited Sri Lanka, likely you will know what I mean — it is simply so nice. So much the right blend of exotic and comfortable. It feels so unspoilt, so fresh, and so natural. So easy on the visitor, as if it were a well-run state of India with a big dose of Buddhism and a vaguely Caribbean vibe, and without the extreme population density.
Here was my Kandalama hotel, let the link rotate through all the images.
Here is my current hotel, only about 30 or 40 feet away from one of the world’s major Buddhist temple complexes, medieval and mostly dating from the 12th century. None of it is close to expensive, no matter how high the quality.
Galle, on the southern coast, is a lovely colonial city, largely intact, with notable Dutch, Portuguese, and British buildings, as well as mosques. It is ringed by an old fort, and has numerous good views of the ocean. Everything is walkable. Russians are the single largest tourist group there (no visa required), and yet the town does not feel overwhelmed, even on the cusp of August. Try Galle Fort Hotel, which is also a UNESCO heritage site.
There is an aesthetic look to so many things. If a farmer builds a tree house so he can monitor his crops at night without being stomped by elephants, the tree house will be pretty nice, even though the farmer is poor.
So much of Sri Lanka feels like the 1980s, in a way that is good for you but not good for them. On the plus side, education, literacy (92%), and social indicators are high. Life expectancy is higher than in the United States. You can drive around deep into the rural areas, and you just won’t see extreme poverty. Nor are the drivers crazy, so the travel isn’t stressful. The country never seems internet-obsessed.
The total fertility rate is currently about 2.0, a blessing in the short run but likely a disaster over time. At about 4k per capita income (about 14k PPP), Sri Lanka cannot afford to grow old before it becomes wealthy. And I can assure you, it is not on the verge of becoming wealthy.
The important buildings — and there are many of them — are all of earlier vintages. The hotels of Geoffrey Bawa — in a style sometimes called “tropical modernism” — are of special interest. Simply tracking down all of the Bawa hotels would be a good way of organizing your trip. Sri Lanka is one of the few countries in the world where the very nice old architecture and the very nice newer architecture bear some aesthetic relation to each other.
Did I mention this?:
In 2022, with its GDP contracting by 7.8%, Sri Lanka was one of the worst performing economies in the world. Annual inflation was around 60%, and the currency depreciated by over 80%. These quantifiable measures of pain were exacerbated by severe shortages and uncertainty in accessing fuel, gas and medicines. Daily power cuts became normalized.
Living standards remain lower, yet visible signs of those earlier troubles are gone. The infrastructure now works once again, yet the country feels psychically scarred by the recent economic collapse.
One Sri Lankan MR reader, with whom I chatted, argued that the country has no person or not even a group “in charge” at the wheel. So small problems drift and sometimes turn into major crises. The country’s “immune system” simply is not functioning.
It is striking that none of the major parties have good ideas, as there is mainly corrupt oligarchy or Marxists. Liberalism is nowhere to be seen. Behind the scenes, Sri Lanka is a country that outside parties (most of all China and India, earlier the colonial powers) have cared about far too much. It never feels like there is a stable political equilibrium upon which to build, because the outsiders have so much power.
Internally, they still have not generated a true consensus on what the country is about, and if they are all willing to live in peace with each other. As one of my drivers put it succinctly: “I don’t like the other religions.”
With textiles and tea as the major exports, the country shows no signs of moving up the value chain. Nonetheless Sri Lanka remains richer per capita than India. And easier to handle, albeit far less dynamic. Someone could write a very Sri Lankan version of “the complacent class.”
How good is Buddhism for economic growth anyway?
I will do a separate post on food in Sri Lanka.
Pristina notes
Imagine a third-tier Ottoman city, accidentally elevated to the status of a national capital, and you have Pristina. Furthermore, that is a pretty good thing! The town is charming, walkable, and has first-rate street and cafe life. There is one good monastery nearby and some quality Brutalist architecture. My favorite site was the National Library of Kosovo:
Here are additional views of the building, is it fair to call it one of the greatest Communist achievements of Yugoslavia? 1982.
Government debt is only about five percent of gdp. I am not sure how accurate is the data, but growth rates are not so bad. The country has about 5k per capita gdp, but about 15k PPP-adjusted, that is a large gap and maybe the truth lies somewhere in between.
Might this be the cheapest country in all of Europe? I had one good meal in a nice restaurant with nice decor for only five euros.
Tiffany served the tastiest and also most representative meal, there is no menu and they simply bring you what they have. The food is in general excellent, though not varied. Be ready for meats, sausage, cheese, tomato, kebab, green and red peppers, and bread. There is pasta too, but few other foreign offerings. I didn’t see any Asian food whatsoever, or any international fast food chains, or any Starbucks.
Throughout the town you find scattered statues, such as the obligatory Mother Teresa, and the others of very masculine heroes, often labeled explicitly as “heroes.” The quotient for sexual dimorphism is reasonably high.
It is quite safe, so more people should visit. In three days I saw zero tourists. It is not a “thrills destination,” but where else can you ponder all the historical reasons why, for so long, a “Greater Albania” has proven impossible?
Cheat sheet of neighboring countries:
Serbia: Feels imperial, “seen better days,” no longer a transport hub, looks toward Moscow.
North Macedonia: Stands a bit apart, closer to Bulgarian culture, less recent historical trauma, more right-wing and pro-U.S., keen to integrate with the West.
Albania: Tenacious, spent decades lost in the wilderness, never been able to “play its hand” on that Greater Albania thing, did it ever recover from the fall of Venetian Albania?
Few parts of the world are more interesting, or unsettling. All of these are great countries to visit.
Claims made by intelligent Alaskans
I am not endorsing these, or claiming these propositions are the entire story, but I heard a number of interesting claims during my trip. Here are a few:
1. Ranked choice voting has worked relatively well for Alaska, by encouraging more moderate candidates.
2. Faculty at U. Alaska are not rabid crazy, because the locale selects for those who are into hunting and fishing, and that keeps them from the worst excesses of academic life.
3. The oil-based “UBI” in Alaska keeps down government spending, because voters feel that any money spent is being spent at their expense.
4. Health care costs are a major problem up here, mostly because there is not enough scale to support many hospitals.
5. When air travel shuts down, due to say ash from Russian volcanos, the local blood bank runs into problems either testing its blood donations or getting out-of-state blood.
6. East Anchorage has perhaps the largest number of languages in its high school student population of anywhere in the United States. Some of this stems from the large number of different kinds of Alaska Natives, some of it stems from having many Samoans, Hawaiians, Hmong, and other migrant groups.
7. Resources for Alaska Natives are often held through the corporate form (with restrictions on share transferability), rather than tribes, and this has worked fairly well.
8. Starlink has had a major impact on the more remote parts of Alaska, which otherwise had internet service not much better than “dial up” quality.
9. For a while there were direct flights from Chengdu to Fairbanks, due to Chinese interest in the “Northern Lights” phenomenon.
10. The population of Anchorage turns over by about ten percent each year, with only some of this being driven by the military.
11. For a human, a moose is a greater risk than a bear.
Personally, I observe that the university in Anchorage is more pro-GPT than other academic groups I have had contact with. Might this be due to their distance from the center, their frontier mentality, and the possible scarcity of skilled labor here?
Seattle bleg
Your thoughts and suggestions are most welcome, thank you!
Travel philosophies for the well-traveled
How should you choose your next trip? I can see a few general philosophies on the table:
1. Prioritize those countries and regions you haven’t visited yet. For me that might mean Montenegro, Lithuania, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia. But the downside is waking up one morning and saying “Hey, what the hell am I doing in Sardinia!?”
2. Get to know some of your favorite places truly in depth, most of all major cities that are easy to reach and often are connected to free or paid invitations. For me that would imply more trips to London, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin — you get the picture. Under this view, the returns to variety are diminishing. And have I ever regretted stopping in on those places?
3. Try to visit “events,” especially temporary events. Right after the Berlin Wall came down, I did a big car trip around Eastern Europe. Loved it. Perhaps these days I should be stopping in at Neom, flying to Lviv, and so on. Those historical moments will never be recaptured. And usually such trips are memorable.
4. Do more trips with the friends you value most, and go wherever will maximize their interest and participation. You already know the world, people are what make life special, and now it is time to “give back” your expertise.
How to decide!? WWGPTS?
There is also the approach I discussed with Nabeel:
5. Figure out, within the bounds of safety and reasonable expense, where you really don’t want to go. Then go there! Expectations and surprise are everything, right? And how else are you to develop a truly diversified portfolio? Won’t you this way learn the most?
I am indebted to Ben Casnocha for a relevant conversation here, though without holding him liable for any of these views.
Addendum: GPT-4 opts for #3:
As an experienced traveler, if I were to pick only one of the philosophies, I would choose to visit events and historical moments (Philosophy 3). The reason for this choice is that it allows for unique, once-in-a-lifetime experiences that capture the essence of a particular time and place. Such trips often become memorable stories that you’ll cherish for a lifetime.
By prioritizing events and historical moments, you immerse yourself in situations that reveal the true character of a destination and its people, as well as provide valuable insights into the forces that shape societies and cultures. Additionally, this approach can lead to a greater appreciation for the world’s interconnectedness, as you witness firsthand the impact of global events on different regions.
While this philosophy might not cover all aspects of a well-rounded travel experience, it offers a powerful way to engage with the world and create lasting memories that will enrich your life beyond the confines of a single trip.
What should I ask Jonathan Swift?
Yes, I would like to do a Conversation with Jonathan “G.P.T.” Swift. Here is Wikipedia on Swift, excerpt:
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, “Dean Swift”.
Swift is remembered for works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704), An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712), Gulliver’s Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729). He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language.[1] He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M. B. Drapier—or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.
His deadpan, ironic writing style, particularly in A Modest Proposal, has led to such satire being subsequently termed “Swiftian”.
So what should I ask him? I thank you in advance for your suggestions.
My excellent Conversation with Paul Salopek
Here is the transcript and audio, here is the summary:
Paul Salopek is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and National Geographic fellow who, at the age of 50, set out on foot to retrace the steps of the first human migrations out of Africa. The project, dubbed the “Out of Eden Walk,” began in Ethiopia in 2012 and will eventually take him to Tierra Del Fuego, a distance of some 24,000 miles.
Calling in just as he was about to arrive in Xi’an, he and Tyler discussed his very localized supply chain, why women make for better walking partners, the key to crossing deserts, the most difficult terrain to traverse, what he does for exercise, his information prep for each new region, how he’s kept the project funded, why India is such a good for walkers, which cuisines he’s found most and least palatable, what he learned working the crime beat in Roswell, New Mexico, how this project challenges conventional journalism, his thoughts on the changing understanding of early human migration, and more.
Here is one excerpt:
COWEN: What’s true is true. How is it that you crossed the desert? You’ve been through some of the Gulf States, I think.
SALOPEK: Yes, I’ve been through several deserts. The first was the Afar Desert in north Ethiopia, one of the hottest deserts in the world, and then the Hejaz in western Saudi Arabia, and then some big deserts in Central Asia, the Kyzyl Kum in Uzbekistan.
You cross deserts with a great attentiveness. You seem to want to speed up to get through them as quickly as possible, but often, they require slowing down, and that seems counterintuitive. You have to walk when the temperatures are congenial to your survival. Sometimes that means walking at night as opposed to the day. It means maybe not covering the distances that you would in more moderate climates.
Deserts are like a prickly friend. You approach them with care, but if you invest the time, they’re pretty inspiring and remarkable. There are reasons why old hermits go out into the deserts to seek visions. I was born in a desert. I was born in the Mojave Desert of Southern California, so I’m partial to them, maybe even by birth.
COWEN: Do you find deserts to be the most difficult terrain to cross?
SALOPEK: No, I find alpine mountains to be far trickier. Deserts can be fickle. Deserts can kill you if you’re not careful. Of course, water is the most limiting factor for survival.
But alpine mountain weather is so unpredictable, and a very sunny afternoon can turn into a very stormy late afternoon in a very quick time period. Threats like rock falls, like avalanches, blizzards — those, for me, are far more difficult to navigate than deserts. Also, I guess having been born in the subtropics, I don’t weather the cold as well, so there’s that bias thrown in.
COWEN: What do you do for exercise?
Recommended, interesting throughout.
Newfoundland notes, St. John’s and environs
“Canada’s youngest province and Britain’s oldest colony” is what some of them say.
About 60 percent of St. John’s is Irish in background, and most people in the city above age 45 have a noticeable Irish accent, albeit with some Canadianisms thrown in. Those accents are close to those of Waterford, Ireland, and many Irish from the southeast of the country came over in the 1790-1820 period. The younger residents of St. John’s sound like other Canadians.
If you walk into the various pubs and houses of music, of which there are quite a few, you are most likely to hear offshoot forms of acoustic Celtic folk music.
The scenery of St. John’s reminds me of the suburbs of Wellington, New Zealand. On top of that, many of the homes are Victorian, as in the Wellington area. In St. John’s the row homes are called “jellybeans” because of their bright colors. They are in a uniform style because of a major fire in the city in 1892. A jellybean house near center city now runs between 300k-400k Canadian, the result of a big price hike once some offshore oil was discovered. The city is hilly and the major churches are Anglican, even though the Irish migrants were almost entirely Catholics.
Indians and Filipinos are playing some role in revitalizing the city. Not long ago about one thousand Ukrainians arrived.
In the Sheraton hotel the old mailbox is still “Royal Mail Newfoundland” and not “Royal Mail Canada.” Newfoundland of course was a dominion country of its own from 1907-1934, and a legally odd part of Britain 1934-1949, when it joined Canada through a 52% referendum result. In 1890 a NAFTA-like trade agreement was negotiated with the United States, but Canada worked Great Britain to nix the whole thing. A later agreement in 1902 was in essence vetoed by New England. Newfoundland had earlier rejected confederation with Canada in 1860.
Newfoundland ran up major debts in WWI, and tried to relieve them by selling Labrador to Canada. Canada refused.
Apart from the major museum (“The Rooms”), there are few signs of the indigenous.
Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless message on Signal Hill on December 12, 1901. In the 1950s, Gander was the world’s busiest international airport, because of all the planes that could not cross the Atlantic directly.
As you might expect to find in a small country, but not in a small province, you regularly meet people who seem too smart or too attractive for their current jobs. Many head to Calgary, but a lot of them don’t want to leave.
It has the warmest winter of any Canadian province.
Terre is the place to eat. The scallops are excellent everywhere. Fish and chips are a specialty too.
I would not say it is radically exciting here, but overall I would be long St. John’s. If nothing else, it makes for an excellent three-day weekend or nature-oriented week-long trip, and I hardly know any Americans who have tried that.
Amritsar is underrated
The Sikh Golden Temple is for me India’s best sight, far more appealing than the Taj Mahal. Would you rather see a mausoleum or a living, breathing site full of human joy? The buildings are remarkably well done and most beautiful at dusk. The site is clean and largely maintained by volunteers, a triumph of Sikh civil society. More people should come here!
The surrounding shops in the pedestrian zone are appealing, and the primary touristy element is directed at Sikh and Hindu pilgrims, not to Westerners.
The food is first-rate, even by Indian standards. Lentils, spinach, mustard leaves, and kulcha soaked with ghee are some of the local specialties. You can eat butter chicken as it was intended, or fish fry. The lassis and raitas are almost as good as those in neighboring Pakistan. Kesar da Dhaba would be my top pick for a restaurant.
And you can stay in a five-star hotel for about $100 a night, excellent swimming pool and restaurant to boot.
How good is the food in Cali?
The guidebooks say that Cali has worse food than Bogotá or Medellin. Two people I know, both from Cali, wrote to tell me that Cali has worse food. It is true that Cali does not have the fine dining culture of the two larger cities. And yet… When I visited the food market in Bogotá, about half of the stalls were serving Mexican food. The rest seemed decent but uninspired. The two meals I had in the food stalls in the Alameda market in Cali were perhaps the two best (and cheapest) meals of the whole trip, and original too, at least to me.
n = 2 does not suffice for inference. And yet…
Cali bleg
Your advice is much appreciated, thank you!
Medellin bleg
What to do and where to eat — your suggestions are most welcome!
Cork notes
It is a lovely town to walk in, seems to have better weather than Dublin, and Honan Chapel is to my mind Ireland’s single greatest sight. Most of the time, you can look around in any direction — not just the best direction — and see pleasing sights. So I can heartily recommend a visit.
But I am puzzled by the near-complete absence of restaurant food, at least in the city centre. You can walk for half an hour and maybe see only one or two places you would even consider eating in. Especially at lunch time. So many places open at five. Other places close at three. I’ve not been looking for “a standard mid-level pizzeria,” but at times I would have settled for one but I never saw one. Not once. There are a reasonable number of coffee places that serve some sandwiches. Only a small number of pubs serve much food. I saw two Chinese restaurants, neither of which seemed appealing. I walked for at least ten minutes from the main cinema down a main street — nothing, not one place to eat. Many neighborhoods, whether residential or commercial, seem to have zero restaurants whatsoever. No fish and chips takeaways either.
I looked for Indian food, and was pleased to walk by Eastern Tandoori across from the opera house. The wooden sign out on the street says they open at 5 p.m. But they don’t, and if you dig deep enough on the web you will find they are closed until July 1. I didn’t find any other (actually open) Indian restaurant to eat at. I ate at Ignite (Pakistani, and quite excellent). Their Facebook page says they open at noon, but alas no they open at 5 p.m. Many other restaurants exist on paper but seem to never open, and this is in a prosperous and bustling town. It is easier to find a barbershop here, or a book store.
The English Market, the main place to buy raw ingredients in town, is excellent. It has one OK cafe upstairs, and that closes well before dinner time. It is fine for a chowder and some smoked trout spread, but not too much more.
Nor is the city inundated with American fast food. Nor does Dublin have this problem.
Within an hour of Cork city centre, there are numerous excellent restaurants, including with Michelin stars. Cork is set in the heart of Irish food country, believe it or not. Breads and cheeses are excellent.
So what gives? Why are the corporate entities here so reluctant to sell me cooked food?
Cork bleg
Yes, Cork Ireland. What should I do and where should I eat? Your advice is most welcome, thank you in advance.
James Person’s Hawaii bleg
Could you please recommend or ask your readers’ recommendations for books about Hawaiian history and culture? I am visiting the state for the first time and like to approach my travels with a deeper understanding as you exemplify in your MR travel posts. Thank you for your time and help and especially for MR and Conversations!
Your assistance for James would be much appreciated!