Toronto, Canada

So we're finally home after nine weeks traveling through Myanmar, Bhutan and Sri Lanka! It was our longest trip together so far. Each leg was unique, and having Bhutan in the middle varied the climates too.

Myanmar has amazing sights. Bagan is one of the coolest things to see in the world (#2 on my list), in my opinion, topped only by Machu Picchu. Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon made it in at #16, so it was quite the start to our trip. The food on the other hand was disappointing -- it was very heavy, as Burmese like to cook with lots and lots of oil. We were lucky to be able to stay at Macleod Island off the southern tip of Myanmar in the Andaman Sea. This area was previously off-limits to tourists, but now it's possible to visit. It's off the beaten path right now, but that will change quickly. Tourist infrastructure is coming along here -- we used ATMs in all the tourist places, and mid-range accommodation is more readily available around the country (unlike say Jordan, where there's maybe 3 cities with midrange hotels). Wifi was pretty good in almost all the places we stayed at. Cheap domestic flights make it easy to get around -- we either flew or took boats on the Irrawady to get between cities.

Bhutan was exactly how I had pictured it. Tiger's Nest was really cool to see, although I enjoyed even more the five days on the Druk Path trek, and the dzong in Punakha. Having a full-time guide turned out to be not so bad, and in fact is a great way for Bhutan to teach visitors about the history and culture of their country. Out of the three countries we visited this trip, Bhutan is the one you should visit now before it changes. Bhutan has historically followed a "high value low impact" strategy, but the National Council is debating dropping the tariff for international visitors. So I think the low number of tourists, which was one of the main attractions for us, will soon change. There were 68K international tourists in 2014 (up from 38K in 2011), and in addition 65K regional tourists who are exempt from the tariff. fyi if you are thinking of going to Bhutan, you should read the Bhutan Tourism Monitor's annual report, it's really useful for trip planning. In terms of infrastructure, we were able to use ATMs and there was decent wifi at all the hotels. The food was really good, and very spicy (chilies are a main ingredient in some dishes!), but all the restaurants can tone it down for tourists. We got accustomed (a little) to the spiciness and found other food bland afterwards without the chilies.

Sri Lanka has a little bit of everything -- ruins, beaches, diving, colonial towns, trekking, safari. There's lots of boutique hotels, more so in the south. I was very surprised at the ruins -- Polonnaruwa was amazing, up there with other ruins in the world. ATMs and wifi were everywhere.

From a technology standpoint, fast wifi is now so ubiquitous that I was able to upload all my outtakes as we went (average of about 100 pics a day). Another change on this trip was downloadable Google Maps (I know it was possible previously to download maps from 3rd parties, but it's much easier in Google Maps). So now, when we look at the map while walking about, we don't attract the attention of every local as we used to when pulling out the guide book to look at the map.

We started thinking about our next trip on the flight home. It will likely be food-based -- maybe Argentina (there's lots to Argentina that we haven't yet seen). Anyways, I'm sure we'll change our minds about 10 times before we settle on a place. Until then!