Burmese Days part 2: Wonder in Lake Inle

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Burmese Days part 2: Wonder in Lake Inle

by Mark on October 31, 2011 in Mark's Travels

Staring up at the World Trade Center towers. Watching monks march to morning prayer in a monastery near Mt Fuji. Scuba diving with 12 bull sharks in Thailand. Seeing a pack up Lions up close and personal in South Africa. The view of the Parisian skyline at night from the rooftops.

All these experiences, and many more, filled me with a sense of wonder. It’s something unusual, something exceptional, something at you know the moment you see it, will never leave your memories.

In August this year I was on a whilrwind tour of South East Asia, and stopped by Myanmar (or Burma as many people know it by). After experiencing the amazing temples and pagodas of Bagan, my next stop was a mysterious place in the center of the country called Lake Inle.

Flying into a no-name airport with all but a handful of staff, this really did feel like the edge of civilization. There was something appealing about being on the edge of, what to me was, the known world. Lake Inle was recommended to us by some family friends in Kuala Lumpur. I had done zero research and had no expectations of any kind going into this.

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Burmese Days part 1: Something truly quite beautiful

by Mark on August 16, 2011 in Mark's Travels

I spent a couple of weeks in Asia this summer, to visit my parents one last time before they moved back to Scotland. I haven’t really had a chance to travel much this year so I was determined to go somewhere new, even if it was just for a few days.

Initially, I looked at South Korea and Taiwan but couldn’t get the flights to align as I wanted. Good old Air Asia came through for me in the end, having just this year opened a new route from Kuala Lumpur to Yangon in Myanmar. I didn’t really know much about the country, but it sounded kinda cool and a friend of mine went there a few years ago and said it was amazing (thanks Max).

My good old British passport wasn’t doing me any favours here. Despite being a former British colony, Myanmar requires British citizens to get a travel visa prior to coming. Worse still, there was no Myanmar embassy in Hungary. I ended up sending my passport from Budapest to Kuala Lumpur by DHL and getting my mother to get my visa for me in KL. Hats off to the folks at DHL, they truly offer an amazing courier service. Exactly 7 days after sending my passport, I received it back complete with shiny new Myanmar visa.

Everything was a go.

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On doing what you really want

by Mark on July 21, 2011 in Outlook

I’m kicking myself right now for not writing more on the entrepreneurial journey that I’ve gone through this year. Suffice to say, it has been absolutely incredible. In fact, beyond incredible. 2011 as a whole has completely eclipsed 2010 in every regard.

Back in January, my 2 co-founders and I went full time on our itsy bitsy little SEO (Search Engine Optimization) company. I really had no idea how this would grow and what the end result would be. Fast forward 6 months and we now have an office with 2 other awesome startups, an amazing team in Hungary/UK/USA, a client list that most companies would drool over and are positioned to continue our meteoric rise to the top. We started this with zero investment and were profitable from day 1. We’ve never had a cash flow problem and nobody has sued us…yet.

13 month ago, I was an unemployed farmer. Yeah, seriously!

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The Best of Paris

by Mark on May 4, 2011 in Mark's Travels

After a pretty awesome first day in Paris, the next day consisted of walking, walking and more walking. Who knew that Paris was such a big city. I was expecting it to be similar to London but what can be considered the centre is much larger. We would walk for a couple of hours, then found some WIFI to do a bit of work, then walked a bit more.

We walked form the Louvre, along the Champs-Élysées and all the way to the Arc de Triomphe. Being in these infamous streets was something else. I remember a while back, when France actually had a decent football team, seeing videos of millions of fans celebrate the world cup win along the Champs-Élysées. When I hear the word “Champs-Élysées” this is what I think of. To me, this euphoric feeling was somewhat transposed as I strolled along the relatively quiet street.

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J’adore Paris

by Mark on April 14, 2011 in Mark's Travels

The travel gods were not shining on me today. 8 hours from London to Paris on Easyjet is about as good of an advert for Eurostar that you will get. We made it in plenty of time to Luton airport, and were pretty shocked to see a “gate closed” sign on the monitors as we searched for our plane. As it transpired, the flight was delayed. Ninety minutes in the terminal and another forty-five on the tarmac, today was not a good day to fly.

Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris is a combination between a 1960s tenement block and something from the Tate Modern. Its kind of cool, but kind of crap at the same time. The heavily armed soldiers struck an intimidating welcome to French capital. The mood was lightened somewhat by the appearance of a “wee moose” (mouse) who scampered along the terminal, possibly searching for some that the beloved French cheese.

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Home is where the …. is

by Mark on March 29, 2011 in Mark's Travels

After 10 amazing weeks in Budapest, I find myself, once again, on the road. This time, I’m ever so slightly more reluctant to be going somewhere. Life in Budapest is very good right now and my business is growing faster than I could possible have imagined.

My trip began with a flight to London. The purpose of the trip was mostly business but I was also hoping to catch up with some friends that I haven’t seen in quite some time. Arriving into Gatwick airport, my first though wasn’t the most uplifting of views about the UK. Major delays on the rail network meant we ended up waiting around an hour for a train into central London.

If you have never been to London, it is a city of tumultuous highs and lows, depending on your mood at the time. I got off the Tube and was walking to my friend’s apartment when I couldn’t help but feel the lowpoints hitting home – it was crowded, expensive and nobody seemed to be smiling. A few days later, I am on the rooftop of an apartment in Leicester Square overlooking Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. This is a city of glory, grandeur and magnificence, if you want it to be.

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